Precision ag uses technology to increase yields, reduce waste By Tricia Goecks Editor BELVIDERE – In the technology era, farmers have a new type of cloud. It is one that rains data. As area farmers attended the 2014 Northern Illinois Farmland Conference “Farming Yesterday and Farming Today” on July 12 at the Rehn Agricultural Museum in Belvidere, they learned about the benefits of technology in precision agriculture. Trent Sanderson from Sanderson Ag and Ed Mulholland from Linco Precision were among the presenters. They spoke of the evolution in technology and its impact on agriculture. “Technology has been evolving in everyday lives, going back to the invention of the wheel,” Sanderson said. “We are challenged to understand how to use it to the best of our ability to make agriculture more profitable.” Sanderson spoke of the reluctance of some dairy farmers in the 1950s to adopt the bulk tank in lieu of milk cans amid concerns of spoilage. While nearly 50% of today’s crop farmers have purchased precision farming tools, only half of them utilize those tools efficiently. ’I printed it up on a pretty color map. I see where my high performance areas are, where my low performance areas are . What do I do with it,’” Sanderson said of the response of some farmers to the technology reports. “A lot of guys get that map and have it stacked next to all of the years of yield data and never look at it again.” “Farmers today have a huge challenge to determine what to do with the data. We are challenged to understand how to use it to the best of our ability to make production agriculture more profitable.” “Precision agriculture is using the latest technology to provide sound agronomic recommendations in a timely fashion to maximize yield, manage inputs and preserve the environment to ensure that we have a sustainable way to continue to farm,” Mulholland explained. Mulholland explained the four R’s on which precision agriculture is based. “Right rate, right time, right resource and right place,” Mulholland said. “Precision agriculture is an information based management strategy. It has three goals: to increase profitability and sustainability of production; help producers minimize their impact on the environment; and use of technology changes the status of farming and agriculture from a labor intensive job to a profession.” Through the use of technology and tools, farmers are able to reduce waste and reduce overhead. The technology helps the farmers to analyze soil types and its behaviors, soil fertility, crop and yield history and determine seed placement. With GPS technology, self-steering equipment, soil analysis, and variable rate equipment, farmers can push soil types that can handle a higher return on investment and reduce the amount that is planted in other sections. “Precision farming is a concept that allows us to deal with field and field section variability. No two fields are the same. No two sections are the same,” Mulholland said. Sanderson praised farmers who have been responsible for the adoption and implementation of many improvements to the industry. He said that in 1900 a farmer toiled in the field for 440 hours to plant, and harvest a corn crop on a field. Today, it takes one person two hours to plant and harvest a corn crop on a field. And the yield per acre is higher. Despite the tremendous advances that has been made in farming, with the average age of a farmer at 57 years, many farmers struggle to adapt to and adopt computer technology. Sanderson likened it to the advances in cell phone technology and said “I just want to make a phone call.” Sanderson viewed the next generation of farmers who have grown up using computers and technology to be well poised to be able to fully utilize the precision technology tools and be able to perform the data analysis. Through precision agriculture tools and equipment, farmers are able to improve profitability by reducing the amount of overlapping in planting or fertilizer application, water usage, and labor hours. Sanderson uses E4 Crop Intelligence to upload data to an internet-based software program. “We can upload all of this information so we can understand it in a usable format,” Sanderson said. “When we put a corn crop in the ground today, it has the potential of 400 bushels per acre. Our national average is 160.” With the world’s population expected to increase to over 9 billion people by 2050, it puts an onus on farmers to find ways to increase production. “That is asking us to produce a lot of crops in a short amount of time, and we have to increase it exponentially.”
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 20:20:01 +0000
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