Precision Pays

Precision is the name of the game when it comes to farming these days. It’s getting hard to find a farmer anymore who doesn’t use auto steer at the very least – and the options to save resources, time and money just keep growing.

At the New Holland exhibit at Commodity Classic, I talked to Matt Ahrens about some of the products they offer for growers and a program they have that can help farmers see exactly how they can benefit from using different types of precision solutions on their own operations. “We have a website – PutYourFarmOnTheMap – and on that website we have a cost savings calculator and you can go in and put your input costs on their, how much fuel usage per acre depending on implement width, and you can see what kind of savings you can get,” Matt said. “The good thing with that is that it’s their numbers, their input costs, so they get to see what their savings are.”

Matt also demonstrates the new AgGPS® FM-1000™ integrated display working with the Trimble Field-IQ in the video below. You can find out more about New Holland’s product line-up and more on the website PutYourFarmOnTheMap.com.

Commodity Classic Photo Album

The opening of the trade show is the real “official” start to the Commodity Classic. The exhibit hall is filled with the latest and the greatest technology and machinery for growers of corn, soybeans, wheat and sorghum. According to the official attendance figures, there are 4175 attendees at Classic this year, 1338 of them are growers. This is the 15th annual Commodity Classic, which started as the combined meeting of the corn and soybean growers, but in recent years has grown to add wheat and sorghum grower organizations as well. It’s an event that can benefits a grower’s farm operation and profitability for years to come.

Take a look and a listen to the official kick off and ribbon cutting for the 2010 Commodity Classic, with coverage on Precision Pays sponsored by John Deere.

Commodity Classic Photo Album

I am attending Commodity Classic courtesy of John Deere. This is the combined meetings of the National Corn Growers Association, American Soybean Association, National Association of Wheat Growers and National Sorghum Producers.

John Deere took the opportunity to unveil a very unique tractor designed by Chip Foose. It’s a 1970 John Deere 4020. The tractor will be given away to one winner as part of the John Deere Big Buck Promotion. You may find rules to enter on the John Deere website.

The uniquely designed machine, which the Foose team has been working on since last November, will tour much of the country as part of the Drive Green Tractor Experience Tour immediately following the trade show.

Chip Foose adds, “I’ve looked at tractors for years and always thought they’re narrow, they look almost like a dry lakes car or even some of the old Indy cars, so that’s the direction I took; I wanted some of that racing feel to the tractor. And with the turf tires in the back and the three-ribbed tires in the front, it carries that theme all the way through from the tires to the sheet metal work to the paint job … but it’s still a John Deere.”

I interviewed Chip right after the unveiling. He talks about how he got into automobile design and this project in particular. You can listen to that interview below. I also shot the unveiling so you can watch it as well.

Commodity Classic Photo Album

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

One of the great things about the National Farm Machinery Show is the Championship Tractor Pull … the largest, oldest and most prestigious indoor tractor pull, according to Corinne Fetter, Director of Expositions for the Kentucky State Fair Board.

“This is the 42nd year for the tractor pull and the 45th year for the National Farm Machinery Show, and so the two have worked together for quite a while now. And we feel they complement each other rather well,” said Corinne during an interview on the last day of the event last weekend.

She says for the men and women who compete in the tractor pull that it is truly a labor of love, that takes a lot of time, effort and money to get the kind of performance and down-to-your-toes rumble and roar that these machines produce. But she also credits the crews who get the track ready to give the pullers a world class area to put their machines through their paces. And she says none of this would be possible without the fans. “For some of them, this is their vacation every year,” she says. “And I can tell you, there are plenty of red fans, and there are plenty of green fans.” And plenty who are just color blind!

Listen to ZimmComm reporter John Davis’ interview with Corinne in the audio player below and enjoy short video clip of a few of the pulls here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Ag Leader Technology was demonstrating how the OptRx™ Crop Sensor System works at the National Farm Machinery Show this week in Louisville.

The OptRx crop sensor system measures and records data about a crop in real-time using the reflectance of light shined on the growing crop. “The biggest use for this is for variable rate nitrogen application on the go,” Ag Leader’s Roger Zielke told me, which helps farmers put exactly the right amount of fertilizer in the right spot.

That helps growers get a good return on their investment. “We ran this in quite a few fields in 2008 and 2009 and we compared to their flat rate that they would have done and we saw a big yield increase from what the sensor prescribed compared to the farmer and that has ranged from $20 all the way up to $100 – the average is about $20-30 per acre,” Roger said. “This could turn out to be one of the higher return on investment products that we’ve ever had since nitrogen has such a huge effect on yield in corn and other grass-type crops.”

You can watch a video showing how the OptRx™ Crop Sensor System works here and listen or download just the audio portion below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The 2009 Sunbelt Ag Expo has concluded and it did include a number of exhibits from precision product companies. One of those, having the largest field demonstration wasTrimble. I stopped and spoke with Matt Hesse, Autopilot Sales Manager.

The company was showing various levels of precision integration. They had two different land leveling systems. One used a GPS control and one used a 2D laser system. They also had their new TrueGuide passive implement steering system in use. This system puts an antenna on the implement to tell the tractor where it is so the tractor knows how much to move in relation to the desired line to optimize the placement of the implement. They also had their TrueTracker System on multiple tractors and implements.

