Listen in to my interview with Janae here: Interview with Janae Althouse

2012 Beltwide Cotton Conferences Photo Album

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

Field trials conducted from 2006 to 2010 tabulated information gathered by global positioning systems and variable rate technology, including the electrical conductivity-based Veris 3100 and EM38 sensors for on-the-go soil mapping, plus harvest yield mapping data.

This technology illustrates that nematicide applications can be applied sparingly in some cases while maintaining good nematode control and trimming chemical costs.

The grower cooperator field trials included six studies with the nematicide Telone II applied at pre-plant in cotton and corn in central and southwestern Arizona conducted by University of Arizona (UA) researchers Randy Norton, Tim Hatch, Mike McClure, and Pedro Andrade.

Norton, UA regional extension cotton specialist based in Safford, shared the findings during the 71^st annual Cotton Disease Council meeting at the 2011 Beltwide Cotton Conferences in Atlanta, Ga., in January.

Norton labeled the RKN as the No. 1 nematode species threat in Arizona. The microscopic roundworm damages crops by attacking the young tap and secondary roots which stimulates the production of galls. Galls interfere with the ability of the roots to absorb water and nutrients, and allow other disease-producing organisms to enter the plant.

Arizona hotspots for RKNs include the Coolidge, Casa Grande, Florence, and Buckeye areas in central Arizona and the Bonita area in the Sulphur Springs Valley in southeastern Arizona.

In cotton, the RKN is responsible for a 5 percent lint yield reduction on average across the Cotton Belt, Norton says. Five gallons is the standard Telone II application rate in Arizona to maintain cotton yields in RKN-infected fields.

Read on to learn more…

The furry-looking insects start their development smaller than the head of a pin, but the caterpillars soon develop an appetite for cotton as big as the crop.

To demonstrate the insects’ destructive power, Clemson University entomologist Jeremy Greene planted two cotton varieties — one genetically modified to provide protection from caterpillars, one not — in a demonstration field at the Edisto Research and Education Center.

The non-protected cotton was planted in a pattern that spelled the word “Tigers.” Aerial photographs taken near harvest show that while the genetically modified crop survived intact, the unprotected plants provided three square meals a day for the crop-hungry herbivores.

The demonstration crop was planted in late May last year and grew through the summer.

“We wanted to show the kind of damage caterpillars can do when they’re allowed to eat unprotected cotton freely,” Greene said.

Cotton is a multimillion dollar crop in the Palmetto State involving hundreds of farms and thousands of jobs.

Nearly all cotton varieties planted in South Carolina contain genes found in the naturally occurring Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, that help the plant make its own insecticide.

Bt cotton is genetically modified with specific genes from Bacillus thuringiensis. Think of it as in-plant insecticide, Greene said. This technology has been commercially available since 1996, but improvements over the years have enhanced the control of major pests.

The plant makes the proteins just like the bacterium does. The particular strain of Bacillus thuringiensis available in cotton, which was planted for the demonstration, works only on immature lepidopterans, or caterpillars. Lepidoptera is the insect order for moths and butterflies. The toxic proteins have no ill effects on other organisms.

“During 2010, we had a very high population of bollworm that infested cotton acres at the Edisto research center,” Greene said. “We planted a non-Bt variety where you see the word ‘Tigers’ and a two-gene Bt cotton where you see the fluffy white cotton lint.”

The striking difference in appearance is due to bollworms eating all of the green cotton bolls in the non-Bt variety that did not have protection from the insects.

Greene applied no insecticides to control caterpillars in this field, so the difference between the Bt and non-Bt varieties is illustrated clearly.

A color-coded yield map, produced by precision agriculture specialist Will Henderson at the Edisto center, illustrates the crop after harvest using one of the center’s pickers that is equipped with a yield monitor. The map shows “good” yields in green and “bad” yields in red.

The damage potential of important lepidopteran species, such as bollworm, is not new, Greene said. Moths have flown into fields, laid eggs and hatched as injurious caterpillars for decades.

Transgenic Bt technology and its improvement over the years are relatively recent advances that represent effective, economical and environmentally friendly control of these insects in agriculture, he said.

“We know what they can do to non-Bt cotton versus Bt cotton — the photographs speak for themselves,” Greene said.

