Lets try this again!

Hello!

It has been a long time since I have lasted posted, life has been busy, but I am going to give it a go again. My goal is to post weekly, we will see how that goes.

2015 started out early for us in west central Minnesota, not quite as early as 2012, and definitely not as warm as 2012. Wheat and corn got planted in a timely manner, as well as most soybeans. There were some late planted soybeans stretching into the first week of June or so.

As I have been spraying corn I have been noticing that there is not very many fields that are real even. Emergence was uneven due to cool temps and wet weather. Small grains were looking good until this morning, most fields have areas of grain that went down during last nights rain, there was no wind, just a gentle rain. Soybeans are looking good.

What has been happening in precision ag around here you may be wondering? We have gotten most of our variable rate spreading done for the year. Most of our variable rate fertilizer goes on in the spring, we do some VR topdressing, but due to limitations in minimum amounts of pounds our machine can do, we mainly do flat rate topdressing, we take care of the variation in the spring applied fertilizer.

Variable rate planting keeps growing each year. We have seen more ground around here being planted variable rate than ever before. We have rolling hills around here with pockets of gravel/sand, so dropping our seeding rates in these areas seems to be working well. Last year, in these lighter soil areas, we dropped our corn seeding rates by up to 30%. These areas responded well with some yielding higher than they ever have in these spots. This year we dropped a few of the lightest soils 40% lower in population compared to the field average. We did this because from what we did last year, it seemed like we could go lower in the sandiest areas of our fields. The field that I was most excited to do this on didn't work out for this year. The grower planting that field was having monitor problems and could not get the variable rate maps to work, so it was planted flat rate. After rigging up a temporary "new" wiring harness, the rest of his variable rate maps worked well.

I have been working with our Winfield R7 Tool representative, as well as our Winfield Master Agronomy Advisor on some pilot programs dealing with crop health monitoring above and below ground. While we are just getting into this, this program looks to be quite interesting. It monitors the field selected and compares it to other fields planted to the same crop around the same planted date. We can look at how the field is doing as far as crop health and which way the field is trending compared to previous readings as well as similar fields in the area. That is the above ground part. The below ground part is more of a multiple year program that looks at what was applied and when and soil & tissue samples and compares that to yield. We will be learning much more about that as the year and years go on. It is interesting and though provoking what all of this information has to tell us!

Every where you look now there is a company that has some new or different precision ag offering. Some are getting to be industry standard, and some are cutting edge. What we do know is that as fast as technology develops, the prices of the latest and greatest usually come down fairly quickly, and while I am not saying you need to try every new thing that comes along, I do encourage to research them, get to know what they do, and if you feel that it has a fit on your farm or business, try it out. Someone else probably is thinking of doing it, or already has started. One place that I like to visit online is www.newagtalk.com. It is an online community of farmers, retailers, small business and anyone interested in precision ag. There are many areas of interest , and you can read posts and ask questions and you will usually always get an answer of what worked or didn't work for someone else.

I am looking forward to keeping up to date on my blog. Please feel free to let me know what you think, or if you have ideas for topics, let me know in the comments section. Hope to see you back soon!

Jason

“A look back on 2012 and ahead to 2013”

Well, 2012 was an exciting year for some in agriculture, and for others, a year that they can’t wait to forget. As for me, it has been very exciting. We had some growers that reported that this was their best year ever for corn and soybean yields. Hard to believe looking back at the summer being so hot and dry, but in west central Minnesota we got a few very timely rains, and the rest was tapped into the soil moisture from early spring’s wetness.

 From a precision ag data standpoint, 2012 was a great year for us. We were in the field starting March 19th, the earliest ever that we can think of, started out warm and moist, and stayed warm-hot for the majority of the spring and summer and into fall. What does this mean for our harvest data? We had little or no wet areas to plant around this spring, and we had almost no drowned out areas through the summer, and with the record yields this fall we should have some of the best yield maps we have been able to get since 2010. As the old saying in agriculture “the million dollar rain” makes even more value not only for that year, but also for the next few years. While the rain makes the crop for the current year, good data from that year contributes to the management of the field for years in the future. The “million dollar rain’s” value is now multiplied exponentially in its value for years to come after a record crop due to our ability to change our farming practices to allow us to grow better crops, use our inputs more efficiently and put more dollars in the farmers pockets, which coincidentally usually ends up going back into the local economy.


Recently I have been thinking about where agriculture is going in the next few years and farther in the future. Some of you have probably already seen the video titled “Farm Forward” that John Deere has put out. While some of this may seem very much in the future to some, I believe that it is in the not too distant future, some of the technology is already in use to some extent in agriculture or other areas. If you have not seen the video, here it is…

 So where do I believe we will be technology wise in the next 10-20 years? I think it is a little hard to answer that question only because some of the technology we may be using then has probably not even been invented yet. I do believe that in the next 10-20 years, the types and amount of change will be great! In the nearer future I believe we will continue to see machinery become more automated, getting closer to driver-less tractors, or for sure needing only one operator to run two or more pieces of equipment at the same time. It has been demonstrated already, it is just figuring out how to make it safe for production agriculture to have these machines operating by themselves in our fields.

