The survey, conducted this year by marketing consultant Dr. Linda D. Whipker and Purdue’s Dr. Bruce Erickson, was first conducted 16 years ago, when precision technologies were just entering the market. “After 16 years, the biggest change that has occurred is that many of these methods of serving the agricultural community and growing crops have become so common place that they aren’t thought of as unique any more,” they report. “However, the rapid improvements in technologies and how they’re implemented into everyday business continues to grow.”

CropLife’s Paul Schrimpf came up with 10 key trends from the latest survey, including that precision technology is becoming mainstream. “A curious “trend” expressed in the survey results was that the number of retailers offering precision agriculture “services” appears to be dropping in key categories, including georeferenced soil sampling and fieldmapping with GIS. Certainly, retailers may be outsourcing these services to other entities, or some growers might be doing some of this work on their own. But we also feel that it’s just as likely an indication that these services have become so integrated into full-service retailers that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to separate it out as an a la carte service. Precision services are packaged up into a larger, more holistic offering.”

Read more here and here.

Agricultural engineers and USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Clay Center, Neb., map the distribution of manure on the surface of feedlots and the flow of liquid manure in rain runoff.

This research could lead to both precision harvesting of manure and also precision application of manure to crop fields, while controlling nutrient losses, gas emissions, and odors.

The scientists map manure distribution by slowly towing a GPS-equipped conductivity meter over feedlot pens and cropland. The meter estimates the amount and quality of manure in various places on the feedlot surface by measuring the manure’s ability to conduct electricity. Manure contains salt from feed supplements. Salt, in solution, is an excellent conductor of electricity.

Click here to read more.

Photo: Agricultural engineers Roger Eigenberg (left) and Bryan Woodbury evaluate a soil electrical conductivity map of a vegetative treatment area. Photo by Stephen Ausmus.

“As complex environmental issues – like the growing world population, limits to world food supply, shrinking natural resources, and the need to develop green technologies – become increasingly urgent, the new Ag-Tech Center along with North Carolina’s commitment to education, innovation and agribusiness will ensure that our state plays a vital role in tackling those challenges,” said Governor Bev Perdue, in making the announcement at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

The Alexandria Ag-Tech Center will feature cutting-edge individual greenhouse modules and support areas along with innovative shared amenities. Each greenhouse will have separate environmental controls, planting and support spaces.

Somehow Multi-Rotor Remote Sensing System (MRRSS) just doesn’t have quite the same ring as Superman, but these tiny remote-controlled, camera-equipped drones could give some farmers super powers to see their crops from a bird’s eye view. University researchers from Arkansas, Florida and Ohio are currently studying the applications of the system which consists of a six- to eight-rotor, remotely controlled helicopter that provides a stable platform for the off-the-shelf digital camera that sends back video and stills to the ground crew. The system includes image recognition software that can teach itself to recognize individual trees or plants and count them. With different sensors, the machine could potentially detect disease, irrigation or fertilizer issues, predict crop yields and more.

The idea for the system came from Reza Ehsani, Assistant Professor and Precision Agriculture Specialist with the University of Florida’s Citrus Research and Education Center. It’s powered by a lithium ion polymer battery and a basic unit costs from $7,000 to $10,000. Ehsani says it would be a great tool for citrus growers to use to combat citrus greening.

Arkansas researchers are interested in how the system could help row crop farmers and the project in that state is being funded partially by the state soybean board. In Oregon, nurseries and tree farms have the most interest.

AquaLiv scientists have been performing agriculture enhancement studies in Japan for over ten years. AgSmart™ has proven to vastly increase the yields and quality in several crops without chemicals or genetic manipulation. The company claims AgSmart™ is the only agriculture biotechnology solution that is also natural and organic standards compliant.

“Our rice study demonstrated a 100% yield increase on a scientist managed plot and a 32% yield increase on a working commercial farm who agreed to implement our technology,” stated AquaLiv CEOCraig Hoffman. “These increases indicate significant value to both farms and global food production.”

Based on AquaLiv’s BioT™ Bioinformation Technology, AgSmart™ maximizes crop potential by accelerating plants’ natural adaptivity while exposing them to a frequency-based information composite. The information composite includes local environment data (climate, pests, diseases) and traits of other species generally only available through hybridization. AgSmart™ does not involve the actual hybridization of plants nor does it utilize genetic manipulation.

