Precision Pays

Sensor technology continues to amaze me. Having watched this fascinating technology since the 1980s and written about its usefulness in monitoring everything from tractor components to grain quality, I’ve become a firm believer that such sensor precision truly pays.

Current research underway by engineers at Iowa State University aims to plant small (2×4 in.) prototype wireless soil sensors under crops. The goal is to give farmers another precision data layer of information to better manage nutrients, water and carbon to maximize yields and profits–and minimize environmental impact.

Think of the possibilities. 

Check out ISU’s sensor research team and their efforts.

Like farmers, more retailers are using their steering wheels less this past year–without going in the ditch!

Survey says…adoption of auto guidance grew from 27% use by retailers to 37% in 2008. Other growing precision technologies being applied for customers include GPS guidance using lightbars, satellite/aerial imagery, field mapping with GIS for legal/billing/insurance purposes, and GPS for logistics uses.

When asked how they see farmer use expanding in the next three years (percent of acres in their retail area), survey says…

• soil sampling w/GPS will grow from 27% to 44% of acres
• field mapping w/GPS will grow from 27% to 46%
• variable seeding w/GPS will grow from 5% to 18%
• variable fertilizer w/GPS will grow from 20% to 38%
• satellite imagery will grow from 9% to 20%
• lightbar guidance w/GPS will grow from 35% to 50%
• auto guidance w/GPS will grow from 15% to 33%
• yield monitors w/GPS will grow from 22% to 42%
• yield monitors w/o GPS will grow from 26% to 32%

These facts, and plenty more, came from the 13th annual survey by Crop Life magazine and Purdue University’s Center for Food and Agricultural Business. Over 275 U.S. retailers responded. 

For some light winter reading, check out the entire 55-page report here 2008 dealership survey. You’ll also discover their opinions on barriers to growth and expansion, as well as how they see their role with manufacturers and customers.

The latest technology in agriculture will be a major part of the “new generation of ag show” coming 2010 to Orlando - AG CONNECT expo 2010.

A preview of AG CONNECT 2010 was offered to ag executives meeting Thursday in St. Louis for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers AgExecutive Forum.

According to show manager Sara Truesdale Mooney, they have taken a very deliberate approach in developing AG CONNECT. “We conducted a lot of research with producers and from that research we developed a number of event features that would be unique to AG CONNECT,” she said. “They are hungry for new products, technologies, innovations, more about precision farming and really the how-tos and how other people are applying equipment, products and services throughout the industry.”

Sara says they are really developing a one-stop shop ag show. “We’re going to be putting on a world class agribusiness event that is not just exhibits, not just an equipment show - it’s new products, innovations, technologies, services, inputs - everything you need for your business.”

All of the information about AG CONNECT is available on-line at agconnect.com.

Listen to an interview with Sara here:

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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:

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Specialized farming practices paired with specialized farming technology can mean “special” results for farmers if you ask Robert Klein. Robert is an Extension Cropping Systems Specialist with the University of Nebraska in North Platte. He says when it comes to seeding and planting plots for crop performance evaluation, using GPS-RTK Auto Steering technology with skip-row planting methods can boost yields.

Robert explains that moisture benefits from skip-row planting in corn, for example, optimizes crop performance and results in crops that are less stressed and won’t be delayed. But, he adds skip-row planting can create time-consuming challenges for growers. That is with the old method. Farmers could spend up to two hours in the field flagging routes with a system no more modern than using a measuring tape. But, Robert says, using RTK Auto-Steer technology cuts the skip-row planting process down to minutes.

“We’ve seen in one case as I showed the results, yields that went from 40 bushels per acre to over 80 bushel per acre by using the skip row system,” Robert said.

Plus, he adds, farmers will have perfect rows that make harvesting easier.

“Another example is where a farmer had had 60 bushel on dry land corn using the regular 30-inch row planting,” Robter said. “With plant two, skip two he moved that to 100 bushels per acre. And he said that’s really a nice way to do it. In fact, that farmer says, ‘I think I finally figured out how to plant dry land corn in western Nebraska.’”

I interviewed Robert about his research shows that precision techniques work seamlessly with skip-row farming. You can listen to my interview here:

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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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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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We’ve featured various articles from the Precision Agriculture Institute here on PrecisionPays.com and that’s because we’ve recognized just how committed the independent media company is to precision agriculture. The time and research the institutes’s journalists pour into the study of precision technology and the stories they publish on PrecisionAg.com is extensive. That’s why it’s safe to say that the institute represents a leading voice of expertise in the field of precision. That’s also why the institute developed PrecisionAg Works, a resource for “ag professionals considering adopting or deepening use of precision ag practices.”

I caught up with Elliot Nowels, the Director of the Precision Agriculture Institute and grilled him on what he knows best. We talked about the growth of precision, it’s value as a sound investment for farmers, trends in the adoption of precision technologies, benefits of precision technologies, cost savings and more.

“We’re trying to get across the idea that precision ag is more efficient, you can be a better steward of resources when you’re doing this, and that there’s more of a profitability associated with precision ag,” Elliot said. “That really it’s a better time to adopt this technology than ever before.”

You can listen to my interview with Elliot here:

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