Precision Pays

According to a story from the Cleantech Group, researchers have found a way to harness electricity from trees and this has an agricultural application.

Boston, Mass.-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers said this week they’ve engineered a way to use the natural power generated by trees to recharge battery operated sensors that can detect forest fires.

Some of the other wireless-sensor startups in the area of precision agricultural include Grape Networks and Fruition Sciences. Both are focused on the high end of the winery market.

Besides subscribing to the RSS feed of Precision Pays we’ve now got another option for you. Precision Pays has its own Twitter feed.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter then you can learn more here. Basically, the news feed from Precision Pays will post updates to the Twitter feed. Additionally, we’ll use the Twitter feed for custom special text posts when we have breaking information or are on-location at an event.

So here’s the links for each way to subscribe:

RSS Feed

Twitter Feed

The Sunbelt Ag Expo is fast approaching. This annual event is held in Moultrie, GA and precision agriculture will be on display.

What modern farm show would be complete without precision farming exhibits? New tractors equipped with auto-steer and similar global positioning systems will strut their stuff in the always-popular ride and drive area. Exciting new field demonstrations that illustrate recent technology are on the schedule as well.

I’ll be on location there and hoping to find some interesting stories for you.

A new report from Position One Consulting Pty Ltd, in conjunction with Eric Gakstatter, Contributing Editor to GPS World magazine, says that the worldwide precision GPS market will rise from US$3 Billion in 2008 to US$6-8 Billion by 2012.

The report includes global trends, demand and applications for high-precision GPS technology; starting with precision GPS infrastructure, continuing through the market for GPS receivers, finished GPS goods and concluding with GPS augmentation and distribution services. Markets covered include surveying, engineering, agriculture, mining, deformation monitoring, GIS, marine and aviation for both machine control and non-machine control applications.

“The adoption of precision GPS and GNSS products and services, particularly for machine control, are reaping impressive productivity gains for innovators and early adopters”, said Rob Lorimer, Managing Director of Position One Consulting. “This report is in response to the growing demand for more detailed market intelligence regarding precise positioning products and services and the markets in which they are used”.

A free 14 page abstract of the report can be obtained by emailing them at abstracts@positiononeconsulting.com.

From the Chatham Daily News we found this story which provides a basic explanation of precision farming:

GPS is part of precision agriculture, which is doing the right thing at the right place at the right time. More precise application of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, and better control of the dispersion of these agri-products, is possible through precision agriculture. This reduces the farmer’s expenses, produces a higher yield, and creates more environmentally-friendly farming operations.

Indiana farm broadcaster Gary Truitt - voice of the Hoosier Ag Today radio network - recently did an interview with Purdue ag economist Bruce Erickson about how higher input costs are making many farmers take a second look at precision.

Erickson told Gary that the change in the farm economy has spurred a renewed interest in precision farming. “Couple of major things that drive precision technologies are saving input costs and increasing yields,” Bruce said. “With both higher input costs and high grain prices, we have the potential to make precision technologies more profitable.”

Bruce says that they are seeing a bit of an uptick in adoption of precision, more in the “on the go type things that you get with individual nozzle shut offs and the planter row control and even in guidance systems. If you can shave off a little cost when diesel is $4 a gallon, those things really start to become more profitable.”

Listen to Gary’s interview with Bruce here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(10:00 mp3)

Precision applications are showing up in all kinds of agricultural applications. Here’s a new report from On World about utilizing wireless sensing solutions to manage water usage.

Facing a water shortage crisis and the demands of a global economy, farmers are turning to wireless sensing solutions to save labor costs, increase yields, improve quality, and conserve water, according to a recent report by ON World. The emergence of standards based short range radios, advanced network protocols, and the availability of low cost backhaul technologies, have made wireless sensor systems an affordable competitive advantage for farmers/growers.

ON World’s recently published report, “Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Crops” analyzes the drivers and return on investment for adopting wireless crop monitoring solutions for several crop types. It includes global and US Total Potential market size forecasts, in-depth profiles on the top six wireless crop monitoring vendors, analysis on WSN technologies such as IEEE802.15.4 and mesh networking including several power and performance simulations using the wsnSimulator™.

Valley Irrigation has introduced the industry’s first line of GPS Ready irrigation control panels. The GPS Ready PRO2 Pivot Control Panel and GPS Ready AutoPilot Linear Control Panel currently are available from Valley dealers. The GPS Ready Select2 Pivot Control Panel will be available later this year.

“All of our computerized control panels will be GPS Ready, which means producers will be able to easily take advantage of the benefits of GPS technology,” Valley Irrigation’s Rich Panowicz says. “Producers need to be able to manage precision application of water and fertilizers. GPS Ready control panels for center pivots and linears can help producers do just that. With the high costs of fuel, fertilizer, water and other inputs, it’s important for producers to incorporate these tools that will help their bottom line.”

The GPS Ready control panels from Valley Irrigation differ from other control panels on the market because they perform all of the necessary GPS position calculations right in the control panel, therefore eliminating the need for external computers on the machine.

They also are compatible with different types of GPS receivers, including WAAS-enabled receivers. This means producers can pick the GPS receiver with the accuracies necessary to meet the required management needs.

The Farm Science Review is taking place in London, OH and I got to attend the precision ag field demos yesterday and found John Deere on the job.

I spoke with John Deere’s Jamie Bultemeier (pictured on the left). He was conducting a precision tillage demonstration. Jamie’s an agronomist by training so he focuses on crop production as it relates to seeding, tillage, sprayers and GPS equipment.

In his demonstration he was tying two of those together. He says they have a John Deere 2510S strip till rig being guided by John Deere RTK sub inch accuracy steering to allow for repeatable planting next spring. After running down a row a little ways he stopped to talk with farmers and they commented on how moist the ground was even though there had been little rain of late.

Questions he gets asked a lot include, “How should I set it? What fertilizer should I use? What kind of attachments should I put on?” He says he’s spoken with about an equal number of farmers who are using the technology and those who aren’t yet.

You can listen to my interview with Jamie using this link:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(mp3 file)

I also caught Jamie doing an end of the row run during his demonstration which you can watch here:

If you’re interested you can see a lot of pictures I took at this year’s show in this photo album: Farm Science Review Photo Album

Measuring progress is key to determining which farming techniques are more profitable than others for growers. Clay Mitchell, a farmer in NE Iowa says aligned-farming is a precision farming technique that allows growers to measure their progress, particularly compared to angled-farming.

“What’s special about aligned farming systems is that it allows us to measure them,” Clay said. “We can finally observe how we are doing. It’s very difficult to do that in angled farming systems.”

Clay says aligned farming systems help farmers actually achieve their target rates. Plus, he adds, in his research, aligned farming systems compacted the ground less, touching the earth 17 percent of the time as compared to the conventional 85 to 100 percent ground contact.

“It’s a really powerful solution to compaction,” Clay said.

I interviewed Clay about his work with aligned farming and how it can work with raised-bed farming and even strip-till farming. He also commented on how precision played an important role in mitigating crop loss from this year’s flooding. You can listen to my interview with Clay here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.