Wheat farmers in eastern Oregon and Washington who use no-till production systems can substantially stem soil erosion and enhance efforts to protect water quality, according to research by USDA scientists. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) hydrologist John Williams led a study that compared runoff, soil erosion and crop yields in a conventional, intensively tilled winter wheat-fallow system and a no-till 4-year cropping rotation system. ARS is USDA’s chief intramural scientific research agency, and this research supports the USDA mission of promoting sustainable agriculture.

No-till production left the soil surface intact and protected pore space beneath the soil surface, which allowed more water to infiltrate into the subsoil. In addition, there was no significant yield difference between the no-till and conventional till production, and direct seeding in no-till production saved fuel and time.
Read more about this research in the March 2011 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

The implementation of BiOWiSH-Hydroponic into the fertility program at Chesapeake Greenhouse reduced the required time to produce a market crop by over 10% from 37 days to 33 days.

Click here to read the full BiOWiSH Chesapeake Greenhouse case study.

Research agronomist at MU’s Greenley Research Center in northeast Missouri Kelly Nelson says that ag operations in the U.S. create 58 percent of the world’s nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes 300 times more to global warming than carbon dioxide. His work is focusing on the placement and source of fertilizers to reduce that nitrous oxide number.

“The fertilizer placement for a no-till system would be, for dry fertilizers, would be broadcast applied over the soil surface. We thought with a strip-till system we can till a small area, usually about 12 inches wide, usually less than 30 percent of the field, and maintain good soil cover, and apply that fertilizer in a band right under the plant so it has easy access to the fertilizer.”

He says using an enhanced-efficiency polymer coated urea and non-coated urea, they were able to test in a clay pan soil, where there is very poor internal drainage and fertilizer loss can be substantial.

“We saw that over the entire growing season, we were emitting about 2.4 to 3.8 percent of the nitrogen applied as nitrous oxide.” Nelson says that while it doesn’t seem like a big number, it shows how much greenhouse gas can be emitted into the atmosphere. Plus, he says this system was able to increase yields. “We were seeing that our strip-till system was increasing yields by about 50 bushels to the acre (in corn), compared to our no-till system.” And it reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 25 percent, compared to no-till systems.

Nelson admits that they didn’t compare the amount of emissions for running the extra equipment in the strip-till versus no-till operation, but that would be a comparison of CO2 emissions, and as stated earlier, much less impactful when you are considering greenhouse gases. Plus, the increased yields should help make up any differences by increasing the amount of carbon sequestration going on in the higher yielding strip-till operations.

He credits new, advanced precision agriculture equipment and practices for even making this kind of work possible.

“Getting the right product at the right time in the right place, that’s what we’re working toward. Precision ag is moving us in that direction.”

Listen to my interview with Kelly here: Kelly Nelson, MU research agronomist

FS Green Plan Solutions is holding an informational conference this week in Peoria designed to help farmers pursue the maximum yields possible on their operations to continue to provide food, fiber and fuels for a growing world population.

Among the presentations, Dr. Mike Boehlje of Purdue University will discuss the factors driving world economics, and how they affect American agriculture. Dr. Fred Below and Dr. Vince Davis of the University of Illinois will talk about the ‘formulas’ for reaching unprecedented corn yield levels and recent research in maximizing soybean production. Agricultural attorney Gary Baise will review how modern agriculture plays in both the environmental and political landscapes, and discuss the efforts of agriculture industry advocates in informing and educating the American public on the value of optimizing and sustaining food production. A panel of industry experts will discuss how technology tools are supporting maximum yield potentials and GROWMARK Agronomy Services Manager Dr. Howard Brown will present the findings of field trials conducted by individual farmers in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin in their pursuit of maximum yields.

Precision Pays will be at the conference doing interviews with key presenters about this vitally important issue of increasing yields to share with our readers in the coming days. You will definitely want to stay tuned!

The Nebraska Agricultural Technologies Association (NeATA), founded in 2001 by innovative Nebraska farmers, ranchers, agribusiness representatives and the University of Nebraska Extension, has compiled another great conference.

Need a technology makeover? How about using Nitrogen more wisely? Do you want to learn how to tell your story and share your values with consumers? How about learning a better way to select crop genetics? Check out the upcoming program, and book your trip now.

