Ag Leader announces New Features

Today Ag Leader released new firmware updates to both the Edge and Integra displays, offering some nice enhancements as well as a few new features.  I will highlight a few of them for you.

First up, is the much anticipated SmartPath guidance pattern.  This is a new "drive and guide" pattern, that finally allows us a good option for guidance in odd shaped fields, contours, and terraced fields.  I have plenty of all of them, so I spent some time this spring helping to test this awesome new pattern.  I have planted for four years with autosteer now, and I can finally say with a great amount of confidence that I could plant everything without needing markers on the planter.  Here is the official language from Ag Leader about their new pattern.

“No setup is required; drive the first pass and SmartPath will guide you from there. SmartPath combines straight AB guidance lines with curves, allowing users to simply drive their guidance pattern,” says Product Manager, Matt Leinen. “This is particularly beneficial in odd-shaped or terraced fields as well as fields without established guidance lines. Users will genuinely appreciate the ease-of-use this feature adds to Ag Leader guidance and steering products.”

I couldn't agree more!  Nice job on this one.  For those of you that have used a pattern similar to this with other systems, you probably understand the frustration of having the system incorrectly select the pass you wish to be on.  Ag Leader is handling this very well, and only in extremely rare or difficult situations did I even have to press a button to get the right pass selected.

This new pattern is available in both the Edge and Integra, by simply updating to the latest firmware.

The next big feature announced in my opinion is the Integra now has the ability to load variety maps for harvest.  This means that you can take as planted data from multiple monitors, or multiple types of monitors, and read it into SMS, then output an as planted map that can be loaded into one or several Integra displays.

This will really help out those with a mixed bag of precision ag equipment, as well as provide a way to mesh data from two or more planters into one display for harvest.

The last item wasn't really an announcement today, but rather a personal favorite of mine.  The Integra display got a facelift in how switch mapping is handled.  All of it is handled by a new graphically intuitive Switch Assignment screen.  BIG time saver to those who set up these systems!  It also finally becomes easy to understand what is assigned and where.

This is probably my favorite feature enhancement that made it in the Integra!

ASABE names Jacob Bolson as Newcomer Engineer of the Year

News Release


 The Iowa Section of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers has named its 2010 award winners. The awards were presented April 1 during the Section’s 2010 Spring Meeting, held at the Kinze Product Center in Williamsburg, Iowa.

Each year ASABE’s Iowa Section recognizes members that have made significant contributions to society and the profession. The three awards given are Newcomer Engineer of the Year, Young Engineer of the Year, and Engineer of the Year.

Jacob M. Bolson - Newcomer Engineer of the Year

Jacob M. Bolson is an application engineer for Hagie Manufacturing in Clarion, Iowa. An ASABE member since 2003, he was honored for his service to ASABE at both the national and section levels. Bolson has demonstrated his service to ASABE through participation and leadership on several national ASABE committees. He is currently the chair of the 2010 Agricultural Machinery Conference, taking place May 2-5, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Bolson has been actively involved in supporting preprofessional ASABE members by freely giving his time to advise and mentor capstone design students through the Iowa State Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department. Through his industry contacts, Bolson has facilitated significant equipment donations back to the Iowa State Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering department which have been used to enhance the overall education quality for current students.

WAAS Satellite to drift off orbit

The Federal Aviation Administration says one of the two Wide Area Augmentation System geosynchronous satellites will drift out of usable orbit within the next few weeks. Intelsat told the FAA earlier that it had lost control of the Galaxy 15 satellite (PRN 135), which hosts the WAAS SBAS transponder.


FAA officials say they are watching the satellite and predict its imminent failure. Once that happens, WAAS will be disrupted for users in northwest Alaska. The rest of the WAAS service area — the U.S., Canada and Mexico — will operate normally, but will be reduced to a single WAAS broadcasting satellite (PRN 138).