Precision Ag pays back faster than expected

Here is an interesting article put together by the precision ag institute...


Adopters Get Rapid Return on Precision Investment

A recent study conducted by independent research firm dmrkynetec demonstrates that precision agriculture adopters gaining a speedy return on their technology investment.
Higher crop input costs are accelerating the payback for precision agriculture technology and per acre savings on crop inputs have risen, according to dmrkynetec (formerly Doane Marketing Research). The project was conducted in partnership with the PrecisionAg Institute. “Research shows that growers are gaining back their investment in precision ag technology faster than we thought – often in just one to three years,” says K. Elliott Nowels, director of the PrecisionAg Institute. “And they are saving from $15 to $39 per acre by using inputs more efficiently with precision ag tools, depending on crop and region of the country.” Add in the stewardship element of precision agriculture – using inputs when and where they are needed -- and it’s a very compelling case for adoption. “There’s never been a better time to adopt this technology,” says Nowels. Additional results indicate the following: • Eighty-five percent (85%) of corn growers, 88 percent of cotton growers and 100 percent of soybean growers indicated their operation has been more profitable using precision ag technology. • The average input savings per acre for these precision ag users (inputs including seed, fertilizer, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and time/labor) $19 per acre for corn, $18.50/A. for beans and up to $39/A. for cotton. • Fertilizer cost-savings led the way, coming in at $4 to $13 per acre depending on crop. • The top benefits growers listed from their use of precision ag technology were 1.) the ability to apply chemicals and fertilizer where needed, 2.) greater profitability due to lower input costs, and 3.) identification of poor producing areas of their fields. The research was compiled earlier this year from in-depth written responses and telephone follow-up interviews with corn, soybean and cotton growers. A pre-selection survey was used to find growers who’ve used multiple tools – GPS, controller-driven application and yield monitors -- for at least three years. Nearly half of the 66 growers interviewed had been using some precision ag technology for at least six years. In order to get the most comprehensive information, growers agreeing to the study were asked to answer written questions, as well as participate in an in-depth phone interview. “Measuring the return on investment (ROI) for individual components of precision is difficult because the tools are part of an overall crop management system,” says Nowels. “This gives us deeper insight on the ROI from those with deeper experience with it. We wanted to find out what new adopters might expect from using this technology long-term.” This contrasts, Nowels says, with earlier research conducted by the Institute of hundreds of adopters and non-adopters to gain a broader view. “We can marry the hard and fast figures we are getting in this research with some of the practices that are being adopted out there and it really helps the whole thing make sense to growers,” says Paul Schrimpf, group editor of PrecisionAg.com, PrecisionAg Special Reports and the PrecisionAg Buyer’s Guide. “We’re currently at work to incorporate this data into a special insert inside our next edition of the Buyer’s Guide coming out next month.” “Certainly results from adopting this technology will vary from crop to crop and farm to farm, “ says Schrimpf, “but higher input costs have made growers hungry for ideas on cutting costs while growing yields. I think this research will help them see some new possibilities.”

Leap Seconds

Everyone has heard of Leap Year, where we have an extra day in the calendar to keep time in sync. Did you know there are also leap seconds that are introduced at half year intervals? Leap seconds are introduced to correct time according to the earth's rotation, which is not exact from year to year, and has been on an ever so slightly slowing trend for a while.

Why is this important? GPS actually uses a very accurate time measurement that is embedded in the messages from the satelites to the receivers we use. This allows for many different things to happen, one of them being that you get a more accurate position because of the accurate time measurement from each satelite to the rover, and how long the message took to get from one to the other, therefore measuring distance.

The reason I bring this up now, is that the end of this month (December 2008) there will be a leap second added to the clock. In the past this has caused some difficulties with certain GPS units, as the time measurement didn't match what it was supposed to, and they required an update to correct the problem. I am not aware of any potential problems with GPS from this, as we just added a leap second in 2005 and that was when a few of these problems surfaced. Prior to 2005, there hadn't been a second added since 1998.

Trimble aquires Tru Count and Rawson Control systems

Over the past month, Trimble Navigation has aquired both Tru Count of Ames, IA, and Rawson Control Systems of Olewein, IA. Both of these companies will fall in the Ag Division of Trimble. This appears to be good for everyone involved from my standpoint, as both Tru Count and Rawson make very good products, but had limited budgets for expansion as they were small start up companies. Trimble has posed itself to offer a complete planter solution now, as they already have relationship with Dickey John for population monitoring. HTS is already a dealer for all three products, so our offerings won't change. My hopes on this is that the product becomes more available as Trimble can stock a bit more inventory as they have a bigger budget.
Tru Count news release can be found here: http://www.trimble.com/news/release.aspx?id=103108a

Rawson news release can be found here: http://www.trimble.com/news/release.aspx?id=120408a

Interesting article

I stumbled across this article and thought it was interesting...