For Facebook users, find NeATA here and add them as a favorite.

“We’re working on a system that uses wireless sensing in rice production,” said Dr. Lee Tarpley, AgriLife Research plant physiologist in Beaumont. “We’d like to be able to continuously monitor field conditions such as temperature and soil moisture, and using sensors allows us to do that. We can put them in the field and collect the data from them inside on our computer.”

Other researchers have devised a wireless system that can pinpoint the location on the farm where each module of cotton grew so a farmer can use the information to figure out why fiber quality differed on various acres. “We wanted to take that data and map it back to the field the cotton was grown in,” said Dr. Alex Thomasson, AgriLife Research agricultural engineer. “That enabled us to look at areas of a given field where cotton of different quality comes from. The ultimate goal was to produce profit maps that show how much money is being made or lost on each portion of a field.”

Read the whole article from Texas AgriLife Research here and watch the video below.

To that end, I spoke today with John McGuire, owner and tech guru of Simplified Technology Services in Montpelier, Oh., who is helping growers in northwest Ohio figure out their fields with the help of powerful Ag Leader SMS Advanced software. McGuire works with growers on ways to optimize yield data collection, build management zones, conduct field research and help turn all that data into profitable management decisions.

“The first issue we help growers with is obtaining quality yield data with tools I developed to make yield monitor calibration easier. Once we have the data, then we sit down with growers and review each field with a LCD projector on a white board so the farmer can circle suspect areas of fields,” McGuire says.

He then takes all that information to set up management zones based on patterns they see in the fields then develop soil sampling plans from that. And as farmers obtain more data—such as Veris soil electrical conductivity, elevation data, planting data, product application data—he relies on the computing and analysis power of SMS Advanced software to layer all this data with yield and management zones.

“SMS allows us to look at many different comparisons, even point-by-point in a field, in order to look at many ‘what if’ scenarios to help figure out different approaches to try to solve problems areas of fields,” McGuire says. “And no matter what type of precision farming equipment a farmer uses, we can handle many data formats with SMS.”

Once farmers get comfortable with understanding what the software and data comparisons can do, then some will take it a step further and want to build strip trials into fields in order to make better management decisions. “We have a handful of growers who are conducting strip trials to compare hybrids and varieties, fungicides, seed treatments, nitrogen, P & K, seed populations and more. And as we add these data layers of results, the analysis tools in SMS Advanced really help growers make management decisions that save money and add profits,” he says.

“I’ve been working with SMS for almost ten years. I’m impressed with how much time Ag Leader spends polishing and continuing to tweak this already powerful software, constantly listening to users and providing superior analysis tools. It doesn’t get any better than SMS, as far as I can tell,” McGuire adds.

When not immersed in dealing with data, McGuire also works as a sales and service guy for Nester Ag Management, a precision agriculture equipment sales company.

Visit these links for more information.

SMS Advanced http://www.agleader.com/products/sms-advanced/

SMS Basic http://www.agleader.com/products/sms-basic/

Nester Ag http://www.nesterag.com/

Previous story on SMS and in-field scouting
http://precisionpays.com/2010/06/how-software-helps-in-season-scouting-and-management-zones/

While yield monitors or maps can provide beneficial data to make informed farm management decisions, one must ensure they are properly implementing yield monitors so the correct decisions are made. Yield monitors are excellent tools to conduct field-scale research and spatially document yield differences across fields. Yield maps can identify issues within fields where low yields exist, support the implementation of site-specific management, and make comparisons between varieties, seed treatments, and new management practices.  However, data needs to be collected over whole fields or several fields in order to obtain a sufficient amount of yield data to make the right decision(s) for your farm.

Caution is extended for those using yield monitors to harvest variety trials or plot-scale studies. While this data can provide useful information and support plot-scale work,yield monitors are not a replacement for weigh wagons which should be used to obtain and compute yields for making comparisons in plots. Variety trials and plot studies are generally too small (100, 300 or even up to 900-ft long) in order for yield monitors to accurately measure the accumulated yield over 1 or 2 passes.  The potential errors of yield monitors in these small areas are too high.  Therefore, a measured +/- 5 bushel difference might not really exist between treatments being compared.  While proper calibration is always recommended for yield monitors and the calibration process indicates only a few percent error, the error in yield data generated will be higher for plot size studies and can actually be in the range of 10% to 20%.  For field-scale yield data, these errors will be “averaged” out and the mean yield for a treatment (e.g. variety) can be accurate (1% to 5% error depending upon operating conditions).

