Precision Pays

One of the slick features that New Holland includes on their latest line of CR combines is the IntelliView IV color touchscreen display that monitors all combine functions and allows you to see a wide variety of performance information at a glance from up to three camera inputs, with direct USB connectivity for data collection.

Agricultural journalists had the opportunity to learn more about New Holland combines and other equipment at a media event last week in the company’s home town of New Holland, PA.

You may not realize it, but New Holland is kind of a big deal in combines. “New Holland was the first company to launch a rotary combine in the market,” Combine Market Manager Nigel Mackenzie told us. “That was back in 1975 with the TR70. That combine was built and designed in Nebraska and the latest evolution, the CR models, are still built there.”

The CR Combine was actually voted “Machine of the Year” last year at Agritechnica. “A lot of new features introduced on the model year 12 machines, primarily driven by greater fuel efficiency and emissions regulations,” Nigel says. “It was really great to be recognized by a group of journalists in Agritechnica for what we’ve done.”

Nigel says New Holland has six rotary combine models and three conventional models – he tells us all about it in this interview – Nigel Mackenzie Interview

New Holland Media Event album

Watch New Holland’s John Elliott give a short overview of their combine offerings with a CR8080 as a backdrop.

During the 2012 Commodity Classic, BASF Crop Protection introduced the On Target Application Academy, a partnership with application technology specialist Dr. Bob Wolf, retired Professor Emeritus of Kansas State University, to help growers get the most out of their pesticides by using best application practices.

Dr. Wolf says the program focuses on research and education of applicators to “maximize control of weeds and minimize spray drift.”

One of the educational tools he uses is a spray table that is designed to allow applicators to actually see the differences between spray nozzles, the droplet size and drift produced. “I encourage them to put water in their sprayer on a day when they’re not busy, turn the sprayer on, get out and walk along and do some comparisons,” he said.

On Target Application Academies will be held throughout 2012 at industry and state events. Sessions will be about two hours long and cover a number of topics including best practices for self applications, nozzle selection, adjuvants, calibration, sprayer set up, equipment clean out, and more. More information on dates and locations will be available from BASF representatives and on the BASF website.

Listen to or download an interview with Bob Wolf here: Dr. Bob Wolf

Watch Dr. Wolf’s demonstration of the spray table during the BASF “Science Behind” event held in conjunction with Commodity Classic in Nashville:

2012 Commodity Classic Photo Album
2012 BASF Science Behind Photo Album

To integrate water management into its expanding precision farming portfolio, Ag Leader has acquired Soil-Max, manufacturer of the market-leading Gold Digger tile plow, and the assets of Gradient, Inc., a related company which revolutionized the control of tile plows with the Intellislope GPS-based control system. These products allow growers and tiling contractors to solve water management challenges very cost effectively by greatly reducing the technical knowledge, labor and time required to install tile.

The acquisition allows Ag Leader to establish a significant footprint into the fast-growing precision water management market, and will serve as a base for developing additional products for other water management tasks such as land leveling, waterway grading, ditching and levee building.

Soil-Max will operate as an independent subsidiary of Ag Leader under the Soil-Max name, continuing to manufacture Gold Digger tile plows from its current locations in Brazil, Ind. and Sioux Falls, S.D. It will maintain its current dealer distribution system – which will be enhanced by the addition of select Ag Leader dealers.

The Intellislope control system will be transitioned to operate on Ag Leader displays in 2012. Intellislope will continue to be available from Soil-Max on Gold Digger plows, and will be available from either Soil-Max or Ag Leader for use on other brands of tile plows.

Ag Leader’s market-leading SMS desktop software will be enhanced to include water management design and documentation functions.

Find out more about the acquisition in this video:

Become a fan of Ag Leader on Facebook today, and get the latest precision ag videos on the YouTube channel. For more information about Ag Leader products and services, or to visit the blog site, go to www.agleader.com.

No coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is complete without a video from the Championship Tractor Pull.

Officially introduced in 1969 during the 4th National Farm Machinery Show (NFMS), the Championship Tractor Pull has now been making champions for 44 years. More than 75,000 fans of the nation’s oldest indoor tractor pull pack Freedom Hall each year to experience five performances in four days.