Shuttle launch Will be Center Stage at UND open house Friday

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is scheduled to launch Space Shuttle Endeavour---STS-126---Friday at 6:55 p.m. Central Standard Time. The Shuttle will be carrying the UND-designed and -built Agricultural Camera (AgCam) for delivery to the International Space Station. AgCam is a high-tech specialty camera designed, built, and delivered to NASA by a team of UND students and faculty from several departments, including UMAC, Space Studies, and the School of Engineering and Mines. This is Shuttle mission number STS-126. This will be the third UND-connected space mission this year. (See AgCam background below. Web link: http://www.umac.org/agcam AgCam background and missionAgCam-designed and crafted to exacting NASA space flight standards by students from several UND departments, including space studies, engineering, and earth system science-will capture on-demand images of land and other topographic features across the upper Midwest. These images will be used as a decision support system resource by farmers, ranchers, tribal resource managers, and researchers. Among many other uses, AgCam multispectral images can be used to analyze crops, forest resources, and other plants. Educators also will have access to these images for in-classroom use as part of environmental, geography, and related curricula. The Agricultural Camera (AgCam) will take frequent images, in visible and infrared light, of vegetated areas on the Earth, principally of growing crops, rangeland, grasslands, forests, and wetlands in the northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States. Images will be delivered within two days directly to requesting farmers, ranchers, foresters, natural resource managers and tribal officials to help improve their environmental stewardship of the land for which they are responsible. Images will also be shared with educators for classroom use. The Agricultural Camera was built and will be operated primarily by UND students and faculty. AgCam has been in the making since 2001. When the multispectral camera is installed aboard the International Space Station, it will relay high resolution images of Earth in near-real time for use in agricultural and geological applications at the request of farmers, ranchers, foresters, natural resource managers, and tribal officials in the Upper Midwest Region. The student-run UND Science Operations Center (SOC) has been set up and will become operational in the coming months. From there, students will send commands to AgCam aboard the International Space Station to take photos and then process and deliver the images taken from space.
The AgCam system will be operated from the UND Science Operations Center (SOC) in Clifford Hall (part of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences complex).

Ag Leader Announces new Display

In case you haven't already heard, Ag Leader announced the Edge display, replacing the long running PF series monitors. This new monitor uses the same CAN BUS technology as the Insight, and even uses the same wiring harnesses to allow for these two to be interchangeable. The Edge is a smaller version of the Insight, with some limited functionality, but also at a lower price point, allowing for a lower initial investment and still offering the ability to upgrade without changing harnesses later if you desire.

This is a great point to enter the market for someone starting with nothing. Feel free to post comments or questions about this display - I would like to get a conversation started about it.

IaRTN Network Update

Below is an update from the Iowa DOT...

As of the end of October, 79 of the 80 continually operating reference stations have been installed. The last station will be located on the Iowa DOT's new maintenance facility in Fairfield. This facility is under construction and the reference station installation will occur once the building is finished. We expect the installation of this station will be completed in December of this year.

Presently, we are working on resolving network communications & software issues for a handful of the installed reference stations. Over the next couple months, we will be collecting GPS data from each of the reference stations, processing that data and refining the position of each station, and field testing of the network.

While these efforts are underway, we will also be working with our network vender to develop the online registration application, the procedures for use of the network, and the user training curriculum. We will update you on the IaRTN network registration process and the training plans as this information becomes available.

There is still much work to be completed which could affect the opening of the network
to the public. At this time, we anticipate the network will be available for use by the public on Monday, February 2, 2009.

We will keep you updated to any changes in the progress of the opening of the network.

Where did I plant that hybrid?

One of the pain areas that has come up during this harvest season is the moisture of the corn crop. A few of the hybrids out there have dried down pretty well, but the vast majority of the corn in the field is still pretty wet. If you have an Insight that you planted with in your combine, this process is extremely simple. The Insight has a feature that allows you to use Variety Tracking, and if using that, you can also opt to use automatic region changing. In other words, this system will automatically change regions ( or loads) on the display to show the information for each hybrid, including yield and moisture. You also would have a color background map to show where in the field you planted a specific hybrid or variety. This has helped out in my operation as i quickly knew which hybrid to put on the semi headed to town and which one needed to go in the bin for some drying. One more way technology has paid off by saving in drying costs at the elevator.

Harvest, Markets, and Rain

I heard a report yesterday from the USDA that soybean harvest was 67% complete, but corn harvest was well behind normal. To me, that means soybean harvest is also behind as there is still 1/3 of the crop to be harvested. Anyone that has looked out their window knows today that not many soybeans are getting harvested for the next several days. All this adds up to look somewhat bullish on the markets, but quite the opposite is happening today in Chicago. This doesn't make much sense to me, but that is why I am a technology expert and not a market expert. I attached another picture here of what the EZ Steer looks like while cutting soybeans. At least this gives a glimmer of drier days...


















On a side note, I got my weather station hooked up before the rain started, so anyone wanting to know the current weather conditions in Neola, IA can view my station here:
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KIANEOLA1

New way to cut beans

Here are some skipped passes using the EZ Steer on the combine.

Auto-Steer on a Combine?

Yes, I did it. I know this may sound a bit extreme, but I took the plunge and put an EZ Steer on my combine for cutting soybeans. I wasn't extremely happy with the results at first, but I also think my expectations are quite high after running an autopilot on my tractor for planting. Anyhow, I first ran the unit on WAAS, and although it did quite well, I wasn't quite satisfied with the performance, so I set up the unit for OmniSTAR XP. I was amazed with the unit after this! Don't get me wrong, the unit did work quite well on WAAS. It allowed me to pay closer attention to the crop as it was coming in the head, as well as keep a closer eye on the quality of grain sample in the tank and other functions of the machine. The problem is that my expectations were to keep the platform completely full and not miss a single stalk of beans, while running on contours and hills. I could get one or the other with WAAS, but was finally able to get both with OmniSTAR. This also increased the accuracy of my Autoswath on my Insight by having a more accurate GPS signal.
The one thing that sold me completely on the unit was the rounded off 90 degree corner I made with the combine the first pass through the field, it followed perfectly the second round when making end rows. Technology has come a long way!

Combines are rolling!

Well, here we are at the end of September and the combines are just getting rolling. What a strange year for weather! Since we are finally getting to the field, I thought I would take a moment to remind everyone of some tips and calibration hints to get the best data possible out of your yield monitor.

1. Make sure you have the right grain type set for the field you are harvesting. Over and over again I see people harvesting soybeans and their monitor is set to corn. This data can't be saved.
2. Check to see the monitor is giving you "believeable" readings. Things as simple as incorrect ground speed or too many or too few acres counting are signs of a real problem that needs fixed.
3. Calibrate in this order: Temperature, Moisture, Weight.
4. When calibrating moisture, make a new load and calibrate from a small load. This will allow for less averaging and get you better results.
5. Weight calibrations should not be done with truck loads of grain. Follow these rules: All loads should be around 3000 lbs, each load should be a consistant speed for the whole load, but each load should be a different speed (or flow rate). Run one load at the slowest speed your machine will ever run, then run one at the fastest speed that your machine will run. Finally stagger two more loads between these two extremes, and you will have your 4 calibration loads to get great results.
6. Calibrations need to be done for each grain type.
7. Calibrations should be completed each year, even if the monitor was accurate last year.

Follow these guidelines, and you will have one of the best calibrations you have ever seen on your monitor, not to mention avoid frustrations of finding out a problem after it is too late to correct.

SeedCommand payback increasing???

I just got back from a seed technology day, and heard rumblings of seed corn costing $300+ per bag for 2009. They had a good explaination for this, as the technology is becoming better and better, keeping us from needing to spray for certain insects, etc., but it made me think right away about how much additional money the SeedCommand system on my planter is going to save me next year! HTS now has over 150 planters running with this technology, and I have heard over and over again, 7% savings on average. I have heard the range from 5% to 15%.
That being said, lets do some math: Assuming a 2000 acre farmer plants half his acres to corn, that would be over $100,000 in seed just for the corn. That means that by saving 7% you would save $7,000 per year just on corn seed. This doesn't even count the increase in yield we have seen by not overplanting the end rows. To me, this is a no brainer. This is technology we can't afford to farm without.

Iowa RTN Network

From the Iowa DOT website...

"The Iowa Department of Transportation is in the process of implementing a statewide, high-precision gobal positioning system (GPS) referencing network. The goal is to provide a system that will improve the efficiency and accuracy for all GPS users and meet or exceed the Iowa DOT’s requirements relating to accuracy, precision, reliability, and scalability. Any authorized user, whether from the private or public sector, using a late-model, survey-grade, single - or dual-frequency rover equipped with a cellular modem or data-capable cell phone will receive near-instantaneous GPS satellite corrections anywhere in Iowa. "

What does this mean to the rest of us? Well, this network is supposed to be operational by December 1st and we really won't know a whole lot more until then. I will be one of the first to do testing on this network working with Trimble, so I should be able to get some good hands on information. This network isn't going to be broadcasting anything from the actual location, but rather the correction information will be put on an IP address on the internet, so we can use cell modems to get the information from the internet to the GPS receiver on our equipment. One other option is called rebroadcasting, which entails hooking a radio to the internet with a high speed connection and broadcasting this correction information to another radio hooked to the GPS receiver.

This has been a pretty hot topic of conversation, so feel free to post questions here as there are several others that may have the same questions, and I will do my best to answer them. Below is a picture of the intended locations for the network.

What did I plant there?

With our recent non stop supply of rain, I have spent quite a bit of time working with people on their data in SMS, as well as my own data.

For those of you that don't know, SMS stands for Spatial Management System and is the mapping software that is written by Ag Leader Technology.

The biggest misconception of this software package is that it can only be used to read data from Ag Leader monitors. The reality of it is that it can read nearly every file type in the industry. Probably something like 99% of the files available in precision ag can be read by SMS.

Anyhow, SMS is the software package that I am using for data analysis, and that is one of the things that is good to do on a rainy day like today.

In the data logged by our planters, I can see exactly where each hybrid was planted, the date it was planted, how many acres there are, when I started, and when I stopped. Most of you probably knew this.

Because we are running the population monitoring on our planters, I can also see the population of each field in this logged data. Now the question is what does it do for me?

The obvious things are being able to overlay yield data and see yield by hybrid, but since we also know the population, we can now take that into account. We also logged the speed of the planter, so we can compare yield by planting speed. That gets pretty interesting for guys that like to get in a hurry with their planters.

The bottom line is, there is endless opportunities to analyze the data that is logged, and it can provide insight to your farming operation when you do. Feel free to post questions you may have about ways to analyze data.

Technology Buzz

I just finished thumbing through the lastest issue of Successful Farming, and I was somewhat shocked at the number of articles this month about technology. Two different stories featured farmers talking about how technology has made an impact in their operations, (both of which are customers of HTS) as well as an article about the ISO standards, another quoting university of Purdue research about auto steer systems, etc. The list goes on and on.

It seems to me that technology is here to stay, and the ones running efficiently are utilizing technology everywhere they can. My job in this mix is to try and help people understand the technology they are investing in. There is nothing worse for me then talking to a customer that spent thousands of dollars on technology with someone else, only to find out it doesn't do what they thought it would, and they can't even upgrade it to something that will.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, or a crystal ball to see the future, but being focused on only precision ag it definitely helps me to keep people from making costly mistakes in technology purchases. Feel free to post comments to this post with questions you may have about technology. If I don't know the answer, I'll do my best to find someone that does!

Bonus for blog readers

I thought I would lay out a bonus for anyone that reads this blog and purchased equipment from HTS. Call or e-mail us and we will send out a technician to ride along with you while you are in the field to help you better understand your system. This will be first come first served, and will be at no charge! Any non warranty repairs made while the technician is onsite will be billable though.

Questions Please!!!

Thank you Steve, you led me right into the next post to this blog that I had in mind.

Steve posted comments about an eariler post I had made, and asked a question to me.

Please, use this as a way to ask questions or send me ideas of topics you would like discussed. Odds are if you have the question, so do several other people. I want to make this blog something interesting to you, instead of my random thoughts.

To answer your question Steve, I am all for saving on input costs and doing so using technology. As for specific agronomic advice, I am not the one to talk to. I'm not an agronomist, and won't claim to be one - I'm the technology guy.

Is this thing planting?

Over the past few weeks as the planters started rolling, I have had several questions about when the planter starts and stops using the autoswath control from Ag Leader, so I thought I would explain how to adjust this.

The Ag Leader Insight uses look ahead settings. This is simply a time measurement so that we can trigger an event and allow for the time it takes the machine to react. There are two different settings here - turn on look ahead and turn off look ahead. This is because it takes less time to turn the planter off than it does to turn it back on using the air clutches.

Here is the basics of it - we want the planter to start at point X, and we know that it mechanically takes about one second to turn on the planter for it to start planting, we need to send the signal one second before we get to point X. The same goes for turning off the planter.

These numbers on the Ag Leader system are set by default at 1.1 seconds for the turn on, and .4 seconds for the turn off. To adjust, move them only .1 seconds at a time, and make sure you dig to see where the seed is dropping. To make the planter start dropping seed sooner, increase the turn on look ahead. To make the planter stop dropping seed sooner, increase the turn off look ahead.

Strange Spring weather

Well, on this damp evening, I am wondering if it will ever dry up enough this spring to be able to put in a crop here in southwest Iowa. As it does nearly every year, the weather will eventually cooperate, we just have to have some patience.

Many people have been talking this spring about buying a second planter and hiring someone to run it. For some, this also entails a second tractor as well as several other things required to have a complete second rig running.

My thoughts are that with an autopilot on a tractor, it can run overnight just as effectively as it can in the daylight. So, money can be much better spent on technology when in a pinch instead of a second planter that you may not need for many years to come. The autopilot will increase efficiency in several ways, and it will also be a powerful tool that can be used for many other things in a farming operation.

How do I hook up my GPS???

I have heard this question quite a bit recently, so I thought I would make a post about it. To completely answer this question would be a very long post, so I will target specifically to those with Ag Leader equipment as that is the largest percentage of my readers according to my poll.

Ag Leader uses a non-standard 9 pin connection. This means that unless you get an Ag Leader GPS, you will need an adapter cable, or more commonly called a null modem cable (PN 2000819).
The reason for this is because Ag Leader powers their own GPS units through the same 9 pin connector, so to hook up another brand of GPS it would send 12 volts of power to the unit possibly causing damage to it.

So the bottom line is, if you are using an Ag Leader monitor and Ag Leader GPS that does not have a seperate power cable, no adapter cables should be necessary - they should plug right together. If you are using a lightbar (even the ones that Ag Leader sells) or third party GPS, these are already powered on their own and do not need power from the monitor. This is where you will use the null modem cable.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

In the middle of this rainy evening, I was reading the latest issue of Progressive Farmer and found an article to be quite interesting. It was titled "No Quick Fix to Fertilizer Prices".

I'm not going to get very deep into the article, as the title basically sums up the point I want to make.

As almost all input prices soar, we need to look to technology as a tool to help save some money. Automatic shutoffs have made a huge splash in the marketplace, from planters to sprayers to fertilizer applicators including NH3 and dry spreaders, not to mention strip till applications.

The concept here is simple - reduce overlap of product being applied by using GPS position to accurately turn on and shut off sections of large equipment instead of trying to do it all with one shutoff.

This alone can add up to huge savings. Hands down, this is the fastest return on investment most people have seen so far in precision ag. But why does it have to stop there?

Prior to this technology many people have used precision ag for variable rate fertilizer or lime, and in fields with changing landscape or soils this also adds up to big savings.

Here is something simple that many haven't thought of. For those of you spreading variable rate dry fertilizer, you can quickly squeeze a few more dollars out of each acre.

Often there is some nitrogen credit from the dry fertilizer being spread, and by using simple math we can cut back the amount of NH3 or other nitrogen source being applied by allowing for a credit in areas where higher rates of the dry fertilizer were spread.

I ran the numbers on this for a couple of fields, and this simple math averaged out to about $10 per acre saved in nitrogen. This only took a few minutes to create the prescription maps, and can be done with precision ag equipment that many already have.

Lets Get Started!

Let me start by telling you a bit about myself. I have worked in the precision ag industry for nearly 8 years now as a combination of a technical support technician for Ag Leader Technology, and also as a precision ag consultant for Heartland Technology Solutions, or HTS for short. That is where I currently work, in addition to farming with my uncle in southwest Iowa using a wide variety of precision ag equipment in our operation.

HTS is one of the largest Ag Leader Master Service Dealers in the United States, and we are also a Trimble reseller, and one of the largest Garmin distributers to the Ag industry. We also offer GPS solutions for nearly every type of combine sold in the US today.

So what is Precision Ag? That's a good question.
Wikipedia explains it as follows:

Precision farming or precision agriculture is an agricultural concept relying on the existence of in-field variability. It's about doing the right thing, in the right place, in the right way, at the right time. It requires the use of new technologies, such as global positioning (GPS), sensors, satellites or aerial images, and information management tools (GIS) to assess and understand variations. Collected information may be used to more precisely evaluate optimum sowing density, estimate fertilizers and other inputs needs, and to more accurately predict crop yields. It seeks to avoid applying inflexible practices to a crop, regardless of local soil/climate conditions, and may help to better assess local situations of disease or lodging.