“We need less feed intake, less manure, less emissions, because that is where the complaints are,” said Daniel Berckmans. “That means we must be more efficient in the core equation.”

That “core equation” is his way of adding up animal feed needs: base metabolism plus activity, plus thermal or environmental regulation, plus mental state, plus the production of meat, milk or eggs.

Berckmans is a biosystems researcher out of KU Leuven university in Belgium and the University of Tennessee. He was among the speakers at a July 10 forum on precision livestock farming at the University of Manitoba.

Energy used by the base metabolism — basic functions of life like keeping organs running — can be calculated through heart rate. Berckmans said there are at least six companies working on a commercially feasible way to measure that, and technology for horses is likely to debut this year.

Animal activity can be tracked through things like aggression monitoring. Berckmans cited his previous work on a seven-year project, which found that aggression in pigs could be detected by measuring the distance between the camera and the pig’s back, “because they jump up,” he said.

Research has also been done on the energy horses expend when frustrated versus when calm. Berckmans pointed to data outlining energy expended while a horse was running in a ring alongside energy expended by brain activity at the same time. The horse was shown a bucket of food. When the horse realized it wasn’t going to get the food, it became frustrated and began to expend more mental energy.

Infection and disease can also cut production and profit. Sensors can help localize infection in a barn, compartment or room, potentially reducing disease spread and antibiotic use. Berckmans noted technology that monitors and analyzes the sound of coughs in a facility.

“Precision livestock farming gives us the data,” he said.

It can then be used to measure how far an operation is from desired outputs and to design prediction-based controllers.

“That’s what we do for decades in airplanes, in making mechanical systems, electronic systems,” Berckmans said.

While there’s been lots of research into agricultural use of precision technology, very little has been implemented, he said.

The post Precision livestock farming could fine-tune feed efficiency ‘equation’ appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Most growers have now been accumulating data for 20 years or longer, and many have resolved to keep that data in the hopes of finding value from the gigabytes and terabytes of accumulated information in the form of increased on-farm efficiencies, cost reductions and improved yields.

But how should growers and agronomists interpret this data?

That’s the goal of a venture by agronomist Aaron Breimer.

With his new business, Moose-Ag, he aims to use his decade of experience working with growers in southwestern Ontario to help them interpret data and turn it into useful management directives.

Breimer recently provided answers to a few questions growers may have on the use and interpretation of data.

Q: If we accept that growers aren’t using their data to greatest advantage, what factors hold them back?

A: Time is always at a premium for farmers, be it trying to get the crop planted, chores completed, business planning or spending time with family. There are a lot of software platforms that farmers have access to that enable them to visualize and create insights from their data.

Generally, they’re called GIS or geographical information systems software and they allow GPS-generated data to be organized and overlaid. But as powerful as they are, in order to fully utilize them, users need to be interacting with them on a regular basis.

For some, they might only want to interact with their data two or three times a year, and it might take several hours to remember the nuances of each. When time’s at a premium, those hours aren’t always an option.

The end result is the more powerful aspects of these platforms are not engaged with or the software isn’t utilized after the first or second time.

Q: What about data interpretation and expertise?

A: The current business model for agricultural data is a software platform, built and sold to end users who pay to use it but are actually doing the work themselves.

Yes, there are some of the higher-end data interpretation tools in platforms that can be challenging, but there are lots of industry experts that can provide explanations.

In my opinion, those experts are also running into time constraints, like agronomists who are tasked with evaluating in-field challenges or supporting the agriculture industry in crop input sales. It’s like tax software: there are great accounting platforms on the market and for individuals who want to, they allow people to manage their finances and tax reporting responsibilities effectively.

But there are also plenty of bookkeepers and accountants utilizing those platforms for clients who choose not to do the work themselves.

Q: What about biases in data interpretation?

A: Every human being has biases, some of which are obvious, some less so, like a preferred brand of farm equipment. The same is true with data. Researchers have formal training in how to set up and conduct studies to minimize or eliminate biases (in the field).

But on-farm data interpretation can be more challenging. When a grower invests in seed or a fungicide, they want the data to prove them right. 

In my opinion, biases cannot be eliminated in farm-scale data. We can try to minimize them and acknowledge that some still exist.

Q: How does the uniqueness of an individual farm operation affect data interpretation?