As an example, lets say a yield monitor has an actual error of 5%.  If yields are running around 150 bu/ac for the plots, then a 7.5 bu/ac error exists,  Therefore, greater than a 7.5 bu/ac difference must be measured before a variance can be concluded between treatments.  Further, if the actual error is 10% or 20%, then a 15 and 30 bu/ac difference, respectively must exist before any substantial conclusions can be drawn saying one treatment is better than the other.  In any of these cases, one cannot say that one treatment is better than the other if only a 3 or 5 bu/ac difference was measured; a weigh wagon would be required to indicate whether such a few bushel difference.

Remember, while yield monitors can provide useful information for small-scale studies, they are not a replacement for weigh wagons.  Solely relying on yield monitors for providing the necessary performance data at this scale, can lead to incorrectly analyzed yield differences and ultimately the wrong conclusion or management decisions being made. Yield monitors are excellent tools to support management decisions but must be used properly.

The campaign, which began May 1 and was completed on July 31, produced an abundance of imagery with many areas covered multiple times. Not only the United States was covered; 97% of Mexico was collected and almost 60% of Canada. Many areas were imaged more than once over this three month span and totaled 17 Million square kilometers of North America. All of this imagery is currently available for purchase in the RapidEye Library.

The company also has released a success story with the French precision farming company S2Bvisio about how RapidEye has delivered nitrogen fertilization maps for canola and wheat fields for the customer. You will find details about this project at http://www.rapideye.de/upload/documents/References/Customer_Reference_S2B_08_06_2009_ENG.pdf.

RapidEye images the Earth in unparalleled quantities and will continue to make its satellite imagery available through its Library, which can be searched either through a local distributor or directly through its Customer Service department. To find a distributor visit the RapidEye website at www.rapideye.de/distributors. Additionally, a selection of RapidEye products can be searched for, purchased and immediately downloaded through the RapidEye Geodata Kiosk at www.geodatakiosk.com.

According to a report in Science Business, one of the projects that has won funding in this first tranche of grants, entitled ‘Automating weed mapping in arable fields for precision farming’ involves four companies, Masstock Arable UK Ltd, Knight Farm Machinery Ltd, Patchwork Technology Ltd, Syngenta Crop Protection UK, working with Reading University.

The aim is to develop a global positioning system-linked computer-controlled digital camera system that can be mounted on farm machinery, such as tractors, sprayers or combine harvesters, to map and geo-reference weeds such as black-grass, which occur in patches in arable crops.  A machine vision system using digital cameras will be linked to image analysis software, to identify the weeds present and estimate their densities.

Benefits of the system include reducing the cost of weed control to the farmer, cutting herbicide use and the early detection of herbicide resistance.

Taking into account contributions from the companies that are taking part, the total value of the R&D is in excess of £25 million.  The thirty two consortia will bring together over 100 companies, research establishments and other organisations.

Technology Strategy Board Chief Executive Iain Gray said the grants are the first made under the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Innovation Platform, which aims to bring government, business and researchers together to stimulate the development of new technologies that will increase food productivity, while decreasing the environmental impact of the food and farming industries.

The Sustainable Agriculture & Food Innovation Platform will invest up to £90 million over the next five years in projects and initiatives across the agri-food sector, focusing on areas such as crop productivity, sustainable livestock production and the reduction of food chain waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

You can learn about site specific hardware, history of GPS, GPS system choices, accuracy of GPS, LIDAR technology and drainage, satellite imagery, precision ag adoption in ND, and much more.

Check it out!!

Team members will present on various topics including Profitability of RTK and Its Influence on Peanut Production, Adoption and Use of Precision Agriculture Technologies and Proper Implementation of Precision Agricultural Technologies for Conducting On-farm Research. In addition the Alabama Precision Agriculture Program will sponsor an exhibit at the conference featuring current projects and outreach efforts of the program.

For further information on presentations provided by team members click on the individual titles below. Visit the Alabama Precision Ag Website at www.AlabamaPrecisionAgOnline.com for current precision ag information and updates.