Data is going to become more and more standardized across the industry. We will be able to take our data from our John Deere planter, move it to our Ag-Chem sprayer, and then to our Case IH combine in the fall. Monitors are becoming more “plug and play” like today’s pc’s and smart phones. It will be much easier to hook your Case IH tractor to your John Deere planter and have the two systems work together.

Mobile use of data and apps for making decisions on the fly in the field and transferring Rx maps to machines out in the fields is going to be huge in my opinion. I think we have only scratched the surface on what can be done with our smart phones and tablets like iPads. Some manufactures such as Precision Planting’s 20/20 Seed Sense are already using iPads to control seeding Rx maps for the planter. The use of this technology will continue to grow very quickly. 

Planter Moniter with iPad

Agriculture is going to need a lot of very technical and hard working people coming into the industry in the coming years to help farmers and Ag retailers process and put to use the data that is being collected. Not only this, but we will need computer programmers and machine technicians to build and service the machinery and the software that we are relying on. If you are looking for a quickly growing industry and have interest in the technical field, then agriculture just may have a place for you, you no longer need to grow up on a farm or even have any farm experience, as long as you are willing to learn and work hard, you have an opportunity in ag. Of course agriculture is also in great need of those with agronomy experience or schooling, past experience is helpful, but not absolutely necessary. If you are interested, please check out your state university or other higher education institutions to see if a career in agriculture is for you.

Great ag school, but I am a little biased!

Thank you for taking time to read my blog, and please feel free to let me know what you think, or if there is any topic in agriculture that you would like to learn more on.

Jason

Precision Harvesting

Wheat harvest is upon us and it seems like when August comes, fall harvest is just around the corner. As a kid, I always hated when August came, it meant "back to school sales" which meant, I was actually going to have to go back from school. While summer was technically a "break" from school, I think that is when I learned the most being on the summer harvest run with my family. Doing this "work" (can it be called work when you loved doing it so much??) has greatly helped me to get involved in the precision ag part of the farming world today. I believe that the use of precision ag is a big way in which we are going to produce the food to feed the worlds increasing population.

As I stated just a moment ago, I grew up going south every summer on the wheat harvest run with my family. The summer that I turned 12 was the first year that I ran the combine for the summer, and every summer after that until I was 18 and my family called it quits for the harvest run. The first combine that I ran was our JD 9500's. Back then it was very rare for anyone to have a yield monitor in their combine, I mean it was only the super large farmer that would even possibly have it. These days things are much different, you cannot even hardly buy a newer combine without a yield monitor and mapping. The changes that we have seen in the last 19 years since I first began combining have been HUGE!

New Case 9120 Combine

Today's combines give us the capabilities to not only harvest our crops much quicker and more efficiently, but also the ability to keep track of what happened in each spot of the field as far as yields and moisture. Combines that have yield mapping collect yield, moisture, and GPS data every 3-4 seconds. This information can then be taken back to your office or coop or consultant and analyzed and then be used in decision making for the next years crops. These yield maps can be used to help us make variable rate fertilizer prescriptions, variable rate seeding prescriptions, decisions on where drainage tile is needed to be installed or fixed, to find soil compaction issues and many other decisions that we can make to improve crop yields in the future. The use of yield maps helps the farmer to make wise decisions that will help them to produce higher yielding crops and to do so while making each input work to its fullest extent.

Yield Map

One way to look at it is that the yield maps are like a report card, and the yields in each area of the field are the "grades" of what was done to that area as far as fertility, seeding, weed and insect control, and the effects weather had on the crop that year. When we look at the "grade" of each separate area of the field we need to understand what happened in the field that year to be able to make sense of the yield map. Good record keeping will greatly help in understanding each yield map. Farmers can use this information to decide if they need to change any of their management decisions for the next year, it lets them know what did work and what didn't work.

Planning the prescription planting map

When harvest is finished and the combines are put away, the yield data collected that year needs to be cleaned before it can be used to make prescription maps. Cleaning the data consists of removing all of the bad data. Bad data can be caused by sudden increases or decreases in combine speed while harvesting, poor GPS signals, abnormal events in the field, as well as other things. This data needs to be removed to make the yield map be correct. I have seen uncleaned yield data that shows corn yields from 0-5000 bushels per acre in one field, when cleaned the range may be 75-275 bu/ac. It is important to get these errant data points cleaned out in order to make good seeding and fertilizing maps.

Getting and using high quality yield data is a base to a good precision ag plan for each farm. There are many other sources of information that need to be used also, but the actual yield data from the field is absolutely invaluable when it comes to making decisions on what to do in the future. For those who are uncomfortable with doing the yield cleaning and prescription mapping part, there are companies and cooperatives with people who will work with the farmer to help them to utilize their technologies to their fullest extent.

What is Precision Ag?

