Precision Pays

Alltech is looking for videos that tell the story of how game changing innovations are helping farmers feed the world.

The Kentucky-based animal health and nutrition company has announced the first ever “Farming Film Festival,” offering a $2,000 grand prize. Following the theme of the Alltech 27th Annual International Animal Health and Nutrition Symposium, The Game Changers, video submissions should focus on an idea or technology that helps farmers meet the tough challenges in their career.

“Emerging new media such as YouTube and other social media outlets have been game changers for many in the agriculture industry,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech. “Sharing these game changing stories with others ignites a new wave of hope and innovation, and that’s what we hope to do with the Farming Film Festival.”

The rules are pretty simple. The video may be up to 2 minutes in length (including credits), it must tell the story of a farmer’s game changer and it must include footage of the farmer on the farm. That’s all there is to it. First prize is $2000, second is $500 and third is $250. First and Second Place Winners will be chosen by an independent panel of science and agriculture journalists. Third Place Winner will be the finalist with the largest number of online votes.

Participants in the Farming Film Festival may enter by uploading their video to YouTube and emailing the link to contest@alltech.com. Winners will be chosen by a panel of science and agriculture journalists based on creativity, quality of video, story interest and number of views and will be awarded up to $2,000 cash. The deadline for submission is May 13.

For official rules and how to participate, visit www.alltech.com/farmingfilmfestival.

It’s “like candy for pullers.” That’s the Championship Tractor Pull taking place after the National Farm Machinery Show closes for the day. I know these tractors aren’t out in the field running precision hardware/software but thought you might enjoy seeing one of them in action.

I had to spend a little time seeing the big indoor show and have some photos uploaded for you.

This invitation-only event stars the nation’s best drivers and their ground-pounding machines – Pro Stocks, Super Stocks, Modified, and Alcohol Tractors as well as Two-Wheel and Four-Wheel Drive Trucks. The drivers compete in four exciting evening performances and an additional pull on Saturday afternoon. Drivers are not only gearing up for the unequaled thrill of winning at this nationally recognized pull, but also for the chance to bring home a share of more than $200,000 in prize money.

2011 National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album

Precision Pays coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by:

Need a camera on your combine, tractor, grain bin or just about anywhere else on the farm? Try AgCam by Dakota Micro. The photo shows just one of the many places (pdf) you can put these cameras.

Dakota Micro, Inc., manufacturers of the AgCam camera system, is proud to announce the arrival of our newest product line. The OverView camera system (pdf) is the final component that allows us to offer our customers a complete camera lineup.

As a small token of our appreciation of our American Service Men and Women who defend our freedom to be the best we can be every day of our lives, we have decided to donate a portion of profits from the OverView camera system to a program called AnySoldier. Please check out their website to see what it’s all about: www.anysoldier.com.

To see how tough these cameras are watch the video:

Ag Leader Technology officially released the North American Wheat algorithm for OptRx during the Iowa Power Farming Show in Des Moines, Iowa this week. OptRx is a crop sensor used for mapping, data collection and real-time variable rate nitrogen application.

To learn more about how OptRx worked, I spent some time with Mike Olson, North American Sales Manager for Ag Leader, during the show. He said releasing this crop sensor was the next logical step for them because there is a huge demand in both North America as well as globally for nitrogen for wheat.

Applying the right amount of nitrogen at the right time is very important for wheat so you don’t have issues like lodging, and you get better crop stand. “So if we can monitor crop health as you go through the field and apply nitrogen based on it, we can use nitrogen more wisely across the field and give you a better overall stand,” explained Olson.

Last year, Ag Leader released OptRx crop sensor for corn. Olson said that in the past two years, the Midwest has seen very wet springs and crop variability has been very, very high. This has caused a lot of nitrogen leeching. Growers who used OptRx last year, on average, saw a $25 per acre improvement over not having the crop sensor and using a flat rate application.

Since real-time variable rate nitrogen applications in the field, such as OptRx are pretty new technologies, I asked Olson what the three most common questions were from growers, He said, “What’s the technology? What equipment do I need? and What are the benefits?” You can get detailed answers to these questions in the video below.

The 2011 season is fast approaching so now is the time to purchase your technology. Olson said that both the OptRx crop sensor for wheat and corn are now available and the has team members standing by to give growers the 411 on the technologies. In addition, his team members can help them get set up and ready to go so when the window of opportunity is available to apply nitrogen, they’re ready to go.

