Precision Pays

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls – start your engines. Fastline AgRacer is on track to be the next big farm-themed game.

Fastline Publications unveiled AgRacer at the 2012 National Farm Machinery Show. This game app is available for the iPhone/touch/iPad and Android devices for just 99 cents.

AgRacer combines the fun of racing with farm equipment and the thrill of competing for prizes every month. Choose from seven vehicles to race and earn points by winning and driving the biggest vehicles that help generate the most points to climb the leader board.

Racers can use three different camera angles to race and a leader board keeps track of racer positions. Scores move up and down as racerws compete with family and friends locally and all over the world. The top racers will have the chance to win prizes valued over $1,000 each month. “AgRacer was developed to help expose more people to our great agricultural market and allow people of all ages have fun with farm equipment in a whole new way,” said Fastline president Tim Hess.

Chuck interviewed Tim Hess this morning at NFMS. Tim says Fastline has been working on the game for almost a year as a way to expand their brand into a younger market. The game is here live on the iPad in the Fastline booth. As an extra incentive, Fastline is offering a dollar to everyone who downloads the 99 cent app at NFMS.

Listen to the interview with Tim to learn more about AgRacer: Interview with Tim Hess

AgRacer can be download in the Itunes Store and the Android Market for $.99. Upgrades and updates are planned to further expand the game after the initial launch. Join the Pit crew and stay up to date on new releases at agracer.com. AgRacer… The race is on.

2012 National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album

The hashtag #FSMaxYield was everywhere at the Pursuit of Maximum Yields event last week in Bettendorf, Iowa encouraging people at the event to “be part of the buzz.”

“We’re excited to have a hashtag at the event,” said GROWMARK Electronic Communications Specialist Heather (Miller) Thompson. “We’ve given every grower and crop specialist a little card about how to tweet from the event and if they don’t have a Twitter account, how to create one.”

Heather says the FS Green Plan Solutions crop specialists are finding Twitter to be a quick and easy communications tool to get information out to growers and they are seeing more and more adopt it every day.

She and the rest of the GROWMARK communications team were also actively promoting CropNAtion, which is a social site introduced last year for farmers and ranchers to ask questions, share information and photos, and grow connections with others in the ag industry. “That’s still really in it’s infancy,” Heather said. “We’re trying to get word spread about it to get a base and also waiting for an iPhone and Android app that should be out any day now.”

GROWMARK and FS are also making good use of other social media and smartphone tools, like Facebook and QR codes.

Listen to Heather talk about it here: Heather Thompson Interview

Photos from Iowa Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

Precision Planting of Tremont, Illinois recently launched a new iPad monitoring application for use in production agriculture. 

It’s called “FieldView”, their latest addition to the 20/20 Seed Sense system for planter management.  Sean Arians, education coordinator with Precision Planting, says the application puts the iPad to good use in the cab of the tractor. “Rather than just playing games like Angry Birds on it, now you have the capability to have cellular data available in the tractor,” Sean says, noting that as we look towards sharing and managing data, this can provide the ability to transfer software updates and information from maps into the cap and up to a server where it can later be accessed by a computer in the home or office.

Find out more about “Field View” in this report: Sean Arians on FieldView

On our sister site, AgWired, my weekly ZimmCast podcast features a conversation you may be interested in hearing. In this week’s program we use the M word, as in Mobile, as in Float Mobile Learning. I just had a conversation with Chad Udell, Managing Director, about mobile learning technology and what that means for today’s agribusiness customers, including in the precision sector.

Float Mobile’s parent company is the Iona Group. Chad says the company has a deep history working with agribusiness companies like GROWMARK, Pioneer and Bayer. He says, “There’s a great amount of demand in the marketplace to put the right information in the right people’s hands at the right time.” He says that when growers need information they’re often away from the computer and out in the field. Examples include working with clients to put mobile and updated information in the hands of sales staff at a farm show. Tablets like an iPad or Android device are very cost effective for this purpose. In fact, Chad says mobile application development is surprisingly affordable. He says these applications are simple and do one or two things very well. Float Mobile uses a S3D Process with their clients which means Strategy, Design, Develop, Deliver. He says they work quickly since the whole mobile device world is changing rapidly today.

To learn more about Float Mobile Learning listen in to this week’s program: Float Mobile Learning

Check out their 2012 predictions for the Mobile Landscape on their blog.

At the Beltwide Cotton Conferences I met Joe Wyrick, President, EWR, Inc. His company has a division called eCotton which “is dedicated to supplying the information processing needs of the cotton industry.” One of the new ways they’re doing that is with a brand new smartphone app called MyModules.