A: That’s one of the coolest things about agriculture; that uniqueness that each farm operation contains, and the story that created it. It isn’t just biases that might suggest Variety A does better than Variety B for Farmer Smith while the exact opposite is true with Farmer Jones.

It could be soil type, soil fertility based on the previous rotation or the presence of livestock; it might be drainage, or patience on the part of either grower heading to the field at planting.

When a farmer walks onto a research site or sees data results and says, “these are interesting but this isn’t my farm,” we need to listen to that statement, because it’s true. If a farmer is saying that because they want to continue to farm based on their existing biases, that’s OK. It’s been working for them.

However if a farmer wants to work towards continual improvement of their operation, they might be asking for support on how to evaluate their existing system and how to adjust those based on their unique operation. But evaluating those tweaks has to make sense and be easy to implement.

This is a huge reason why I’m a proponent that every field can be a research site. It doesn’t have to include 50 trials with every field requiring cleaning out the planter each time.

But I do believe that if each field is treated as a unique data set and we overlay a systems approach, it might be incredible what we can learn or gain from that individual farm.

One of the things that makes the Yield Enhancement Network project successful is that farmers are getting the support to do these research initiatives, and we need more of those.

The post Dealing with your farm data appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Bayer on Oct. 30 announced integration of the two platforms, which it said will allow grain farmers in Canada and the U.S. to connect their marketing data in Combyne and the agronomic data FieldView gathers from their field equipment.

Seeded-acreage and yield data from FieldView can thus allow Combyne users to accurately track the total bushels available to market without needing to export, upload and enter data twice, Bayer said.

Once a farmer reviews the available FieldView data, using Combyne’s Import Review function, the harvested and projected-yield figures in Combyne will automatically update with the actual figures.

That in turn will make Combyne’s data on percentage sold and net marketed position more accurate, “using your real numbers off the combine instead of rough estimates,” according to Combyne’s website.

Incoming FieldView data will also allow a Combyne user to “know how much of your harvest is already committed and better manage your forward contracting.”

That means a “fuller and more accurate picture of current-year harvest totals and projections for future years to easily update crop contract and storage positions, and enable up-to-date crop marketing decisions,” Bayer said.

Combyne was released to the public in late 2021 by Ottawa Valley farmer Alain Goubau’s company Combyne Ag — previously known as the developer of the grain marketing tool FarmLead, which was sunset in 2020.

Combyne is meant to serve as a record-keeping and decision-making support tool, gathering information on grain storage balances, contracts, deliveries and settlements across multiple buyers — as well as net overall marketed positions per crop.

According to Bayer, which acquired Combyne Ag in January, the Combyne platform allows farmers to manage grain trade documents in one place for a clear view of contractual commitments, delivery status, storage positions and cash flow projections from grain sales, and thus better manage contract risk and delivery logistics.

“With accurate bushel quantities populating your marketed positions, you can better manage things like how forward contracted you are, how much of your harvest is already committed, and where things stand when it comes to your storage and deliveries,” Goubau, now CEO of Bayer’s Combyne Ag arm, said in Bayer’s Oct. 30 release.

“By working with FieldView, delivered grain outcomes in Combyne can eventually be connected back to the fields they originated from and the management choices made on those fields, for better mapping of quality specs such as grade and dockage from delivered loads,” he said.

That, in turn, allows for “field-level profitability insights — mapping actual revenue from sold crops against cost of production per field.”

Climate FieldView, which came to Bayer when it bought Monsanto in 2018, was launched in the U.S. in 2015 and in Canada late the following year.

It was developed by Climate Corp., a Monsanto arm since 2013, as a single platform to unite data from each piece of precision ag equipment, for access via smartphone, tablet or desktop. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Bayer’s crop marketing, crop production platforms in sync appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

From farmers’ perspective, the two companies say their combined technology offering is expected to offer “seamless integration and connectivity across geographies, equipment brands and the crop life cycle.”

The structure of the deal announced Thursday will see Trimble receive $2 billion cash and a 15 per cent share in the new joint venture, for total pre-tax value of about $3 billion accrued to that company (all figures US$).

Agco, whose machinery brands include Massey Ferguson, Fendt, Challenger and Valtra, contributes its JCA Technologies business to the new j.v. and will hold the 85 per cent majority stake in the venture.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2024, pending the usual approvals and other closing conditions.