A Case Study for Variable-Rate Seeding of Corn and Cotton in the Tennessee Valley of Alabama

Adoption and Use of Precision Agriculture Technologies by Practitioners

Application Rate Stability When Implementing Automatic Section Control Technology on Agricultural Sprayers

Determination of Crop Injury From Aerial Application of Glyphosate Using Vegetation Indices and Geostatistics

Economic Analysis of Auto-Swath Control for Alabama Crop Production

Precision Agriculture Education: Using Social Media

Profitability of RTK and Its Influence on Peanut Production

Proper Implementation of Precision Agricultural Technologies for Conducting Field-Scale Research

Tip Flow Uniformity When Using Different Automatic Section Control Technologies During Field Operations

Variable Rate Application of Nematicides on Cotton Fields: A Promising Site-Specific Management Strategy

Workshop Goal: Present and discuss SSM concepts and applied research in order to provide the audience with a comprehensive understanding of how to identify and manage within-field variability to improve crop management.

Target Audience: Soils and crop management professionals, including UCCE Farm Advisors and Specialists, Pest Control Advisors, Certified Crop Advisers, Growers and others having an interest in improving their knowledge of SSM techniques.

Session I (8:30 AM to Noon) - Theory of SSM: Overview of concepts and techniques used to identify and manage within-field variability, Jose P. Molin, Biosystems Engineering, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Integrating geospatial technology with agronomic practices, GPS/GIS overview, methods for detecting soil and crop variability, use of sensors and yield monitors, creation of maps and variable rate input recommendations.

Noon to 1:00 PM – Lunch break

Session II (1:00 to 5:00 PM) - Applied research findings and examples illustrating the practical benefits of this technology

• Use of Precision Agriculture in the West - Rob Mikkelsen, Director, Western North America IPNI

• Site-specific methods for reclaiming salt-affected soil using electrical conductivity; and Use of Remote sensing on cotton fields for irrigation management, planning defoliation and its relationship with cotton growth and yield. Richard E. Plant, Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis

• Site-specific nutrient management in California orchards – identifying almond yield and fertility variability and its implication on fertility management. Patrick Brown, Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis

3:00 to 3:15 PM – Break

• Site-specific herbicide applications based on weed maps provide effective control. Tom Lanini, Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis

• Site-specific management at Bowles Farming Company – Cannon Michael, Vice President Bowles Farming Company

• Knowledge Acquired, Intelligence Applied: Tomorrow’s Technology for Today’s Crops – Jason Ellsworth, Regional Technology Specialist, Wilbur-Ellis Company

5:00 PM – Adjourn

Please contact Andre Biscaro for details: asbiscaro@ucdavis.edu  (661) 974-8825

Click here to register: http://ucanr.org/sites/paica/Registration/

Click here for flier: http://ucanr.org/sites/paica/files/13632.pdf

ARS researchers have developed a way to make more precise agricultural maps of fields from data generated by LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors to help farmers target more of their resources to the highest-yielding parts of their fields. Graphic courtesy of James M. McKinion, ARS.

Using an airplane with LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors is helping USDA-ARS researchers build better management zone maps that can accurately predict yields based on topography.

With the maps fed into computerized, variable-rate fertilizer applicators, precision farmers can divert more of their costly fertilizer to the highest-yielding zones and the least to the lowest-yielding zones. They can also use the zone maps to make other decisions, such as planting more drought-tolerant varieties in low-yield zones, or sowing less seed.

Five years of comparisons between these maps and actual “on-the-go” yield monitoring for cotton and corn on a farm in Mississippi showed that accurate yield predictions can be made based on topography.

Researchers contracted to have a plane with LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors fly over the 1,000 rolling acres of the farm. LIDAR is a form of radar that can map elevations digitally, showing slopes and sun exposures, by bouncing laser light off the landscape.

By blending yield results with the maps, the scientists divided fields into high-, medium-, and low-yield zones.

One advantage of LIDAR landscape mapping is that it only has to be done once.

LIDAR topographic mapping is spreading from state to state. Louisiana, for example, has financed LIDAR mapping of the entire state.

Otherwise, it is expensive for an individual farmer to pay for LIDAR mapping. So, McKinion is also looking for alternative topographic mapping techniques.