Cotton producers can register new cotton modules and have them transmitted to the gin automatically, with GPS coordinates if you like.

View summary status of all of your bales.

This caught my attention since it is available for the iPhone and Android platforms. Joe gave me a demonstration on his iPhone.

Joe says the app electronically solves the problem of getting harvested cotton module data from the grower to the gin. It’s a two way flow so the grower also gets information back from the gin. A helpful feature is that the app captures data for later transmission if there is no local mobile carrier signal. That’s pretty handy.

Learn more about this new ag app in my interview with Joe here: Interview with Joe Wyrick

2012 Beltwide Cotton Conferences Photo Album

During InfoAg I visited with PrecisionEarth which was just being introduced. Well it’s now available for your iPad (or other iOS device)! Watch an overview in the video below.

PrecisionEarth makes Soil Sampling Simple, Faster, with less mistakes, and with less paper. Build up the Grower, Farmer, Field information as well as collect new boundaries, grids, and samples all inside PrecisionEarth, even when 3G/WiFi is not available. When complete export your sample results as vectors for use in other applications and backup your information to the included WebConnect Cloud Storage Account.

All of this comes for a one time fee of $250 USD in the Apple App Store.

There are Android and iPhone apps for just about everything.  My friend, Jason Webster runs the Practical Farm Research for Beck‘s Hybrids in Downs, Ill.  In addition he farms, too.  Jason fully admits he doesn’t always practice what he used to preach about scouting fields during the growing season.  Because of that – he’s gone to a more sophisticated form of scouting.  One that he utilizes and with full conviction can explain to farmers why they should make the leap to incorporate that technology into their farming operations, too. 

In this month’s Precision Pays Podcast, sponsored by Ag Leader Technology, Jason explains the future of finding problems in our fields. 

You can subscribe to the Precision Pays Podcast here. The Precision Pays Podcast is sponsored by Ag Leader Technology.

The fast pace of new technology was very evident at the InfoAg Conference. Everywhere you looked you could see someone with a smartphone and there were lots of tablets being used. Speaking of tablets, how about iPads doing some precision ag duties? How about something called Precision Earth?

Pictured are Chris Tucker (left), Precision Earth and Aaron Hutchinson, Cogent3D, Inc. holding an iPad showing Precision Earth in action. I visited with Chris to learn more about how this application got started. Chris has been a diehard Microsoft guy who got his first iPhone last year. He’s been in the precision ag industry for a long time. The iPhone “opened his eyes” that it could be used as a data collection device. He sees lots of farmers carrying them around. So he got started working with Aaron’s company to develop what is now Precision Earth. He sees it evolving beyond just soil sampling to a full fledged crop scouting device. The app uses shapefiles which can be managed by iTunes or a local computer app they can provide. The feedback that Chris received at the InfoAg Conference was far more positive than he even hoped for. That’s a good sign. There are plans to utilize other mobile platforms in the future.

Precision Earth should be available in the iTunes Store soon. It will also work on an iPhone!

Learn more about it in our interview: Interview with Chris Tucker

The InfoAg Conference session titled, “Gadgets and Gizmos for Precision Agriculture” got my attention. One of the presenters was Dr. “No-Till Phil” Rasmussen. He had a collection of gadgets and gizmos on display to show and tell.

I interviewed him after his presentation. This soil physicist has a love for gadgets. They’ve been a big part of his career. He says that GPS systems have become more and more important to the farm. Therefore, the data that can be collected by various devices is becoming essential for efficient farm management today. One of the gadgets that has become very effective for in the field data gathering is a gel cell battery that has an adapter to allow you to charge various devices when you’re spending a day away from electricity. I recorded the interview on my iPhone with a recording app. Seemed very appropriate. Listen to my interview with Dr. Rassmussen here: Interview with Dr. Philip Rasmussen

2011 InfoAg Conference Photo Album

Going to InfoAg next week? Then you might want to get this app for your smartphone. This is the newest app on my iPhone and will be on my Android phone later this morning. It’s the InfoAg 2011 Conference app.

The InfoAg 2011 Conference, hosted at Springfield Illinois’ Crowne Plaza, from July 12-14th, is pleased to add a digital Conference Companion available exclusively for the InfoAg 2011 exhibitors and attendees. Designed to supplement the online conference program, this app allows its user to view an at-a-glance program, search speakers, exhibitors, and presentation synopses, as well as create a personalized conference itinerary.

As you can see from this screenshot I’ll be on the program talking about social media. Our moderator for that session is Paul Schrimpf, Group Editor, Croflife Media Group. Also in our session will be Jeremy Wilson, Technology Specialist, Crop IMS. Our session will be offered twice next Thursday. Hope you can make it.