There are great opportunities for this technology in cotton production for varying the application of plant growth regulators, harvest aids, and nitrogen. However, the users must understand the limitations of their equipment and the sensors being used in order to maximize the benefits.

Users should understand the agronomy behind prescriptions and be comfortable with the recommendations. Familiarity with these prescriptions can allow users to fine tune them for their environment or to develop their own prescription algorithms. They should also understand their equipment and know how to tune their controller for optimum response. As with all new technologies, users should seek advice from experts and those who are already implementing sensor–based variable rate application.

Learn more here.

And check out the Oklahoma State University Precision Ag Technology webpages.

Agricultural engineers Susan O'Shaughnessy and Nolan Clark adjust an infrared thermometer that measures crop canopy temperature as a way of controlling a center pivot irrigation system.

A system that turns irrigation water on and off automatically based on leaf temperature is being developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) soil scientist Steven Evett and colleagues in Texas.

Evett, a soil scientist at Bushland, Texas, and cooperators are developing time-temperature threshold (TTT) technology that is based in part on a discovery by Evett’s colleagues at Lubbock, Texas, that plants grow best at certain narrow temperature ranges that vary by crop species.

Later developments by Evett and his colleagues led to invention of an irrigation control system that uses feedback from the crop, in terms of leaf temperatures, to control irrigation and crop water use efficiency.

Evett’s colleague Susan O’Shaughnessy, an agricultural engineer at the ARS Soil and Water Management Research Unit at Bushland, has developed wireless infrared thermometers mounted on center pivot irrigation arms as well as in the field. She is also integrating sensors that can help determine whether to skip watering parts of a field because plants are suffering from disease rather than drought or because no plants have survived in that part of the field.

Ultimately, she and Evett will seek a cooperative research and development agreement with a center pivot manufacturing company that can build the sensors and control system into their equipment.

This research is part of the Ogallala Aquifer Program started in 2004, a partnership between ARS and the Ogallala region’s universities. The Ogallala Aquifer underlies eight states from Texas to South Dakota and is one of the world’s major aquifers. The goal of the Ogallala Aquifer Program is to protect the towns and their livelihoods, including agricultural industries, by stopping the depletion of the aquifer.

Water availability is key to farming in the Ogallala region. Automated irrigation systems are seen as one major way to move towards sustainable use of the aquifer because they can reduce water use while enhancing profitability due to the reduction in pumping costs.

For more details, read on…

The Cotton Precision Agriculture Investment Decision Aid (CPAIDA) is a stand alone, computerized decision tool for analyzing investments in precision agriculture technologies. It was developed to meet the need for better educational information about the returns required to pay for investments in precision agriculture technologies used by cotton farmers.

Currently available “payback” modules include map- and sensor-based variable rate application of sprayer-applied chemicals, sensor-based liquid nitrogen application, and sensor-based weed control. Additional modules for calculating the cost of gathering spatial information via electrical conductivity, yield monitor, and remote sensing are also provided. A distinctive sensitivity analysis feature allows users to evaluate a variety of “what if” scenarios for these technologies based on their particular farm characteristics.

The decision aid guides users through a systematic analysis of the precision farming investment decision via a set of clickable tabs and expandable menu options. The equipment information tab allows the user to select equipment components and enter purchase price.

Default equipment complements are set for each module, and users can click on cells to change equipment manufacturers or modify prices. The farm data tab lets users personalize the decision aid based on their unique farm situation, information gathering costs, and payback parameters which can include input cost savings, lint yield gain, and reduced equipment operating and ownership costs. The profitability summary tab displays results in the form of enterprise budgets that compare cost and return estimates with and without precision farming.

A final column indicates how individual cost items vary based on the precision farming investment decision and summarizes the expected profitability from adoption of the selected equipment complement.

Finally, a sensitivity analysis tab displays the results graphically. The main figure summarizes the profitability of the proposed equipment complement and provides an estimate of the payback period in years. Here, users can change key cost and return parameters, such as farm size or input savings, and evaluate how changes in these values influence the profitability of the investment decision.

The CPAIDA decision aid is also available at http://economics.ag.utk.edu/cpaida.html. Copies of CPAIDA on a CD ROM may also be obtained by writing James Larson, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2621 Morgan Circle, 302 Morgan Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996. This decision aid was funded by Cotton Incorporated.

