I read an interesting piece in Corn and Soybean Digest about precision technologies, and want to share some of the insights I gained there with you.

Illinois farmer Ken Greene switched to a strip-till system about ten years ago – but these days he’s focused more on the inside of his cab than on the equipment he’s pulling. He put in an Ag Leader Insight display and a Trimble real-time kinematic (RTK) autopilot in his two tractors, giving him precision guidance capabilities. He uses the Insight system to map his hybrid/variety planting, monitor his use of spray and harvest levels, and customize his fertilizer and herbicide/pesticide application levels.

When he plants in the spring, he uses his Insight in conjunction with a Rawson hydraulic drive to keep records of the seed varieties and population rates in his various feeds. While he plants, his nephew uses the other Insight to monitor pre-emerge herbicide application; the Insight automatically turns off boom sections as they reach field boundaries or already-sprayed areas, cutting the amount of herbicide he uses for the same acreage. The Insight monitors the condition of the spray and keeps track of his spray inventory; the mapping function tracks what he’s done and where he did it.

At harvest time, the Insight collects yield data so that Greene can have full information about how his various decisions played out when he makes next year’s seed and fertilizer choices. It’s a pretty remarkable unit!

What’s really interesting about the Insight (and similar models from other manufacturers) is that they allow farmers to conduct real-time experiments on their own land – picking and choosing varieties and hybrids and verifying with real data how the different choices worked out in the actual harvest. These on-farm trials are more useful to working farmers than theoretical work done at agronomy institutes; the farmer knows what he did and where, and the computerized unit keeps track of the details for him. Even differences of a few bushels per acre add up – small advantages lead to big differences.