The app is the creation of Quentin Rund, PAQ Interactive. Get it and let him know what you think. I think this is going to become a standard offering of shows of all kinds, farm included. Kind of like the “old” conference brochure but much easier to use and carry around!

Now you can get the Precision Laboratories Mix Tank App without having to have a smart phone handy. Now you can “get it” from your online computer or tablet! Give it a try.

Precision Laboratories recently announced the release of an online version of its popular, new Mix Tank app for iPhone. Thousands of growers and retailers have already downloaded the app and are using it to prevent costly mixing sequence errors that lead to compatibility problems and nozzle plugging. Now, Precision Laboratories is able to offer the app to anyone with a computer and internet access.

For more information, visit precisionlab.com.

Trimble announced that it has acquired privately-held MyTopo based in Billings, Mont. MyTopo is a leading provider of print and digital maps for outdoor enthusiasts. The acquisition expands Trimble’s ability to offer unique map content and new outdoor-centric products while simultaneously enhancing its popular mobile apps—Trimble Outdoors, AllSport GPS, Geocache Navigator, Cabela’s Recon Hunt, and Backpacker GPS Trails.

MyTopo offers several products to outdoor consumers using its topographic, satellite and aerial photograph map imagery. Products include print-on-demand custom waterproof maps, Internet-based map layers, digital map tiles for mobile devices and Terrain Navigator, a suite of mapping software products.

Trimble Outdoors’ customers can access the new maps at www.trimbleoutdoors.com. The digital maps are available on more than 300 smartphones and mobile handsets that run Trimble Outdoors mobile apps.

In this edition of the Precision Pays Podcast, sponsored by Ag Leader Technology, we’ll look at how some farmers are using their online time and the social media tools they’re using to make important purchases.

A recent survey by AgHaven showed that more farmers are spending more time online but are sometimes frustrated with the results. AgHaven President, Srik Soogoor says they’ve developed a website to help those producers who work on multi platforms. Soogoor says since they’re using these smart phones and iPads, farmers want access all the time.

Meanwhile, Paulsen Marketing looked at how people in rural areas were using the online community. Paulsen’s Alicia DeGeest says their white paper, entitled “Rural Lifestylers are Changing the Way They Research and Buy Products,” delved into what people in these areas were doing. She and her Paulsen colleague Sara Steever found that people identifying with the rural lifestyle were adopting new, online technologies at about the same rate as their non-rural counterparts. DeGeest says these rural consumers used online feedback to influence their buying decisions and even employed their connectivity right in the stores to help them decide what to purchase.

It’s a fascinating conversation, and you can hear more of it in the player below: Precision Pays Podcast

You can subscribe to the Precision Pays Podcast here.

How would you like a chance to win one of the coolest apps on your very own iPod? All you have to do is enter the Precision Laboratories Mix Tank App iPod touch Giveaway Contest (entry form).

The contest kicks off today and will end on midnight May 9 with the winner being announced May 10th on AgWired and Precision Pays. The Precision Laboratories Mix Tank App will be pre-loaded on the iPod so all you have to do to get started using it is to click on the app! ZimmComm New Media is thrilled to be working with Precision Laboratories on this promotion.

If you don’t know what the Mix Tank App is then you can learn more about it from James Reiss, Vice President of the agricultural chemistries business and Daniel Ori, Marketing Specialist in a recent ZimmCast with them.

Improving crop protection strategies will most likely lead to more tank mixing. Improper mixing sequence of crop protection products can cause incompatibility problems, lost spraying time from plugged sprayer nozzles, and the risk of cross contamination problems later. Simple mixing errors will cost you time and money.

The free Mix Tank app from Precision Laboratories is the first of its kind to assist agricultural retailers, crop specialists, university researchers and growers to determine the correct mixing sequence of crop protection tank mixes. It helps you get the most out of every tank mix and eliminate costly mixing errors.

Official Rules (doc file)

Need help mixing crop protection products? There’s an app for that from Precision Laboratories. You can also find a series of videos on water quality and compatibility in their YouTube Channel.

The new Mix Tank app is designed to support retailers, crop specialists, researchers and growers in providing accurate and efficient tank mix sequences that will enhance profitability and ease.

“Evolving crop protection strategies lead to more tank mixing and the potential for more tank mixing errors. An improper mix can cause lost time and money, and even lower efficacy or failure of your crop protection products. By using the Mix Tank app, users can get the most out of every tank mix,” said Jim Reiss, vice president of Agricultural Chemistries at Precision Laboratories. “We’re excited to bring this new technology to the industry and offer another tool for growers, custom applicators and our retail partners.”
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