James McKinion, an electronics engineer at the ARS Genetics and Precision Agriculture Research Unit at Mississippi State, Miss., did the study with entomologist Jeff Willers and geneticist Johnie Jenkins at the ARS unit in Mississippi. This research was published in Computers and Electronics in Agriculture.

ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This research supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security.

Recent blog posts talk about variable rate (VR) seeding, VR calibration, data management, data collection with cellular modems, the value of on-the-go nitrogen sensors, firmware upgrades and much more.

The blog site also categorizes posts into topics to help you sort for exactly the info you seek.

Many agronomists and producers conduct experiments that test the impact of rates of fertilizer, population, or pesticide on yield. To analyze this data we need to conduct a yield response analysis. Agronomists and or producers that understand yield response and how to use yield response to determine the point of optimum economic return will be able to make better management decisions. The point of optimum economic return is determined by:
1. Conducting a yield response experiment
2. Converting the yield response data to a functional relationship,
outputcorn yield = f(input the plant population)
3. Using calculus to determine where the change in the value of the input equals the change in the value of the output.
In site-specific farming, scientists have found that yield response relationships may change spatially and temporally.

To learn more, read the paper “Using Yield Response Analysis to Calculate an Optimum Plant Population“.

“EGNOS is already a success story in the agricultural sector,” said Aguilera. “It already has 50% market share, which is expected to reach 70% by 2010. The ultimate result will be increasing yields, conservation of resources and materials, and lower costs. The benefits are there, the EGNOS signal is already being exploited by farmers, and it is available free of charge.”

The Galileo Application Days ‘High Precision’ session highlighted a number of GNSS applications already being used in the agriculture sector.

Michael Quinckhardt of Claas Agrosystems outlined how his company is exploiting advanced GNSS-based applications. “Precision farming includes automatic steering for tractors and monitoring of all our machines,” he explained. “We can help farmers to know where their machines are and what they are doing at any given moment.”

Tracking and yield analysis can also help to optimise the use of fertilisers. “One can understand that different fields across a wide area will differ in terms of various qualities and in their abilities to support crops,” said Quinckhardt, “But the fact is there is a degree of variability in terms of soil quality even within a single field.”

By recording information from harvesters about what the soil is producing from one patch to the next within a field, and matching that information with precise GNSS-based location information, farmers can pinpoint very accurately where they need to apply more fertiliser and where they can save money by applying less.

Rob Kiernan of Leica Geosystems discussed the three phases of action in agriculture: planting, crop protection and harvest. “Maximising production in agriculture is all about doing the right thing at the right time in the right place,” he said. “Systems like Galileo and EGNOS tell us about place with a high degree of accuracy throughout the production cycle, and this is revolutionising the way we work.”

For more on this story…

The Iowa Soybean Association started this project nine years ago to study both the environmental and economic aspects of farming practices and to help growers find out what works best for them on their operation. Since that time they have expanded into nine other states. “We’re trying to say that growers can use a lot of the precision ag technologies to actually identify which products or practices are working better,” Tracy says. “In Iowa alone we had over 450 replicated trials.”

Listen to the podcast in the player below to find out more about the ISA On-Farm Network®. You can subscribe to the Precision Pays Podcast here.

For this edition of the Precision Pays Podcast, sponsored by Ag Leader Technology, we go to the Precision Agriculture Research Group (PARG) at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia where they are working on Ultra Low Level Airborne (ULLA) sensing. I spoke with group leader David Lamb about the system and its potential for helping growers who need timely aerial imaging information in challenging weather conditions and potentially saving them both time and money in the process.

Subscribe to the Precision Pays Podcast here.

Listen to or download the podcast here:

I hope you continue to find value in the information provided. And, as always, we appreciate any and all comments from our readers.

Enjoy. And have a fun, safe and happy New Year’s Eve tonight.