To find out this year’s champions, check out all the results posted on the farmmachineryshow.org website.

2012 National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album

**UPDATED with audio and video from National Farm Machinery Show**

Ag Leader Technology is excited to announce the INTEGRA™ display will soon feature planter down force monitor and control capability, allowing the display to monitor and adjust down force based on field and soil conditions. Planting seed at the optimum row unit down force is an important factor in good crop germination, and ultimately, yield.

The heart of the system is a hydraulic down force actuator (as compared to other pneumatic airbag systems), engineered by Dawn Equipment. The actuator is the fastest on the market, allowing the INTEGRA display to make quick row unit down force adjustments.

Ag Leader was giving growers a preview of the new system at the National Farm Machinery Show this week, where we spoke with Russ Morman about when it will be available, how it works, and the benefits for growers. “The adjustments we’re going to be able to make to our down pressure will be a lot quicker than the other systems on the market and this being a metal system rather than an air bag it won’t have the risk of puncturing,” said Russ.

Listen to Russ explain the new system here: Interview with Russ Morman

Watch Russ do a little video demo at NFMS here:

2012 National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album

Read the rest of this post…

The Ag Leader Technology exhibit at the National Farm Machinery Show has been hopping this week. Among the attractions for farmers:

The coming-soon INTEGRA™ display with planter down force monitor and control capability (pictured here); the popular “best bang for your buck” VERSA display; SMS Mobile; and OptRx crop sensor

I took a little tour around the Ag Leader booth with Russ Morman to share with those who didn’t make it to the show this year – or if you need some additional motivation to make it to the show before the end at 6:00 pm on Saturday.

2012 National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album

GROWMARK gets my vote for the most creative holiday video greeting this season!

From all of us at GROWMARK –

Have a wonderful holiday season with family and friends!
We look forward to working with you in 2012!

On Thursday John Deere finished and revealed the sculpture for Project “Can Do” – which is being considered now for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records.

This farm scene with an S-Series combine harvesting a field of corn required approximately 323,000 cans of food to complete. The finalized sculpture is now on display at the John Deere Pavilion. When it is taken down, all those cans will be donated to charity.

Katie Dierker, Division Marketing Manager for the S-Series combines, says the right model S-Series combine can harvest enough wheat in a day to make 1 million loaves of bread, or it can go through the equivalent of 30 football fields of corn in an hour or 350 acres per day.

Learn more about the project in an interview with Katie here: Interview with Katie Dierker

Here’s a cool time lapse video of the sculpture being built.

John Deere is trying to build a combine out of cans.

We’re talking about 300,000 cans of food here to replicate a full-sized S-Series combine in a field. It would be a world record. Kind of like what America’s farmers do every year – set new records in feeding the world.

The John Deere Project ”CAN DO” combine sculpture and food donation program are designed to raise awareness of the essential role farmers and ranchers play in producing safe, healthy and abundant food for a growing world population, while supplying much needed food supplies to a local food bank during the holiday season. The more than 300,000 cans of food needed to complete the sculpture are donated by John Deere with delivery from Hy-Vee Food Stores. When completed, the sculpture will be 60 feet wide, 80 feet long and 16 feet tall and will weigh nearly 170 tons. The sculpture depicts John Deere’s new S-690 Combine, which is the world’s most powerful combine that can harvest more than 350 acres of grain a day.

Project “CAN DO” also gives consumers a chance to be a part of building the can sculpture by ‘virtually’ creating cans of food, explains Richard Williamson, art director for John Deere Ag and Turf. “Anyone interested in participating can go to the John Deere Facebook page www.facebook.com/johndeere to submit their name and a photograph, which will be wrapped around their virtual personalized food can as part of a virtual sculpture.”

Helping to design the combine sculpture is a team from the Chicago office of architectural firm, RTKL. John Deere employees and retirees will also volunteer to assist with the overall project. The combine can sculpture will be on display at the John Deere Pavilion in downtown Moline, Ill., from mid-November to mid-December. All the canned food will be donated to the River Bend Foodbank when the sculpture is dismantled.

Find out more from John Deere.