For the past three years Clemson researchers at the Edisto Research and Education Center in Blackville, S.C., have been testing three different options for variable rate application of side-dress nitrogen on cotton. In 2007 and 2008 they reduced total nitrogen use by 30 percent with no yield loss. In 2009, they upped the ante to saving 50 percent on nitrogen use.

The proof of the 50 percent reduction will come after cotton is harvested and yield and quality numbers are in, but so far tests on the research station and with cooperating farmers look good.

“If you look at cotton prices, they are about the same as in 2003. However, if you look at the price of nitrogen, despite a drop in price this year, it is still near record highs. The recession has kept prices low, but we don’t know where nitrogen prices will go next year,” says Clemson Researcher Wes Porter.

Porter is a graduate student working with Ahmad Khalilian, a Clemson University Professor of Agricultural & Biological Engineering and guru of precision agriculture for a number of years.

For the past three years Khalilian, Clemson Extension Precision Ag Specialist Will Henderson and a group of dedicated graduate students have tested variable rate technology for use in applying nitrogen and other fertilizers on cotton.

Porter says there are three routes a farmer can go to apply variable rates of nitrogen to cotton. The first is the simplest and least costly: A nitrogen ramp calibration strip (N-RCS) can serve as a simple guide to nitrogen use.

Read more here.

According to a report in Mid-South Farmer magazine, Bill Robertson of the National Cotton Council says Randy Taylor, Oklahoma State University will set the stage for the precision agriculture theme Tuesday morning at the general production conference with a look at current and future opportunities for cotton producers using precision agriculture technology in their fields.

“From there, the precision agriculture theme branches out in other Tuesday and Wednesday workshops in the New Orleans Marriott Hotel,” he explains. “The general production conference this year — where all attendees gather in one hall — is set in the nearby Sheraton Hotel.”

Workshops include:
1. A collaborative report on several years’ research from across the Cotton Belt concerning site-specific management of nematodes, Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 5.

2. Hands-on sampling for precision agriculture uses, by Jeffrey Willers, USDA ARS researcher in Mississippi, Wednesday morning, Jan. 6.

3. Sensor-based Nitrogen Application, by David Dunn, of the University of Missouri at the Delta Research Station in the Missouri Bootheel, Wednesday morning, Jan. 6.

4. Cotton Irrigation, by Dana Porter, Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center, Lubbock, Texas.

For more details, visit the Beltwide Cotton Conference website.

The new 4630 Sprayer is ideal for cotton farmers who want a low-cost, comfortable, and productive machine that’s simple to operate. It’s also ideal for corn, soybean, or small-grain producers that want a productive yet comfortable machine with advanced options. The 4630 Sprayer replaces John Deere’s discontinued 6700 Sprayer.

For more details you can visit with your local John Deere dealer, or go online and visit the company’s Web site at www.JohnDeere.com.

The Southern Precision Agriculture Conference will be held January 12th and 13th, 2010, at Harrah’s Tunica Convention Center in Tunica. It will be part of a joint meeting with the National Conservation Cotton and Rice Conference, the Southern Corn and Soybean Conference and the newly formed Southern Field Crop Alliance (SFCA).

The SFCA conference will examine issues across crops and precision agriculture technologies. And it provides a chance to network with growers and industries from across the south. For more information on SFCA, contact Angus Catchot at acatchot@entomology.msstate.edu or B. Rogers Leonard at rleonard@agcenter.lsu.edu. Conference details are found at http://nctd.net/.

Glenn and Rodney Mast who farm near Columbus, Miss., say precision farming technology is helping them achieve such efficiencies. “When you put the fertilizer into the bed, it’s right where the plants need it. It gives every plant an equal opportunity for the nutrients needed for good growth.

“With GPS and minimum till, we’re able to go back and bed in precisely the same place each year, and we believe we’re building up fertility levels in the rooting zone with lower rates than if we were broadcasting.”

Rodney says they’ve seen the practice become widespread over the past 10 years in the Midwest, where they have relatives, and “I don’t understand why it hasn’t been more widely adopted here in the South. As expensive and risky as farming is nowadays, we’ve got to try things that can help us cut costs and be more efficient.

