Precision Pays

Farmers wanting to ease into precision technology have new equipment options from John Deere. The ag machinery company has unveiled three new products within its GreenStar line. John Deere says the GreenStar Lightbar, GreenStar 2 Display 1800 and the StarFire 300 Reciever are meant to help operators get started with precision farming. The new gadgets can also help enhance older systems. John Deere has launched its SeedStar 2 monitoring system.

The GreenStar Lightbar offers 27 tracking LEDs to guide the farmers operating precision steering systems in the field. John Deere says operators should steer their tractors based on what lights illuminated. Green means you’re on track. Red means you’re not. Each red light means operators are off by four inches.

Farmers looking for a little more pizazz, but still want a tool that’s easy to understand should consider the GreenStar 2 Display 1800. The new, 7-inch display features state-of-the-art, full-color screens meant to help farmers manage GreenStar applications. The display can be used for AutoTrac and on-screen mapping.

If growers are looking for a new receiver for their GreenStar systems, John Deere’s new StarFire 300 should offer them an economical option. The satellite WAAS receiver boasts 13-inch accuracy and mounts easily with a magnet.

The SeedStar 2 monitoring system combines what used to be on two monitors down into one full-color display. The system can be used on planters and air seeders to help growers improve accuracy and cover more acres in less time.

I spoke with Kim Fletcher, Marketing Representative with John Deere Ag Management Solutions. You can listen to the interview here:

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AutoTrac guidance is no longer just for tractors. Farmers can now use assisted steering technology on combines. John Deere’s AutoTrac RowSense gives growers the ability to use precision guidance on the combines for harvesting corn. Mechanical feeler data from new row sensors located on the corn heads are integrated with GPS data from John Deere’s StarFire Receiver to give growers tighter steering control. RowSense can manuever around curves, through waterways or through weedy areas.

This spring farmers can harness “technology for efficient planter row control” with John Deere’s new RowCommand. The new technology lets farmers efficiently plant on the go with automated control. John Deere says the RowCommand will help growers reduce their seed input costs while also eliminating yield drag associated with double-planting. RowCommand can help growers reduce overplanting in point rows, John Deere says, while also helping them maximize placement .

I spoke with Ag Management Solutions Marketing Representative Kim Fletcher about the RowSense and RowCommand. You can listen to the interview here:

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John Deere has recently announced that it’s offering a slew of different precision agriculture products. Some are available now and others are scheduled to be released in the spring or fall of 2009. Kim Fletcher, Marketing Representative with John Deere Ag Management Solutions has been hosting several live presentations showcasing many of the new products and some old favorites at the 2008 Farm Progress Show John Deere exhibit. I managed to grab video of one of her presentations. Check out the video below. I’ll also be posting a couple interviews with her about the products in the next few days.

John Deere RowCommand: New Technology for Efficient Planter Row Control
John Deere AutoTrac RowSense
John Deere GreenStar Lightbar, GreenStar 2 Display 1800 and StarFire 300 Reciever
John Deere SeedStar 2 Monitoring System
John Deere iGuide
JDLink

John Deere Precision Ag Products from Laura McNamara on Vimeo.

Since hybrid seed technology works so seamlessly with precision technology, I figured it would be more than relevant to mention that farmers who use Monsanto Advanced Technology are eligible for lower risk insurance premiums in seven additional states. The attractive insurance premiums are offered through a revised risk management biotechnology endorsement.

Farmers in 11 states who plant a majority of their corn acres using hybrid seeds featuring YieldGard® Plus with Roundup Ready® Corn 2, YieldGard VT Triple® and YieldGard VT Triple PRO™ technology from Monsanto Company will have an opportunity to lower their crop insurance premiums in 2009. The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Board of Directors of the United States Department of Agriculture recently approved the expansion of a Risk Management Biotechnology Endorsement for the 2009 crop year. The program is an expansion of the 2008 pilot originally approved as the Biotech Yield Endorsement(SM) Program, or BYE(SM) Program.

The program lowers premiums for non-irrigated corn producers who plant qualifying hybrids in the approved states and also includes irrigated acres in Kansas and Nebraska. The cost of a total policy premium during the 2008 BYE(SM) pilot program was reduced on average by more than $3 per acre on policies such as Actual Production History, Revenue Assurance, and Crop Production Coverage. Savings with the 2009 pilot are expected to be similar. To be eligible for the premium discount, farmers must plant at least 75 percent of their corn acres on an insured unit basis including replanted
acres to corn hybrids containing YieldGard VT Triple, YieldGard VT Triple PRO, or YieldGard Plus with Roundup Ready Corn 2 technologies.

Simon Blackmore is changing the future of farming with his Unibots project (see post), but he’s also farming for the future with the European project Future Farm. But, Simon says, the project is all about implementing the technologies of today:

“The purpose of Future Farm is to take a lot of the technologies and processes that we’ve been developing in precision agriculture and actually integrate them together into a farm management situation,” said Simon. “So we’re not going to be developing necessarily any new technologies or any new real ideas but learn how to bring them together.”

Robotics, biofuels, energy self-sufficiency and particularly precision agriculture are all key aspects to the European project.

“We’re also looking at the socio-economic aspects. Looking at biofuels, and we also have one part looking at robotics,” Simon said.”

