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Precision Workshops for Cotton Growers
The recent Cotton Incorporated Crop Management Seminar in Tunica, Mississippi featured workshops to help growers learn more about precision management.
Director of Agricultural Research Ed Barnes says they actually had two different precision workshops. “One for people who really had not done any work with precision agriculture. We had a workshop on the basics of how to scout your field, use a GPS and download data back to the computer.”
“Then we had a second workshop for people who are more experienced and wanted to take it to a new level, transitioning to zone management where you manage by soil type a little more,” said Barnes. The workshops concluded with a look at the “Green Seeker” variable rate application and mapping system that can help cotton growers make real time variable rate applications of plant growth regulators and defoliants.
Some 200 growers were able to attend the workshops and Cotton Inc plans to have another at the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in January.
It’s the first anniversary for Precision Pays, which was launched last year at the 
Brent Maddon was the John Deere product development representative on hand at the American Soybean Association/John Deere Ag Management Solutions seminar in Arkansas last week. The event is one of three “Reach for the Stars” presentations being sponsored by John Deere. 
Precision technology puts extra cash in your pocket according to a grower from the northeast Arkansas area. David Pigue uses precision farming in his cotton and grain harvesting operations and he says the innovative technology produces excellent results. He says applying the technology in different ways is sure to make farmers more money, whether they get “knee-deep or neck-deep” into precision farming techniques.
Tennessee Grower Alan Meadows is willing to bet that no less than 90 percent of all farmers who try their hand at tools using precision technology wouldn’t ever dream of moving forward without it. In an interview, Meadows told reporter Stewart Doan that if farmers “try it… [they'll] never go back.”
Farmers are feeling out the benefits of GPS satellite technology with measured care. At least, that’s what “Reach For The Stars” seminar presenter Dr. Terry Griffin says. Griffin held an audience at last week’s American Soybean Association/John Deere Ag Management Solutions seminar in Arkansas.
At this week’s American Soybean Association/John Deere Ag Management Solutions, “Reach For The Stars” seminar in Arkansas Ted Glaub, Glaub Farm Management and ASA board member, was a presenter. 
Over the next week or so we’ll be featuring interviews with people who are attending and presenting at the American Soybean Association/John Deere Ag Management Solutions, “Reach For The Stars” seminars in Arkansas and Indiana. We’ve enlisted the aid of two very well known farm broadcasters, Stewart Doan, past President of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting and Gary Truitt, Hoosier Ag Network. So let’s get started.