“To that end, banding has worked extremely well for us, but the biggest advantage is in more efficient application rates. Every university study we’ve seen, from Minnesota to Florida, and even in the United Kingdom (where it has become widely-used because of environmental restrictions), has shown the practice is tremendously more efficient and effective.

“In addition to the direct savings for input costs and the reduction in manpower hours, we’ve experienced no yield loss. These advantages, combined with the accuracy that GPS equipment can provide, are among the reasons why almost the entire Midwest has gone to strip-till over the past 10 years.”

GPS has been termed “the killer application” for farmers utilizing no-till/minimum-till and fertilizer banding practices, because its ±1-inch accuracy gives them unparalleled precision in placement of fertilizer and seed.

Since the January launch of The Weather Channel’s ‘Agriculture News & Forecast’ web page, growers who used the site requested the addition of a GDD calculator. To access the tool, simply enter your zip code (or sign in to your Weather Channel home page) and click the Growing Degree Days Calculator link.

“The growth and development of crops is directly impacted by the growing degree days, and having this information available can help farmers make better informed management decisions,” said Boyd Carey, lead of technology development for Monsanto. “TWCi has created an easy way for growers to run those calculations to compare different years at a given location. In a spring like this one where we’ve had so much rain and so many cloudy days across our agricultural production areas, this tool could prove useful immediately.”

Farmers can compare two different years’ GDD (as far back as 2003) for the same date range and location. Additionally, each calculation — one of the most complex on weather.com — includes the 30-year-average GDD for the selected dates and location, alerting farmers to the typical GDD for the selected time frame and location. The calculator uses both forecast and 30-year climatology data from The Weather Channel, allowing for past, present or future calculations. The calculator draws from the most accurate weather data available, using proprietary TruPoint technology created by The Weather Channel. TruPoint forecasts allow for future weather information accurate up to 2 kilometers (1.24 miles). This technology combines traditional weather observations with even more data to create forecasts for more than 1.9 million locations — literally filling in the gaps of the reporting systems used by other providers.

The company Denimatrix will produce jeans in Guatemala made from cotton produced by 25,000 grower-members of American Cotton Growers (ACG) who are focused on developing quality fabric using sustainable practices. To buy them, visit www.SAFEDenim.com.

American Cotton Growers-or ACG-and its farmer-owners are focused on developing high quality denim fabrics for our customers with minimal impact on the environment. We produce an average of 37 million yards of denim annually, enough to make 26 million pairs of jeans, every yard of which is grown, spun, dyed, and woven from the cotton our members produce. This denim process is a true, homespun phenomenon – American cotton literally created from field to fabric.

ACG meets or exceeds all regulations administered by the Environmental Protection Agency. In all possible processes throughout the mill, we use the best available technology to apply the principles of reduce, re-use and recycle and to avoid production of hazardous waste.

Our stewardship carries all the way from the field to the fabric. We like to call it SAFE denim-Sustainable, American and Friendly to the Environment. For us, it’s not just a fad; it’s a multi-generational commitment to ensure our children and grandchildren can farm the land.

We’re protecting our ecosystems for these future generations by remaining good stewards of the land, air and water. We value doing the right thing, in the right place, in the right way, at the right time, and it requires the use of new technologies.

We continually embrace new technologies in irrigation to reduce the volume of water used to grow our cotton. Compared to 25 years ago, our farmers now use 45 percent less water to grow cotton.

Technologies like Integrated Pest Management systems use beneficial insects to control pests and reduce human and environmental exposure to chemicals while lowering input costs. Today, the number of pesticide applications required to produce cotton is half of what it was just 20 years ago.

Advances in seed breeding and farming practices have greatly reduced the amount of chemical inputs required to grow cotton, resulting in substantial environmental benefits.

Precision agriculture uses aerial and satellite infrared photography to identify problem spots in our fields and apply inputs only where they are needed via global positioning systems.

These technologies have dramatically reduced the land area required to produce enough cotton to meet world demand. In 1926, U.S. farmers planted more than 44 million acres and produced almost 18 million bales. By 2004, U.S. cotton acreage totaled just under 14 million acres which produced more than 23 million bales. In other words, an additional 30 million acres are available for food production, conservation and wildlife habitat.