The new j.v. won’t include Trimble’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) or guidance tech, but Trimble will provide those to the new venture under a new long-term supply agreement and technology transfer and license agreement — along with an agreement making the new venture a “channel partner” of Trimble’s positioning services in the ag market.

Winnipeg-based JCA, which Agco bought last year, makes systems and software including the Vireo precision ag system, the Eagle autonomous equipment system and the Falcon and Oriole controller systems.

JCA also developed the control system supporting the Canadian-made DOT autonomous ag equipment platform, now owned by Agco’s OEM rival CNH Industrial.

Trimble and Agco said the new venture is meant to “better serve farmers with factory-fit and aftermarket applications in the mixed fleet precision agriculture market” and to be “a global leader in mixed-fleet smart farming and autonomy solutions.”

The deal “accelerates Agco’s growth ambitions around autonomy, precision spraying, connected farming, data management and sustainability,” Agco CEO Eric Hansotia said in a release.

It also “significantly enhances Agco’s technology stack with disruptive technologies that cover every aspect of the crop cycle, which ultimately helps us better serve farmers no matter what brand they use,” he said.

“We believe a joint venture with Agco, complemented by the successful mixed fleet approach that they have developed with their Precision Planting business model, can help us better serve farmers and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) together,” Trimble CEO Rob Painter said.

From Trimble’s perspective, the deal streamlines its asset portfolio and allows it to increase its focus on “priority growth areas” — while reducing its direct exposure to the “hardware-centric” ag market but still maintaining its “ongoing participation in a leading precision ag asset.”

The “commercial synergies” the new joint venture will get from direct access to Agco’s OEM, aftermarket, other OEM and retrofit channels — along with “modest” run-rate cost synergies — are expected to roughly double the new venture’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by year five after the deal closes, Agco said.

GSI under review

In its release Thursday announcing the new joint venture, Agco also said it has placed its “grain and protein” business segment under “strategic review.”

That business segment includes Agco’s grain handling systems brand GSI, as well as grain processing equipment brand Cimbria and three livestock housing systems brands: Cumberland, AP and Tecno.

While Agco didn’t give any examples of the options it’s considering for those businesses, it said it will “assess all strategic options to ensure the Grain and Protein customers are serviced in the best way possible, and that the business is best positioned to maximize its full potential.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Trimble Ag, Agco’s JCA link up for new precision ag venture appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

It’s a simple example of the kind of employment gaps that keep farmers up at night, and that prevent their adoption of new technology, said the manager of an “upskilling” program that can potentially fill those gaps.

“About two years ago, the industry came to us to say ‘we can’t find the unique people that we need that understand technology and technology implementation but also understand agriculture and agri-food,” said Ednali Fertuck-Zehavi, manager of Palette Skill’s automation and digital agriculture specialist program.

Through the eight-week, 130-hour course, Palette Skills, the federally funded non-profit that has overseen the program for the past two years, hopes to train people to fill producers’ employment needs. Its latest intake occurred in August, but paletteskills.org has information on upcoming intakes.

Depending on the program for which they’re best suited, participants are trained by industry experts with hands-on, project-based learning in how emerging technologies apply to agriculture. Core areas include GIS (geographic information system), IoT (internet of things), drones, artificial intelligence, robotics and big data.

In the process, it seeks to develop a full suite of professional skills including project management, fundamentals of business development, problem-solving and team building. 

The program is looking for students who are unemployed or underemployed in a range of fields who may be able to bring their skills to the agriculture table. It’s open to post-secondary graduates with a minimum of three years’ work experience. The program’s ultimate goal is to match agri-food employers with the agriculturally and technically informed candidates they would consider hiring, said Fertuck-Zehavi.

“We see if we have someone in our talent pool and we match them.”

Palette Skills developed the program through consultation with agriculture-based academic institutions and a variety of agri-food employers. They found that academic excitement over a new innovation didn’t necessarily line up with the needs of farmers and ranchers.

Farmers may not know how to implement new ideas on their operations. This is where the fundamental idea of “filling gaps” was identified.

Answers to the Palette Skills questions built the automation and digital agriculture specialist program, which consists of three streams participants can choose from based on their goals and existing work experience: agribusiness and sales; industrial, technical and professional; and data analyst and programmer.

