Precision Pays

While I was in the Ag Leader Technology booth at the Iowa Power Farming Show last week I spoke with Michael Vos, SMS Sales Manager. Our topic was using SMS software to create and move guidance lines for different types of precision farming equipment.

He says that growers ask a lot of questions about creating guidance lines in one display and moving them to another w/out having to recreate them. This can be a challenge in precision ag equipment that is all the same brand, or many different displays/brands. He says SMS has the ability to store these guidance lines and import them to many brands of precision farming equipment.

You can watch my interview with Michael or listen to it below:

Iowa Power Farming Show Photo Album

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Just in case you weren’t able to attend the Iowa Power Farming Show, here’s what you missed in the Ag Leader Technology booth. Jess Ahrens was my tour guide and walked me around the displays of the displays. Your next chance to catch up with Ag Leader Technology will be at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, KY. Cindy will be there providing coverage.

Iowa Power Farming Show Photo Album

Earlier this week Ag Leader Technology added the patent-pending SureVac electric row shutoff to their lineup of planter section shutoff devices. Since I was at the Iowa Power Farming Show I stopped in and learned all about it from Chad Huedepohl. You can watch the interview or just listen to it below. Here’s the details:

SureVac provides today’s precision farming operation with an easily- installed, zero-maintenance solution to reduce seed costs and increase yield potential.

SureVac is designed for John Deere Pro-SeriesTM XP row units, but is also compatible with any John Deere vacuum seed meter manufactured in the last 20 years. In addition to John Deere corn and soybean seed disks, SureVac supports the eSet® vacuum disk from Precision Planting.

Chad says SureVac is an electric row shutoff made to shut off the seed placement per row on a row by row basis. He says this benefits the farmer user by saving on seed and avoiding “doubles” such as on point rows.

Iowa Power Farming Show Photo Album

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There are booths on the floor of three different buildings at the Iowa Power Farming Show. They’re also in the hallways. I stopped at this one to learn about the Monsanto sponsored America’s Farmers Grow Communities Project. Lots of farmers were stopping by to sign up their favorite local charity. To tell us all about it I interviewed Gayla Daugherty, Monsanto Communications Manager.

She says it’s a new project for farmers to sign up a local non-profit of their choice to win via a random drawing. There are 179 counties involved in Iowa/Missouri/Arkansas and you can see them listed on the official rules page.

Plant $2,500 in your community and watch it grow.

Together we can grow rural America…one community at a time. Apply now.

You can listen to my interview with Gayla below.

Iowa Power Farming Show Photo Album

Thanks to Ag Leader Technology for sponsoring our coverage of the Iowa Power Farming Show.

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Ag Leader Technology has announced the Blue Delta Dealer Network. At the Iowa Power Farming Show I spoke with Mike Olson to learn more about it. He’s pictured working in the booth here at the show.

Basically, Ag Leader Technology has developed a new elite precision farming distribution network in an effort to bring more structure to a growing precision agriculture community.

The network is designed to help precision farming dealers become well-rounded precision farming experts, as well as help farmers locate and identify elite precision farming dealerships throughout North America.

“Our goal is to provide these dealers with a number of tools to help them better educate and sup- port their precision farming customers,” continues Olson. “We’ve learned that the more educated growers are about precision farming, the more they embrace it. We believe this will have a significant impact on the industry.”

You can listen to my interview with Mike below.

Iowa Power Farming Show Photo Album

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I’m attending my first ever Iowa Power Farming Show courtesy of our sponsor Ag Leader Technology. The first person I met this morning was show manager, Tom Junge. The show is conducted by the Iowa-Nebraska Equipment Dealers Association.

Tom says they represent about 400 dealers and have been doing the show for 55 years. They have a show in December in Nebraska now too. Here at the Iowa show they use 3 different buildings with 6 acres of exhibits. They’re hoping for another record attendance this year like they had last year. There’s a lot of precision technology on display here and Tom says it has become an integral part of farming and the show.

You can listen to my interview with Tom below. I also uploaded a short video clip from above the show floor with my iPhone so you can see what it’s like.

And of course I’ve got photos for you in the Iowa Power Farming Show Photo Album.

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