Matt says that they take applications that are not possible for human beings and put them into a machine to do it for us. This ultimately increases efficiencies that have produced up to 20 bushels per acre increases in corn.

Feel free to check out my photos from this year’s Sunbelt Ag Expo 2009 Photo Album. My visit to the show was made possible by Growth Energy.

While I was driving my golf cart through the Farm Progress Show last week I shot a short video clip so you can see what the crowd was like. You can also get a sense of how nice the weather was. If you’ve never been to a FPS then make plans ahead for next year in Iowa.

Farm Progress Show Photo Album

Precision Pays coverage of the Farm Progress Show is sponsored by: .

Precision agriculture got some high level exposure yesterday on CNN. The Twittering Farmer, Steve Tucker, Nebraska, was the subject of a story about farmers and technology, including communications technology like smart phones and services like Twitter. They they had him on live for a segment via Skype video from his farm! Steve’s got a lot more followers on Twitter than there are in his home town. You can also follow Steve on his blog.

Steve says that while he’s on his tractor he’s got GPS and Auto Steer to drive for him which allows him to text on his phone. Many of those texts become Twitter posts. BTW, one of the founders of Twitter comes from Nebraska.

I think you’ll enjoy the interview with Steve. He’s a great spokesperson for agriculture.

The blog Nebraska Corn Kernels highlighted a recent TV report on how a few farmers are using Twitter to benefit their operation and dispel agriculture myths among consumers. 

In a longer “extra” video segment (go here and click on “Farmer Brandon Hunnicutt on Twitter”), farmer Brandon Hunnicutt also talked with the reporter about how he uses social media to help educate and promote agriculture with those consumers who are anti-agriculture. And in a previous blog post, writer Mike Howie highlighted other farmers who tweet.

To learn more about Twitter and how to sign up, check out this story on CNET. And check out YouTube for “Twitter in Plain English” or “How To Use Twitter.”

With planting and spraying season top-o-mind right now, more and more growers are saving money with planter and boom control precision agriculture technology. For growers ready to move up to the next level of precision, check out Harrison Ag Technologies and their Smart Nozzle–which received a FinOvation award for 2009 from Farm Industry News magazine.

Using GPS technology for tracking purposes, the Smart Nozzle utilizes computer driven valves to control the flow of herbicides and pesticides when applied with a large agricultural spray vehicle. Once an operator “maps” a field – creating an outline of the area to be sprayed and also eliminating wash, hazard and wetland areas – the computer will then control the flow of each spray nozzle. The system will interrupt the chemical flow to those nozzles that are in recognized areas that are not intended to have chemical applied and it will also terminate the flow of nozzles that are in an overlap area or an area that has previously been sprayed. This system can also be used for the application of fertilizer with the same benefit of less product being needed. In addition, the Smart Nozzle can be employed in planting equipment and currently experimentation for variable rate nozzles is being developed.

The Smart Nozzle can be purchased as an add-on item to most large land based spray vehicles. A stand-alone system retails for $13,900.

In a presentation by the company at the Kansas Precision Agriculture Technologies conference, they state that the smart nozzle is reducing overspray by 10 to 15 percent. That could certainly help pay for a system in short order. Check out a YouTube video on the product.

A record number of growers are attending the biggest ever trade show at the 2009 Commodity Classic this week in Grapevine, Texas. No economic crisis here!

John Deere Ag Management Solutions representatives have stayed busy talking with growers interested in upgrading – or even just starting out – with precision technology that can help them save money on input costs and increase productivity. One way to do that is with APEX software which allows producers to visualize farming practices and productivity of past years and use that information to make important decisions for the next production year and beyond.

I did a little YouTube video with Sarah Davis of John Deere AMS explaining some of the ways the APEX software can help producers.

John Deere unveiled the largest planter in the industry at the 2009 National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville this week.

Rob Rippchen, division marketing manager at John Deere seed in Moline, IL says the DB120 “next generation” 120 foot planter is generating a lot of interest at the show. “There’s kind of a ‘wow’ factor,” said Rob. “It’s so wide it can’t even unfold all the way in our booth.” But he says the outer four row units fold over on each end so it is still the same transport width as the DB90 and just about six foot longer in transport length.

“Not only is the planter wide, it’s high-tech,” Rob explains. “You’ll notice that there are no markers on it, most growers are using auto-steer or auto-trac to guide their planters so that allowed us to eliminate the need for markers. But, in addition to that, Row Command – our individual row unit clutch on-off system – is standard on this planter. So, as you come to a point row or do an area of field that you’ve already planted, it shuts the row unit off so that you don’t over-populate in that area of the field.”

The planter will plant somewhere between 90 and 100 acres an hour. John Deere will have a limited number of the new planters running in the fields this spring and will start taking orders for the big boy this summer.

Listen to an interview with Rob here nfms09-jd-rob.mp3

Watch Rob explain some of the DB120 features here:

See more photos here: NFMS 09 Photo Album

Podcast: Play in new window | Download