July
Planter and Sprayer Controls Make Precision Farming Pay
InfoAg Speaker Promotes Fertilizer BMP Needs
Virtual Weather Technology Helps Agronomic Decisions
InfoAg Talk: Soil Management Zones Increase N Efficiency
InfoAg Talk: Understanding Nutrient Variability

August
Precision Farmers Cut Pesticide Use With Seed
Add Precision Farming Promotion To Your Chore List
Yield Monitors: Extreme Value in Precision Farming

September
Precision Farming: How To Grow Your Technology
Free Satellite Images Help Spot Field Problems
Variable Rate Precision Farming – The Next Big Thing
Precision Farming And Water Quality Efforts

October
The Power Of Harvest Data
Researchers Using GPS To Cut Erosion With Waterways
Precision Soil Sampling Made Easier
Harvest Data That Keeps On Giving
Talk Precision Farming With Your Seed Dealer
Can Precision Farming Cure World Hunger
GPS Accuracy – How Accurate Is Accurate

November
Think About Saving Seed Input Dollars In 2010

December
Precision Farming Adoption And Payback
Precision Agriculture Starts At The Soil Level
Precision Farming 2009 – What We Learned
Technology Helps Farmers Plant And Fertilize More Precisely

“Automatic guidance gives producers precision farming capabilities throughout the growing season by allowing them to map tillage operations and crop planting, spraying and harvest, and can help tailor fertilizer and chemical applications to avoid waste,” said Tony Vyn.

The most precise form of automatic guidance, real time kinematic, or RTK, is especially helpful to guide planting in strip-till corn systems. RTK guidance can help achieve precisely parallel strip-till passes in the fall or spring. The same guidance system can ensure the corn planter is centered on the strip-tilled berms, even if the planter is wider than the strip-till unit itself, and even if the berm positions are difficult to see in spring. Planting in the center of the berms helps achieve higher yields, especially in high-residue situations like corn after corn, Vyn said.

“When we’re talking about preplant nitrogen application in the form of urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) in either no-till or strip-till systems, precision guidance allows producers to plant corn either directly on top of the fertilized bands of the soil or at a precise distance away to reduce the risk of corn or seedling injury when higher UAN rates are applied,” Vyn said. “When preplant UAN exceeds 50 pounds per acre, it is safer to plant corn at least 4 to 5 inches to the side. This is another area where automatic guidance gives an advantage because it offers precisely parallel planting abilities.”

But automatic guidance isn’t the only precision agriculture technology that can increase producer efficiency. Take, for example, yield monitors, automatic planter row shut-off and automatic sprayer boom control.

Data from yield monitors can prove a need for tiling and show how it will pay off in specific fields. Both automatic planter row shut-off and sprayer boom control prevent overlap, and thus help producers improve the bottom line by decreasing waste.

The most important aspects of the advanced guidance and other precision technologies are more than just cost alone.

“Sometimes with precision technology, the challenge is for farmers to stay sufficiently alert in the tractor or the combine,” Vyn said. “Although automatic guidance helps farmers to work longer days, and although the improved ability to monitor implement functions helps farmers make fewer mistakes, the guidance technology is no substitute for doing all field operations with sound agronomy.”

When choosing an automatic guidance system, or any other precision technologies, there are a few tips Vyn said producers should keep in mind:

* Assess the farming operation before investing in precision agriculture tools. Decide what level of precision is needed for each field operation, both within a season and from year to year, and what financial benefits the technologies will bring to a specific cropping system.

• Make sure the system purchased has upgrade capability, as new technologies continue to come into the market.
• Less expensive systems won’t save producers as much as the higher quality guidance and monitoring systems.
• Review the compatibility of the precision technologies with the current equipment and planned replacement equipment.
• Look for a dealer with experienced precision farming technicians who can assist with any questions or issues producers may have.

Pre-conference programs will focus on Optimizing Pivot Irrigation Management (9:00 to 4:00) and Social Media Applications in Agriculture (1:00 – 4:00) will be offered the afternoon of January 27.

The conference opens Wednesday evening with Dr. Raj Khoslo, Precision Agriculture Specialists, Colorado State University, discussing Precision Nutrient Management on Site-specific Management Zones, followed by Bill Kranz, Irrigation Specialist, University of Nebraska-Lincoln addressing Monitoring Irrigation Water Application with Computerized Controllers.

Thursday morning opens with international guest and precision agriculture expert, Sam Tengrove, Australian farmer, sharing Adoption of Precision Agriculture by Australian Grain Growers. Additional general sessions offered include Broadband: Who Needs It?, Mapping Evapotranspiration with High Resolution and Internalized Calibration (METRIC), and Global Perspectives of Site-specific Weed Management.

Twelve concurrent sessions addressing a variety of emerging agricultural technology topics will also be offered on Thursday. The concurrent sessions in the Ambassador room will be hands-on workshops. See the conference brochure.

