Precision Pays

Just when hay bales thought they could remain anonymous forever, along comes New Holland to give them a personality–or at least a brand! CropID, an individual bale identification system for large square bales, uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in the twine to track bale atributes.

This innovation enables commercial growers to uniquely tag and sort bales based on a wide range of criteria, so that shipments or storage can be arranged according to the hay types that best meet the clients’ needs. Identifying quality, moisture content, or other characteristics of specific bales is now a simple process, allowing growers to easily decide which bales are the best match for specific customers, or need to be set aside for further curing.

“The wealth of data provided by the CropID system offers a vast array of benefits that have a great value to both the farmer selling the bale and the customer purchasing it,” said Michael Cornman, New Holland Dairy & Livestock Marketing Segment Leader. “The system provides accurate documentation of bales for resale, the exact weight of bales for loading and shipping purposes, the ability to monitor and manage inventory via computer, and it provides customized records for customers.”

In addition to helping growers keep shipments and stacks consistent, the CropID system also has several other uses, such as tracking the amount of hay on hand from each field and cutting.

The CropID system works by encasing a microchip and its antenna in a tag that’s wrapped around the twine as the bale is tied. A precision information processor stores the bale’s information, which includes the bale number, the field number or name, the date and time it was baled, the high and average moisture content, the amount of preservative applied, if any, and the bale weight.

CropID bale tags can then be read by a hand-held scanner that shows information on a screen when held within five feet of a tag. The scanner can also be docked on a loader with the screen visible to the operator. The loader-mounted scanner has additional antennae and reads tags on up to three bales at a time at a distance of up to 10 feet without actually seeing the tag. The scanner creates lists of bales made in each field, and a removable USB memory device can be used to download the lists to a computer.

For hay producers, the verifiable records provided by the CropID system provide paybacks including increased customer satisfaction and the potential for higher sale prices. New Holland continues to work on further enhancements for the system.

To help reduce excessive nitrates from manure, Penn State research is focused on reducing manure nitrogen by 30-50% and phosphorus by 40-60% by precision feeding dairy cattle. 

The Chesapeake Bay Commission has determined that, by far, the most cost-effective way to minimize the environmental impact of the large volumes of manure generated within the estuary’s watershed is by adjusting feed formulation for poultry and livestock, says Virginia Ishler, nutrient-management extension specialist in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

“Until recently, the focus has been on dealing with manure and its nutrients post-excretion,” she said. “However, now we are focusing on research and on nutrition programs to better balance nitrogen and phosphorus being fed to dairy cows. The feeding management — or how the ration is implemented and presented to the cows — can greatly affect nutrient levels and utilization. But that is just one component.”

The other component of the new enlightened management approach, Ishler explained, is utilizing as much home-grown feed as possible, especially forages, to minimize nutrients being imported onto a farm.

With funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Ishler and research assistant Erica Cowan also are collaborating with the University of Maryland on a project in the Monocacy Creek watershed. In the Pennsylvania portion of the watershed, in Adams County, a Penn State team is monitoring dairy farms to determine the correlation between precision feeding and financial health.

“Every three months, ration information is collected, and total mixed ration and feed/forage samples are analyzed,” said Ishler. “We are also testing milk and monitoring urea nitrogen. Reports are sent back to the producer and their nutritionist after every sampling period to show where the herd is in relation to nitrogen and phosphorus goals.”

In southwestern Pennsylvania, Ishler and Indiana County extension educator Eugene Schurman are working with 12 dairy producers and their nutritionists, collecting nutrition and feed-management information every other month. This project is funded by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, a USDA competitive grants program supporting agriculture that is profitable, environmentally sound and good for communities.

Taking 200 grass measurements per second, the Rapid Pasture Meter from C-Dax Systems in New Zealand helps dairy and intensive grazing operations ensure optimum grazing conditions.

The concept came from the New Zealand Center for Precision Agriculture at Massey University, which continues to provide input into the ongoing development of the technology. Farmworks develops the accompanying PDA and desktop software.

The Rapid Pasture Meter allows you to accurately measure grazing residuals (pre & post grazing) for easy identification of poor performing areas of pasture, or palatability issues.

The speed and ease of use of this pasture management tool means that it can even be used to determine the optimum position of electric fences when break feeding to provide optimum feed every time.

The Pasture Meter has been designed to encourage the measurement of pasture residuals which is seen as important to ensure maximum utilisation from your pasture. Much of the guarding around the unit is designed to keep the sensors clean while measuring heavily soiled paddocks.

Initially two versions are available;

Tier1 – is a read only system that produces pasture cover averages for you to record as you complete each paddock. The system is bundled with P-Plus PastureCover software.

Tier 2 – is enabled with Bluetooth™ wireless and allows you to collect data from multiple paddocks which can be downloaded to your computer, so there is no need to carry a pen and pad with you.

Check out C-Dax Pasturemeter brochure with testimonials from users.

One of the ways dairy farmers are using precision agriculture is in the area of forage production. It allows them to measure the moisture in it very precisely?

John Deere was on location at World Dairy Expo once again to showcase their HarvestLab Moisture Sensor.

I met and spoke with Luke Kerns. he says the unit uses a near infrared sensor that mounts on the spout of their forage harvester so it measures moisture as you’re chopping. He says that when it’s combined with other components on their machines you get data that lets you map your fields to variably apply manure or other nutrients to your fields to increase yields and forage quality. He says it also provides documentation for CAFO plans.

You can listen to my interview with Luke here:

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You don’t usually think of precision agriculture when it comes to the dairy industry. However, I heard it this morning in a press conference for GEA Farm Technologies at the World Dairy Expo. So I asked their CEO and President, Vern Foster, what he meant by it. Basically, he says that agriculture is changing and even in a dairy there’s a growing need for owner/operators to get online and see what’s happening in a milking parlor when they’re not there and to do more precise measuring.

You can listen to his answer here:

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I was attending their press conference because the company we’ve known as WestfaliaSurge is now part of a new brand, GEA Farm Technologies. As Foster explains, “It’s to pull all of the organizations that are part of GEA Farm Technologies, Houle, Norbco, WestfaliaSurge, pull it under a common brand so it makes sense for the marketplace, makes sense for our investors, makes sense for our customers and our dealer distribution.” The GEA stands for Global Engineering Alliance, a 5.3 billion Euro company that operates in 50 countries. Vern says, “It helps us really re-focus under one umbrella as we continue to grow and create additional organizations and innovate into the field of agriculture.”

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This week a couple of your Precision Pays editors will be attending the World Dairy Expo in Madison, WI. We’re hoping to learn a little bit about the application of precision agriculture in the dairy industry.

In preparation I did a little looking around on Google and found out about a just-concluded (I assume) USDA Ag Research Service project titled, “Quantifying Environmental Benefits from Precision Agriculture.” This project has as its objectives:

(1) Develop new and innovative methodologies to quantify the environmental benefit derived from implementing existing best management practices or new precision agriculture best management practices for minimizing offsite impacts, such as trace gas production from crop and grazinglands, wind and water erosion, and water quality impacts. (2) Quantitatively evaluate the “greenness index” developed by DigitalGlobe as a rapid and accurate method to evaluate the forage productivity and crop yield, quality of the forage, and the emission of greenhouse gases, particularly methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide.

I’m not sure where that’s all going but they are studying precision agriculture specifically in forage production. It doesn’t look as if the final report is out since the project just ended but they do have annual reports available online.