For more information on OptRx for wheat and corn, visit www.agleader.com.

Miss the show? Check it out in our Iowa Power Farming Show flickr photo album.

Precision Pays coverage of the Iowa Power Farming Show is sponsored by: .

You think it would be hard to make a great thing better, but Ag Leader Technology has done just that. This week, during the Iowa Power Farming Show, they announced a new update to their SeedCommand system – Advanced Seed Monitoring. This new monitoring system was designed to help growers eliminate yield robbing planter problems by monitoring key factors including seed meter singulation, skips and/or doubles, spacing quality, and population information.

The new technology was on demonstration during the show, and Mark Anderson, Territory Manager for Ag Leader talked to me about the product. It was a little cold and the concrete was a little hard to do any corn planting during the show, but I was still able to get a virtual tour of how the Advanced Seed Monitoring tool worked.

The technology was designed specifically for corn farmers to use on Ag Leader’s INTEGRA displays and when integrated with SeedCommand, is another precision ag technology that will help farmers increase yields and increase profits.

Anderson mentioned some additional features along with the ones mentioned above. These include:

• Virtual Seed Trench for a seed-by-seed view to assist in diagnosing problematic rows.

• Automatically determines and displays the rows operating at the lowest and highest levels for singulation and population.

• The new Advanced Seed Monitoring incorporates seed meter and placement details into SeedCommand’s row shutoff and planter-drive modules on one, easy to read and navigate screen.

Anderson said that growers were already really excited about the product at the show and once the word gets out, he expects high demand for the product. So, to ensure that all their growers get the update in time for planting, he encouraged them to order their Advanced Seed Monitoring tool as soon as possible. You can do just that by giving them a call at 515- 232-5363 or visiting their website at www.agleader.com.

And before you’re ready to apply nitrogen this growing season, check out their OptRx technology. Growers who used the technology last growing season, on average, improved their bushel per acre costs of $25.

Miss the show? Check it out in our Iowa Power Farming Show flickr photo album.

Precision Pays coverage of the Iowa Power Farming Show is sponsored by: .

The Iowa Power Farming Show kicked off in Des Moines today and Ag Leader Technology launched some new precision ag products just in time to show them off for the thousands of growers on site. One new product is the updated Mesa Rugged Notepad with the SMS Mobile software package.

The Mesa Rugged Notepad is a handheld device that is larger than a PDA but smaller than a laptop and the perfect size for growers to take out to the field. And it’s durable – it can be rained on or dropped and it will stand up to the wear and tear. It also has a glare-proof screen so even on the sunniest of days, you’ll have no problem reading the screen.

The SMS Mobile software includes several key types of in-field information that can be collected and analyzed including Soil Sampling Mode, Crop Scouting Mode, Coverage Mode, Boundary Mode, and General Logging Mode.

I caught up with Michael Vos, Software Sales Manager for Ag Leader to learn more about the SMS Mobile technology that was launched and how it will improve a grower’s operations. Vos gave me a step-by-step tutorial on how one element, the Soil Sampling Mode, worked. You can watch here in this detailed video. Now don’t worry. Even if you’re new to GPS systems and the software, the Ag Leader team will get you set up, trained and started in no time.

SMS Mobile is available right now through the purchase of a Mesa Rugged Notepad kit or you can purchase the SMS mobile and install it on your own device. To learn more, contact Ag Leader or visit their website.

You can check out Ag Leader during the Iowa Power Farming Show in our flickr photo album.

Precision Pays coverage of the Iowa Power Farming Show is sponsored by: .

Strawberry harvesting is a one of the most labor-intensive agricultural operations since it generally has to be done by hand to do it right. The berries ripen at different rates and they are very fragile, so mechanization in the field has been very limited.

But, leave it to the Japanese to come up with a robot that might be able to do the job. Last week, the Japanese Agriculture and Food Research Organization debuted a strawberry picking robot that can move along a track in the strawberry, scan the strawberries for ripeness and carefully pluck them off the plants. The robot can reportedly pick a berry every nine seconds, almost twice as fast as human labor. The robot only picks those berries that are at last 80% red colored and can be customized for picking other types of fruits or even vegetables.

Still in the research phase and not ready for the commercial market yet, but you can see a demo here from YouTube.

Wireless on the farm can help produce better crops, net more money for growers and land a superior product in stores for consumers, according to studies by Texas AgriLife Research scientists.

“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.