Learn how this project came to be in this video:

I had limited time to attend this year’s Sunbelt Ag Expo in Moultrie, GA this week and had hoped to get some interviews to share with you, including some field demonstration video. But the weather did not cooperate. Opening day was a rain out and yesterday morning was windy and misty. Maybe next year.

However, I was also there to work with New Holland since we’re assisting them with their Boomer 555 Contest. To enter, all you have to do is tell New Holland what you’d do with a new Boomer tractor. You can write an essay, upload a photo or share a link to a video entry like the one below with one of the Sunbelt attendees this year.

Meet Joe Capps from Opelika, Alabama. He told me what he would do with a new Boomer tractor. The contest runs through the end of November so it’s not too late to get your entry in.

2011 Sunbelt Ag Expo Photo Album

Here is an edited video of Max Armstrong presenting the new John Deere products at the 2011 Farm Progress Show. John Deere experts explain some of the features on the new S-Series combines and R-Series tractors.

2011 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

I did a post about the AgRobotics AutoProbe several years ago and this month I finally got to see it in action during the 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour on August 9 in northwest Ohio.

“It’s the first on-the-go soil sampling apparatus for agriculture,” Jeff Burton told me. “We’ve been developing it since 2002 and have been in the early commercialization of it in the Mississippi Delta and we’re in the process of taking it national.”

The AutoProbe collects a soil core every 17 feet traveling across a field and then transfers it up to the cab next to the operator. “It’s consistent, it’s repeatable, it’s faster than any other method on the market, with auto steer we can go back to the same place in a year or three years and see the difference,” Jeff says.

Listen to my interview with Jeff here: Jeff Burton with AgRobotics on CTIC Tour

Find out more about the AutoProbe on the AgRobotics website and watch it in action here:

CTIC 2011 Conservation in Action Tour Photos

John Deere unveiled a product that you couldn’t see on the show floor at this week’s product launch in Indianapolis, IN. It’s called Machine Sync. This new technology provides “timely, critical information on equipment location, operational status and automates equipment during harvest.”

“Having real-time data is critical for equipment operators during harvest,” says Holli Brokaw, AMS product manager for John Deere. “Our new Machine Sync and Machine Communication Radio provide the accurate, in-field information producers need to maximize efficiencies during the hectic harvest season.”

The radio, which is easy to set up and use, teams up with the Machine Sync activation and GreenStar™ 3 2630 Display and StarFire Receiver to create the in-field network to share logistics information.
Machine Sync is a John Deere exclusive system that takes harvest automation to the next level and the first application that uses the Machine Communication Radio hardware.

At this media day preview we got a field demonstration of how Machine Sync work from John Deere’s Bob Dyer. This was a simulated corn harvest demonstration where the combine and tractor/grain cart were “in sync.” I asked Bob to describe how the system works and you can also see the demonstration in the video.

You can listen to my interview with Bob here: Interview with Bob Dyer

2011 John Deere Product Launch Photo Album

One of the stops on the 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour in Ohio last week was the farm of Todd Hesterman in Napoleon, Ohio. Todd has employed continuous no-till on his 450 acre corn, soybean and wheat operation for 22 years and used yield mapping for more than 14 years and is a strong advocate for doing what he can to help water quality and “still stay in business.”

“Our water infiltration rates for heavy rains, we can definitely see an improvement in the quantity of rain water we can accept and not have standing water or running water off the service,” he said. “That’s the biggest improvement we see is soil health and soil quality.”

Listen to my interview with Todd here: Ohio No Till Farmer Todd Hesterman

To show the clear difference between tilled and no-till soil, USDA-NRCS Ohio state agronomist Mark Scarpitti did a little demonstration on Todd’s farm by dropping a chunk of soil that had been in no-till for several decades, compared to a similar chunk of tilled soil. You can see what happens in the video below.

CTIC 2011 Conservation in Action Tour Photos

The South Dakota Soybean Council has posted a video on YouTube of a TV segment by reporter Michelle Rook that aired recently on KELO-TV news. The spot briefly describes how farmers are using precision agriculture technology to be even better stewards of the environment. Great message for non-farmers to hear!