Two possible careers available to agribusiness and sales graduates include precision agronomist and crop input sales rep.

This stream has attracted participants with experience in project management, human resources, marketing, business development and even law.

Those participants, like all students, spend a portion of their time learning online and another portion learning the basics of farming. The ideal employee would be one who could bring new concepts and new ideas to the fray, said Fertuck-Zehavi.

“If you train them in the main expertise of the agri-food sector, they take all this transferable knowledge and they can solve problems that we have in the sector in new, exciting ways — ways to be more productive and better ways to work in technology that will save us time.”

That can have far-reaching implications.

“Having good agri-business management talent is essential to make those operations able to compete at the international level,” she said.

For those who want to participate in the industrial, technical and professional stream, post-program options might include precision agriculture specialist, remote sensing technician or automation technician.

It’s a broad stream requiring creative and critical thinking. Students with backgrounds as varied as engineering, soil science and genetics have finished the program under this stream.

If the goal can be distilled to a single sound bite, it would be “solve problems.”

It’s a matter of identifying challenges in current systems and solving them through current or potential technologies, said Fertuck-Zehavi.

“How do we make sure that what we have right now is working in the best way? Some farmers have processing facilities that cost them $10 million but they only use a small portion of that capacity. Ideally, the graduate would have the talent to implement it properly.”

Graduates of the data analyst and programmer stream may look forward to jobs such as ag tech software engineer, precision ag programmer and agribusiness applications developer.

This is the stream that requires the most experience in computer programming, said Fertuck-Zehavi. Some challenges relevant to agriculture will require the ability to develop software-based solutions.

“Even though they did analytics and are excited about analytics but don’t have any programming experience, they won’t be able to go to the data analyst and programmer stream,” she said.

“If you don’t have those reserve skills, you still need to go through so much growth before you’ll be able to apply for those jobs and be successful in them.”

The constant input of farmers has been key to the program, which recently finished its third cohort of attendees, said Fertuck-Zehavi.

“We involve the farmer constantly in providing training, reviewing our curriculum and providing real-life problems and case studies and we’re providing data that each stream is working on — those real-life challenges that we currently have in the industry.”

Funded by the Government of Canada through Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Palette Skills is a non-profit organization that develops employer-driven upskilling programs that help mid-career workers find a place in the workforce. 

The post Training fills the gaps between agriculture and technology appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“You have got to have the root purpose of why you got that technology. Either that or you talk to others to help you find that purpose,” said Regan Ferguson, who farms with her husband, Mike, near Melfort.

“I find that once you have a purpose, you’re more apt to dig into it further and become more comfortable with it because you’re finally finding the value in it.”

The Fergusons are first-year users of Bayer’s Climate FieldView, a multi-application digital agriculture platform. They discussed Fieldview and digital ag in general at a roundtable held Tuesday at Ag in Motion near Langham, Sask.

Research can take the mystery out of unfamiliar technology, said Ferguson.

“The more I looked into Climate, did research and learned about it, I found the ‘why’ and the purpose of its need on our farm and got more excited to get it in place this year.”

Climate FieldView has given her the ability to keep track of all equipment in the field, what it’s doing and whether it’s doing it right. It also provides a detailed record of the operation.

“It was reassuring to know that we had some kind of data to back us up if we ever needed it,” said Ferguson.

Bayer says Climate FieldView was designed to centralize data, visuals and reporting in a package that producers can interpret and act upon, by optimizing fertility, seeding management or other crop operations.

“We’ve got to do this because of our return on investment with chemical and fertility. We just want to put the fertilizer where it needs to be,” said Ferguson.

— Jeff Melchior reports for Alberta Farmer Express from Edmonton.

The post At Ag in Motion: Find a purpose, then buy tech, Prairie grower says appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We tried a bunch of pulse crops, including field peas, chickpeas, lentils, faba beans, soybeans, and we also tried it on irrigated durum and hemp,” said Farming Smarter researcher Gurbir Dhillon. “Seedling emergence and stand establishment improved across the board for all crops with the narrow-row (precision) planter.”

But looks don’t pay the bills when it comes to seeding equipment, and several years of Farming Smarter trials suggest it can be hard to make an economic case for a pricey precision planter.