Up to 8 CCA credits are available for conference participants with an additional 6 CCA credits available to those who attend the Optimizing Pivot Irrigation Management pre-conference workshop.

More information is available at http://neata.org.

“Access to new Case IH agriculture equipment will be a tremendous asset to Pioneer Farm – the precision farming solutions will greatly increase the productivity of our operations,” says Phil Wyse, director of Pioneer Farm. “But more so than that, this partnership advances the mission of Pioneer Farm – to enhance the agricultural education experience for students on campus and for agriculturists throughout the surrounding communities. That’s what we’re really excited about.”

Pioneer Farm, the university’s 430-acre working farm, boasts some of the best soil in southwest Wisconsin. The gently rolling fields, managed with conservation in mind, rotate between corn, oats and alfalfa, and those crops help support the farm’s dairy, beef and swine enterprises. A combination of new Case IH tractors, hay tools, skid steers, tillage implements, a planter and a combine, delivered in early 2010 and each year thereafter, will be used in the farm’s day-to-day operations. The equipment allows students and farm visitors to see the productivity-enhancing benefits of Case IH equipment in real-world applications.

“With the support of Ritchie’s and Case IH, the UWP Pioneer Farm is able to make use of cutting-edge farming technology,” Wyse adds. “We applaud Ritchie Implement and Case IH for this valuable partnership.”

“Students and university researchers will get to see, run, test and learn all about the newest innovations in production agriculture first-hand,” explains Ron Ritchie, president of Ritchie Implement Inc., a Case IH dealer with locations in Barneveld, Cobb and Darlington, Wis. “Our goal is not only to broaden ag students’ educational experience and better prepare them for their farming careers, but also to enhance educational opportunities for active producers locally, regionally and across the state. We’re excited to be part of that important effort.”

As part of the agreement, Case IH product specialists will be available to support classroom instruction and participate in student clinics and shared community activities such as University Field Days with hands-on field demonstrations.

Part of that effort is to monitor what’s said about your noble profession. To that end, check out this NY Times op-ed piece “Can Biotech Food Cure World Hunger?” It features a variety of opinions–from economists and activists to nutritionists, university and thinktank folks.

There’s good give and take in these messages, and excellent food for thought. And, if you want to have Google help you track down such stories and send them to your email, it’s real easy to do. Sign up for a Google email account (Gmail) if you don’t have one, then visit Google Alerts and type in numerous words (such as agriculture, farming, farms, GMO, livestock, food, biotech, corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, USDA, etc.) that Google will find in stories, then email those story links to you.

Tom Mueller, associate professor in the University of Kentucky (UK), College of Agriculture, guided Adam Pike, UK graduate student, on a project that examined whether reliable prediction models could be created to identify eroded waterways from digital terrain information such as landscape curvature and estimates of water flow from upslope areas.

“The terrain attributes were calculated from elevation data obtained with survey-grade GPS measurements collected on a farm in the Outer Bluegrass Region of Kentucky,” Mueller explains.

Results from the study are published in the September-October issue of Agronomy Journal. This work supported by a special grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The authors developed equations that accurately identified the potential locations of erosion-prone areas. They found that simple regression methods could be used to fit these equations as well as more complex non-linear neural-network procedures. The equations were used to map areas in fields where erosion was predicted. These areas corresponded very well with actual field observations of erosion. This work was confirmed with a leave-one-field-out validation procedure.

Research showed these maps could help conservation planners and farmers identify where erosion from concentrated flow is likely to occur, but not necessarily the exact shapes of these features. Field site-assessments would still likely be required for verification and to accurately delineate the boundaries of erosion-prone areas.

Mueller stated, “while this study is promising, more work is needed to determine whether these techniques can also be used with USGS digital elevation grids and from elevation data obtained with light detecting and ranging (LIDAR) data. Further, we need to evaluate whether models can be developed to predict across larger geographic areas.”

Mueller is conducting follow-up research to evaluate quality of erosion predictions created with 10-m USGS data sets and evaluating the performance of these models on fields in western Kentucky. He hopes to present the results of some of this work at the 2009 Annual American Society of Agronomy Meetings.

http://agron.scijournals.org/content/vol101/issue5/#SOIL_QUALITY__FERTILITY