What is Precision Ag? Why is it important to know what it is and what it does? How does it affect the food we buy at the grocery store? What part does it play in our food security? Well these are all good questions, and I will do my best to answer them the best that I can.

Yield Map

So what exactly is precision Ag? Precision Ag is the use of technology such as GPS guided auto-steer, variable rate fertilizer, variable rate seeding, yield mapping, satellite imagery, topography etc. to to allow for closer, more site-specific management of factors affecting crop production. I will explain in more detail about these technologies in later posts. Precision Ag is going from a "one recommendation fits all" approach to treating different areas in a field differently according to what that area specifically needs.

Planting Monitor

You may be thinking, "well that is interesting, but what how does that really affect me?"  Farmers use precision Ag to increase their crop yields, profitability, and to be good stewards of their land. To do this, farmers are using precision Ag components to put the right amount of fertilizers and the right seed hybrids on the right spots of their fields to increase their yields. Putting the right amounts of fertilizers in the right areas is also better for the environment vs using the same rate across the whole field, putting only the required amounts in each area ensures that we are not putting excessive amounts on an area that will not utilize them. Besides striving for increases in yield, farmers are constantly striving to produce the highest quality product at a reasonable cost. So what exactly does this mean to you, the consumer? The answer is ultimately higher quality food products at a reasonable price, all while being careful not to over apply and cause a loss of nutrients.

Another very important part of precision Ag is its how it affects food security. The definition of food security is the "sustained production and distribution of safe and nutritious food in quantities and quality in order for people to have healthy lives." (Russo, J. (March 2009). Technology To The Rescue. In www.precisionag.com. Retrieved July 10, 2012,     from http://www.precisionag.com/viewpoints/joerusso/?storyid=1509#.) Precision Ag directly contributes to food security from a more consistent performance at the point of production. 

RFID tag next to Rice Grain

Precision Ag is just beginning to impact the "safe and nutritious food" part of the definition. This part requires the ability to track food from the field to the consumer. One way this is starting to be used is using RFID (radio frequency identification) tags in produce that allows the tracking from production to your table. Using this technology to track from the point of production allows us to catch any issues that might happen anywhere in the chain from production to consumer.


While these few topics we have discussed are just a fraction of the uses for technology in agriculture, the effects can be very beneficial to both the producer and the consumer. Precision Ag helps the producers control their input costs by only applying the amounts of inputs needed to maximize their crop yields, this also ensures that we are not over applying products like fertilizers which could cause undesired run-off to off site areas. I would sum it up by saying that precision Ag allows producers to save money, maximize production and contribute vast amounts of safe food to the world to feed the ever increasing population.

Precision Ag Cycle

How is Precision Ag helping tell our ag story?

Happy Birthday America! First of all I would like to thank anyone who has served or is serving our country in the military! May God bless you and your families! You are truly hero's to the rest of us!

I have been contemplating over the last half of the year about how fast we need to adapt to precision ag, and I have concluded that we need to do it as quick as we possibly can! While working for a coop we deal with all types of growers, those who are on the cutting edge with technology, and those who use almost none. However, precision ag is becoming a way of life for many of the farms around the area, especially those operated by younger farmers.

Over the last couple of years there has been a lot of discussion about the need to double the production we now have by the year 2030 to keep up with the demand for food/feed/fuel needed by the ever increasing world population. I believe that precision ag is going to play a huge role in this. To do this we are going to be using less fertilizer on less acres, and expecting much more productivity on the land we do have all while being more and more scrutinized for our farming practices and the effects of agriculture on the environment. While technology will not eliminate the scrutiny we receive, I believe that it can greatly help us tell the story of ag and how farmers are the first environmentalists. Just a few of the technologies I am talking about are variable rate fertility and seeding, as well as yield mapping, and many others, some that are probably not even thought of yet.

In my point of view, the use of precision ag will be driven by grower demand and requirement of use by regulatory agencies. We already have programs that require variable rate fertilizer applications, paired with soil tests, tissue tests, and stalk nitrate testing. As with most government programs, these include quite a few hoops to jump through, and some of the ideas look good in theory but in reality are not quite as clear-cut.

Probably the biggest driving force for precision ag will be grower demand. With the rising costs of seed/fertilizer/land rent/machinery/etc there is much more demand to make every input as efficient as possible through the use of auto-steer, variable rate technology, telemetry, computer software, hardware, and the need to make all of the different technologies work together.

I believe that social media will be one of our biggest tools we can use to get our story out to the non-agriculture public. The non-agriculture public is going to have their ideas about agriculture told to them by someone or some news story, and this information might be completely wrong, so I believe that is our responsibility to tell our own story to make sure it is told right!

I am thinking that what I would like to focus this blog on is the use of precision ag and how it can improve our efficiency, as well as how we can get the message of modern agriculture out to the general public, showing them where their food comes from and the great measures that we go to to make sure that the food supply is safe. I would appreciate any comments or questions or ideas on how to administer this blog better or ideas on what to write about.

@JasonJenks88 on Twitter