“We started this project with canola and we saw a yield advantage with canola, especially under irrigated conditions,” said Dhillon.

“(But) in the years with low rainfall, we didn’t see an advantage to the planters when it came to canola yield.”

Still, there’s a lot of interest in how a precision planter can perform. Some of that interest comes from producers who already have one because they’re growing corn or soybeans. Other farmers would like to see improved emergence rates, which should also result in more even stands at harvest time.

READ MORE: Precision planter research is encouraging

“Farmers wanted to be able to improve their canola emergence and they were interested in seeing if they could do it using the precision planter,” said Dhillon.

Farming Smarter researchers conducted trials at five dryland sites (at Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Brooks, Taber and Enchant) over four years, using both an air drill and a precision planter to plant narrow rows (12 inches) and wide ones (22 inches). The narrow precision-planted rows had higher yields when rainfall was decent but in dry years that yield advantage disappeared.

It was a similar story for pulses, and yield advantages were not as consistent as in canola.

“In general, the planters yield better than the air drill or as good as the air drill,” said Dhillon.

The results were intriguing enough that if funding can be found, he would like to conduct further trials with a closer look at seeding rates.

“In the future, we do want to look at the better stand establishment with the pulse crop,” he said. “What’s the best agronomy to go ahead, especially with seeding rate? If there is better emergence with the precision planter, farmers may be able to cut down on their seeding rate.”

Farming Smarter researchers would also like to study pulse crops on irrigated acres.

“We want to see if there’s a similar advantage on irrigated production for pulse crops and what are the best systems that go with precision planting,” said Dhillon.

Fall seeding gets a test drive

Another ongoing research interest for the Lethbridge-headquartered organization is fall-seeded crops, a goal driven by southern Alberta’s ongoing soil erosion problem.

“We wanted to be able to keep the surfaces covered during that fall season so that wind erosion doesn’t remove the top inch of our soils,” said Dhillon. “One option is to go with cover crops, but fall seeding of some cash crops could be another option.”

The goal was to see how well crops established before freeze-up, how well they overwintered, and if there was an advantage in terms of using early spring moisture.

READ MORE: A few pointers on fall rye and winter wheat production

Researchers seeded fall rye, winter wheat, oats, lentils, barley, peas and camelina.

“Certain fall-seeded crops, such as camelina, showed a better ability to utilize early spring snow melt moisture, which was especially valuable due to drought conditions in 2021 and early spring 2022,” Dhillon said.

“Furthermore, despite the difficulties in controlling weeds in novel crops such as camelina and lentil cultivars, fall-seeded crops displayed a tendency to overpower weeds due to their early spring growth. Fall-seeded production can be a value option for many crops, specifically camelina, lentils and wheat.”

The test sites were in Lethbridge, Bow Island and Enchant — and location mattered.

“The establishment, growth and yield of fall-seeded varieties differed significantly between these locations,” said Dhillon. “The occurrence and duration of low soil temperature periods played a critical role in determining the overwinter survival of winter crops.

“According to the winter conditions observed in 2021-22, Lethbridge was found to be the most favourable location for winter crop production, followed by Bow Island.”

However, these observations are based on just one year of data.

The organization plans to continue the experiment once funding has been obtained. Dhillon especially wants to take a closer look at winter camelina because it showed potential. It was hardy, easily able to compete with weeds (and much better than spring camelina on that score), and also had higher yields.

“We’re planning to do two trials on the agronomic management of fall seeding camelina, and are just waiting for funding decisions,” said Dhillon.

The post Precision planting: Good looks and high yields don’t always go together appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

CNH announced Thursday it will pay $175 million for Hemisphere, which has been owned since 2013 by Chinese geospatial tech firm Beijing Unistrong (all figures US$).

CNH described the deal for Hemisphere as “a critical step that advances our automated and autonomous solutions for agriculture and construction.”

The machinery maker has undertaken a major push into autonomous ag — most significantly in 2021 with the $2.1 billion purchase of U.S. precision ag tech firm Raven Industries, whose products include the Canadian-developed OMNiPower (formerly DOT) autonomous equipment system.

CNH also bought control of U.S.-Greek precision ag and field analysis tech firm Augmenta earlier this month, and a minority stake in U.S. ag sensor firm EarthOptics in January.

