The Blog

Yes, investment spending isn’t easy. The “pay now save later” approach was easier to swallow in 2007 than right now, but even stubborn bankers and lenders should be able to grasp saving money every year on expensive inputs!

Auburn University biosystems engineer John Fulton says their preliminary research on GPS-based spray boom control technology shows a savings of between 5 and 30% depending on the size and shape of the field.

“Especially in odd-shaped fields, you’re going to see a bigger saving because there is typically more overlap associated with spraying,” says Amy Winstead, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System precision farming agent, who adds that a lot of growers who have already adopted the technology have expressed satisfaction with it.

Winstead says she already has noted substantial savings among farmers who have adopted the technology.

“There’s been a huge saving,” she says, “and farmers, depending on the application, can pay off the system after only one or two growing seasons.”

Boom-control features are easy to acquire as add-ons, according to Shannon Norwood, a precision farming agent who, along with Winstead, is based at the Tennessee Valley Research and Extension Center in Belle Mina.

“There are a number of boom-control products for growers to choose from,” Norwood says. “They can order new sprayers equipped with the technology, or they can purchase a third-party product.”

With the right product selection, retrofitting of older sprayers is also possible, she says, adding that adoption rates are likely to climb as growers replace older sprayers in the next few years.

John Deere offers one such technology, Swath Control Pro, which we’ve covered in a variety of stories here at Precision.AgWired.com. 

Variable-rate fertilizer applications of P & K are also a viable profit-making option, when soil tests lead the way. “With fertilizer costs running higher, variable-rate applications of phosphorous and potassium are now a viable option,” she says, adding that soil testing is a critical first step.

“Your soil test really should be the first step in making sure nutrient rates are at their proper levels,” Norwood says, “otherwise, you won’t know if the variable rate applications are justified.”

In fact, in especially lean crop years, soil testing should be viewed as an especially valuable economic tool.

For additional cost savings, Winstead says farmers also should consider the merits of guidance systems.

Lower-end products can be purchased for as little as $2,000 to $3,000, she says.

“They’re more affordable than they used to be and can go a long way in reducing overlap in the fields and saving on fuel costs,” she says.

Guidance systems enable producers to work longer days and may also help them better manage other resources, especially labor costs.

Imagine visiting a website to check your crop canopy measurement, which would tell you exactly how much water the plants need. It’s being worked on right now.

With water becoming a more valuable resource when growing crops, especially high-value vegetables like this pepper field, researchers are exploring futuristic methods to measure crop canopy from satellites to save water and satisfy plants’ thirst.

“A bell pepper with a canopy cover of 40 percent may use, in a week, an inch of water—the amount you might want to replace the next time you irrigate,” says USDA-ARS research leader and agricultural engineer Tom Trout. Canopy-cover estimates, used in a standard equation for irrigation scheduling, provide a fast, accurate, dependable, and affordable way for growers to avoid overwatering their crops.

Overirrigating can be wasteful and can lead to unwanted leaching of fertilizers and other potential pollutants into underground water supplies, Trout says.

The concept of using canopy-cover measurements to estimate a plant’s water requirements isn’t new, he says. But ARS’s California-based studies are perhaps unparalleled in scope, encompassing an extensive assortment of in-demand orchard, vineyard, and vegetable crops of various age classes, growing in various plant and row spacings, in 30 different California fields.

For more details, check out the story “Canopy Cover: The Secret to Gauging Plants’ Thirst,” from the January 2009 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

Irrigation efficiency is one of John Deere’s latest investment areas, called John Deere Water Technologies, along with wind energy, as mentioned in their 2008 annual report. In fact, John Deere Green Tech just announced receiving top honors at a recent irrigation industry show for its MHG (Micro Hydroelectric Generator), a revolutionary water-powered irrigation control system.

Growers looking to upgrade their harvest performance for 2009 should take a hard look at the new John Deere 70 Series Combines–and get special pricing before the February 2 deadline.

Contact your John Deere dealer to check out these prices and equip a combine that best fits the way you farm. One of the best options on the market for hands-free harvesting is AutoTrac RowSense — which can help the combine steer itself in down corn, around terraces or on pivots — to save every bushel.

Other popular options include PowerCast Tailboard, which gives a controlled spread of residue up to 50 feet wide; and the Self-Leveling Cleaning System, which helps achieve level-land efficiency on sidehills of up to 14% slope (available on the 9870 STS only).

Act soon, and you’ll be in a new combine before harvest this fall.

Half the world’s population could face severe food shortages by the end of the century as rising temperatures are predicted to rob yields of rice and maize by 20 to 40% in tropical regions–so says a study in the journal Science.

“The stress on global food production from temperatures alone is going to be huge, and that doesn’t take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures,” said David Battisti, at the University of Washington, who led the study.

Given that prediction, and given how precision technology is redefining the efficiency of how we grow crops–doesn’t it make sense that US farmers continue to feed even more of the world?

The tropics and subtropics, which stretch from the southern US to northern Argentina and southern Brazil, from northern India and southern China to southern Australia, and cover all of Africa, are currently home to 3 billion people. Future temperature rises are expected to have a greater impact in the tropics because the crops grown there are less resilient to changes in climate.

“When all the signs point in the same direction, and in this case it’s a bad direction, you pretty much know what’s going to happen,” Battisti said. “You’re talking about hundreds of millions of additional people looking for food because they won’t be able to find it where they find it now.”

As you and I both know, educating the town and city folks about agriculture is no simple task–from describing the simple nature of where food comes from to the technical side of defending how we care for the land and for animals.

Precision agriculture, and its GPS tools, offers a way to showcase how we employ technology to precisely apply just the right amount of crop inputs. To this end, check out “GPS Applications in Crop Production.”

Send the link to friends, to local media, to anyone who could benefit from a greater understanding of how GPS-based farming is improving your precision to help feed a rapidly growing world. And include what components of these you use, and how it benefits you and the average consumer.

For more information about Site-Specific Management Guidelines, check out this list of 45 valuable titles on the subject compiled by the International Plant Nutrition Institute.