Fascinating video of how one Sonoma County, California vineyard, Jordan Winery, is finding the best grape characteristics in various field locations, digging soil pits and analyzing soil attributes and characteristics in order to bring that location’s success to the whole field. Talk about precision agriculture!

Take a look.

And here’s a blog post about the soil mapping study.

“Precision Planting’s business is trying to make sure seeds get into the right space at the right distance and seeds only land where they need to land,” Precision Planting’s Jason Larkin explained to me during the Farm Progress Show. We use precision technology to know where the tractor is at and where the plant is at to control population, so we can increase or decrease populations based on soil types, continued Larkin.

In addition, they use swath control, or the ability to turn individual rows on and off using GPS so that a farmer who is planting corn doesn’t overlap. This helps to eliminate yield loss that comes from over planting as well as saves farmers on their seed costs.

In a corn husk, pardon my pun, Precision Planting uses variable rate technology to help farmers understand how to pick the right population for the area they’re in. And this is important. “For every percentage improvement we can give someone for accuracy, from 95 percent of the seeds placed correctly to 97 percent of the seeds placed correctly, that equals a $10 per bushel yield advantage.”

You can listen to my interview with John Larkin here. John Larking Talks Precision Planting

Farm Progress Photo Album

Big Bud is the world’s largest tractor so the Farm Progress Show is one of the best places to put this piece of history on display.

Big Bud is so big that I couldn’t fit the tractor in one picture. I mean Big Bud is BIG. It was built in 1977 in Montana by Ron Harmonn and his crew for a cotton farm in California. He is 27 feet long, 20 feet wide, 14 feet tall, and weighs 100,000 pounds.

Until this week, Big Bud has been on display in a farm museum in Dyersville, Iowa (the home of the famous ball field from Field of Dreams). He was moved to Boone, Iowa by Crop Production Services (Agrium), a company that provides agricultural inputs to farmers around the country.

Steve Sopher, an area agronomist with Agrium told me that they brought Big Bud in to give growers a walk down memory lane, and that he did. Between 15,000 – 20,000 people came to see Big Bud in person over the three days. It is estimated that nearly 100,000 people were at Farm Progress from around the world, so you can bet that most spent some time checking out Big Bud.

For those of you who missed out on this amazing piece of history, Sopher said that he will be back at the 2011 Farm Progress Show. You can also watch this video.

Farm Progress Photo Album

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

Ag Leader is known for their precision farming technologies and this year during the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, farmers were gathered around to check out their latest and greatest offerings. Ag Leader’s SMS Technologies are a big hit so I spent some time with Lucas James to learn more about how they worked.

James first walked me through their basic SMS desktop software which isn’t basic at all. The software allows a grower to house any information he has collected on the monitor or any prescriptions he has created in the past or any guidance lines he wants to import. Once a grower has all the info in the software he wants, he can then analyze the data, run reports and export it back out. For example, James said a grower can create prescription maps and these will tell the controller what to do.

From there, a grower can send information and record different field operations right into his hand held device. From there, the device can help a grower navigate to an area of his field he wants to take a closer look at. For example, he can check out a section of his field to conduct a soil sample. Once the grower has collected all the information in the hand held device, he can sync it back up with his SMS desktop software. This gives the grower a record of where it was taken.

While you don’t have to have both the SMS desktop software and the SMS mobile technology, they do work hand in hand to help a grower become more efficient and ultimately save time and money. Another benefit of the technologies is that they are nearly universal across all equipment systems.

I didn’t give the SMS technologies justice but James can and has on the product demonstration below. You can also visit www.agleader.com for more detailed information.

Farm Progress Photo Album

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

I’m here in Iowa at the Farm Progress Show. Although there are farmers from all over the world in attendance, farmers in Central Iowa have been struggling with excessive amounts of rain. This causes crops, such as corn, to lose nitrogen, which negatively impacts crop yield.

Nitrogen has also become more expensive over the past couple of years so more effective nitrogen programs are of great value to them. Enter the OptRx Crop Sensor by Ag Leader. This is variable rate technology that not only applies nitrogen, but adjusts the rate of application on the go. The sensor is able to determine if the soil needs more or less nitrogen and on the fly, makes appropriate adjustments.

Jessica Reis, with Ag Leader, explained that being able to adjust nitrogen offers a multitude of benefits but one of the most important of them is the ability to use appropriate amounts of nitrogen on each area of the field will improve yield and that means improved profit.

Check out our Farm Progress Photo AlbumFarm Progress Photo Album.

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

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