ACG and its 25,000 farmer-owners are committed to continually improving our denim manufacturing processes and farming practices. Sustainable agriculture is the ability of a farm to produce food and fiber indefinitely with minimal impact on the environment.

We don’t need to be told to take care of the land for our children and grandchildren because we learned that from our own parents and grandparents. It is our generational commitment to Sustainable, American and Friendly to the Environment.

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.

Here’s the precision workshops agenda (pdf):

7:00 AM – 8:30 AM REGISTRATION & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM LUNCH

I liked the American flag touch. It was waving in the nice breeze we had all day. There were also field demonstrations with corn, soybeans, hay and peanuts.

If you’d like to see photos from the Sunbelt Ag Expo, I’ve got them in a Sunbelt Ag Expo Photo Album.

This morning I spoke with Annette Bitto, Cotton Marketing Product Manager. She has been out in the field with growers demonstrating the new cotton picker. In fact, she says that one grower told her that when she took it back he felt like a kid who had his toy taken away. Of course the machines are fully precision ready from the factory and allow producers to gather all the information they need to more effectively manage their farm.

“Without ever stopping the machine during picking, the operator can then carry the module to the end of the field to be transported later to the gin. This efficient, non-stop harvesting system eliminates unloading into a boll buggy and processing in a module builder. Ultimately, the producer saves time, fuel and manpower when harvesting and processing the cotton.”

Listen to my interview with Annette here: sunbelt-08-deere-bitto.mp3

“Research shows that growers are gaining back their investment in precision ag technology faster than we thought – often in just one to three years,” says K. Elliott Nowels, director of the PrecisionAg Institute. “And they are saving from $15 to $39 per acre by using inputs more efficiently with precision ag tools, depending on crop and region of the country.”

• The top benefits growers listed from their use of precision ag technology were 1.) the ability to apply chemicals and fertilizer where needed, 2.) greater profitability due to lower input costs, and 3.) identification of poor producing areas of their fields.

PrecisionAg.com reports that the data from this research was gathered from in-depth written responses and telephone follow-up interviews with corn, soybean and cotton growers.

Click here to view the entire article.

There are a number of reasons for this increase. First, changes in farming practices requires more precision and repeatability, such as the use of subsurface irrigation and strip-till. Guidance products with high levels of accuracy such as real-time kinematic (RTK) with sub-inch repeatability provide the accuracy needed for repeat passes over the same guidance line. Second, rising input costs encourage the use of products that reduce overlap. AutoTrac (automatic steering) reduces pass-to-pass overlap which on average reduces input cost by 5-10%, and GS2 Rate Controller and Swath Control (automatic boom section control capability) products reduce inputs applied to previously covered acres. On average this is an additional 3% reduction in seed and pesticide costs. Third, the growers are looking for increased efficiency of products applied based on site-specific information. Variable rate applications are being utilized to vary seeding, defoliant, growth regulator, and fertilizer rates.

The report also suggests that a growing shortage of labor has influenced growers to look to precision as an alternate means of improving productivity with less man power. PrecisonAg.com says growers are most interested in John Deere‘s ITEC Pro – or Intelligent Total Equipment Control.

Patrick says that cotton growers have been some of the earliest adopters of precision farming technology but that there may be some not familiar with products like Harvest Doc Cotton.

With the Harvest Doc Cotton system, cotton producers will be able to document and map their cotton yields with the GreenStar™ system and their John Deere 9986 and 9996 cotton pickers. The Harvest Doc Cotton system enables producers to generate detailed cotton yield maps to help them make better and more informed management decisions.

Patrick suggests that growers make sure they visit StellarSupport.com for all the information they need.

You can listen to my interview with Patrick Sikora here: Patrick Sikora Interview (3 min mp3)

You can also watch the interview if you’d like as well:

He says that the equipment is meant to simplify a producer’s operation and that he’s heard very positive and good interest from growers who are looking at it. From a precision standpoint he says that the base unit comes Harvest Doc ready. Flood says that cotton producers have been some of the earliest adopters of precision technology.

You can listen to my interview with Jamie Flood here: Jamie Flood Interview (3 min mp3)

You can also watch the interview if you’d like as well: