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.

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.

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.

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.