Simon says simplifying the precision farming techniques of today is a big part of thoroughly integrating it in agriculture’s future:

“Well that’ s an issue of adoption and I’ve actually written some papers on adoption where we’ve been looking at why precision farming hasn’t actually gone into the mainstream,” Simon said. “And one of the main reasons is as I’ve said, this level of complexity. As scientists and engineers we can produce a map of many many different things, soil types, nutrient holding capacity and so on. But actually how many of these things are relevant to management decision and the secondly even if they are relevant the tools that make them available aren’t readily available for the farmer. So another aspect to the problem with the adoption of precision is the timeliness. So therefore we have the knowledge but we don’t necessarily have all the tools and those tools are not integrated, so these are the aspects we’re trying to build.”

I interviewed Simon about what the future of farming looks like for the EU. You can listen to my interview here:

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The latest edition of the Precision Pays newsletter is available. You can find it online here. The newsletter is published 3 times a year.

If you didn’t receive the newsletter and would like subscribe then you may do so using this link.

Here’s what you’ll find in this issue:

• Hands-free AutoTrac Universal Steering Upgraded
• StarFire RTK Networks Grow
• Manage Harvest Data for Profit
• Improved Yield Monitor Moisture Tracking
• Valuable Links

The 2008 Farm Progress Show is just around the corner. Both Chuck and I will be on-site providing constant updates throughout the event, August 26th through 28th. I’m sure we’ll find plenty of information on precision agriculture, so be sure to check back here for the latest precision farming news from Boone, Iowa.

The show is boasting the following for participants and visitors:

• Field demonstrations: harvesting and tillage
• Ride ‘n Drive
• New product introductions
• GPS display and demonstrations
• Seed and crop technology plots
• Marketing seminars
• Cattle handling demonstrations
• Equine events
• Antique tractors and equipment
• Crafts and collectible farm toys
• 75-acre exhibit field featuring hundreds of top agribusinesses from around the world

Robots are the future of agriculture if you ask Simon Blackmore. I’ve already acquainted readers with the forward-thinking agriculturist and inventor, exploring both his role with FutureFarm and Unibots. But, both projects are innovative and impressive enough to merit a closer look. In this interview with Simon, we discuss the creation of his own company: Unibots. The company supports research on small machines conducted around the world and looks at how to commercialize the new technologies for use in agriculture.

The goal, Simon says, is to have a fleet of machines that don’t need people.

“We realized that the ultimate treatment area is one plant,” Simon said. “So this is now what we’re calling phytotechnology or plant scale husbandry. Where these autonomous machines can actually then sense what is happening to this individual plant and then carry out operations on this individual plant because there’s no way that that would be cost effective or viable on a man system but as soon as the person is taking off then it’s very feasible.“

Simon says now is the time to embrace such robotic concepts because the robotic machines can work seamlessly into the current development of precision agriculture technology.

“It’s quite an exciting time to try to think laterally instead doing things the way we’ve always done them in the past,” Simon said. “Then look at the fundamental crop needs and then design a new smart machine to deal with these fundamental crop needs in a different way than what we have done in the past.

You can listen to my interview with Simon here:

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There’s a new way to estimate crop ground cover. It’s called the Perpendicular Vegetation Index (PVI) approach. Traditionally, remote-sensing-related precision agriculture applicaitons use the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) application. But, Nithya Rajan says her research suggests that the PVI way could be the better way. Nithya is a post-doctorate research assistant with Texas Tech University. She says results from studies conducuted in agricultural fields in the Texas High Plains show that PVI is more effective in constructing maps of crop ground cover than NDVI. The advantage comes, she says, from the fact that PVI does not require field scouting or empirical relationships like NDVI.

Nithya says the technology for PVI is fully available for interested researchers and growers. The next step, she says, is determining how this new technology fits best with real world applications. I spoke with Nithya about her research. You can listen to my interview with Nithya here:

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Ethanol production is taking off throughout the U.S. It seems a new ethanol plant is popping up every week. Well, maybe not every week. But, it is safe to say that, with the recent high gas prices and the recent push for alternative fuels, ethanol plants are coming online at an accelerated rate.

This recent surge in ethanol production means corn growers are looking at corn in a new way. Starch is now a high dollar attribute of corn and that means farmers are interested in ways they can get more starch out of each crop yield. Therein lies the problem. Matias Ruffo, a post-doctorate researcher from the Crop Physiology Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says his studies have found that nitrogen fertilizer can have a negative impact on ethanol yield and starch concentration in corn.

But, Mattias says his research in the U.S. has found ways to minimize that loss and optimize ethanol yields from corn. Mattias says that through the use of a variable rate nitrogen, a precision farming technique, farmers can have a positive impact on ethanol yields compared to the traditional uniform nitrogen application. In effect, Matias says growers can increase their ethanol yields through an exact nitrogen rate application to their crops. This technique, he says, means corn will have a less negative response to Nitrogen as it relates to ethanol yield. This result is even more successful, he says, when it’s applied to specific hybrid corn varieties. Mattias says nitrogen will have a more negative impact on yellow, non-specific corn than on a hybrid designed specifically for ethanol yields.

“The ethanol plants will be benefited by having a precision ag program as far as their work with farmers because they will see an increase in their ethanol yield as a grain with improved quality,” Mattias said.

I interviewed Mattias about his research on the impact nitrogen fertilizer has on ethanol yields. You can listen to my interview with Mattias here:

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