Hemisphere, which was spun off from U.S.-based AgJunction — now an arm of Kubota Corp. —  acquired the Kansas-based Outback Guidance business from AgJunction in 2018.

Combined with its Raven business’ capabilities, CNH said Thursday, “this development gives us full control of our precision and navigation technologies.”

“Having Hemisphere’s technology in-house will enable us to accelerate a broad range of our precision technology programs, providing our customers with immediate productivity-enhancing solutions,” Marc Kermisch, CNH’s chief digital and information officer, said in Thursday’s release. “It will also increase the long-term competitiveness and flexibility of our agriculture and construction portfolio.”

Hemisphere will, however, continue to operate as a standalone business through its operations in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, CNH said.

Headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., Hemisphere’s Canadian operations include a site in Calgary and its Outback Guidance site at Oak Bluff, Man., just southwest of Winnipeg.

Hemisphere’s global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and related electronics and software provide “pinpoint accuracy” for agriculture, construction, mining and marine tools, CNH said. The company’s tech includes circuit chips, circuit boards, radio frequency signal processing, navigation algorithms and satellite-based correction designs.

Hemisphere CEO Farlin Halsey said the combination with CNH “enables us to further enhance our technology and product development” in those core markets and to “directly integrate our technology with CNH Industrial’s world-class equipment.”

The deal, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals, is expected to close sometime in the third quarter of 2023. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post CNH to buy Outback Guidance’s parent firm appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

That’s because the Saskatchewan producer was accompanied by a robot that wouldn’t look out of place on a lunar expedition, although it’s also been described as looking like a “glorified card table” on wheels.

Stone’s farm played host to the solar-powered Solix Ag robot, made by Brazilian company Solinftec, that uses high-res imaging, algorithms and artificial intelligence to identify weeds and measure crop health.

And while he doesn’t own the other-worldly device (it was trialled on his operation in conjunction with the University of Saskatchewan), Stone said he can see how this sort of advanced tech could be a fit on Prairie farms.

“Our motivation is efficiency and making the most of each acre. It’s expensive to farm,” he said. “And (also to) reduce environmental impact, either perceived or actual, I think there’s a bit of both right now.

“We do a great job on the farm, and I think we need to do a better job of recording and telling that story and proving it.”

[RELATED] Grainews: Brands target higher tech

On the other hand, Carl deConinck Smith’s sprayer might not get a second glance, but it too is a technological marvel.

“It is currently the only sprayer in the world that combines optical spot spray technology along with direct injection of chemical,” deConinck Smith said of his R4045 John Deere sprayer equipped with a direct chemical injection system manufactured by Raven Industries

“I could have up to 800 litres of glyphosate onboard that I inject separately for what is coming out of my tank right into my line, which helps efficiency and can change those rates on the fly at various parts of the field.”

From the cab, he can spray three different modes: full swath rate (which detects a weed and sprays only that weed), spray dual mode (which applies a background rate while spraying a higher rate in some spots) or full coverage.

Like Stone, deConinck Smith said it’s all about efficiency, in this case getting the optimum result with the least amount of chemical possible.

“This is green-on-brown technology,” he said. “Typical savings that we will find on our fall spray range from 90 to 30 per cent depending on how many weeds are present on the field at the time.”

Stone and deConinck Smith were two of three Saskatchewan farmers who spoke about adopting precision ag tools at the Canola Week conference last month.

[RELATED] The era of uniform application is ending as data drives change

The panelists not only highlighted how quickly tech is changing farming but also that getting the job done in the most efficient way is the unchanging foundation of growing crops.

“In terms of what precision agriculture means for us, it’s about efficiency and effective use of resources,” said Shayla Wourms. “No one wants to spend more time than they have to, and no one wants to spend more money than they have to.”

Wourms, husband Nick Wourms, and his family farm about 6,000 acres in northwest Saskatchewan, but in three separate locations spread over 100 kilometres.

But it’s not just about minimizing travel time. Field conditions vary wildly, too.

“We deal with a lot of diversity,” said Wourms. “We have black and some grey in terms of soil zones. We deal with a lot of variety in terms of topography — gentle rolling to extreme hills at a 23 per cent grade.

“And we have significant rocks. We’re talking major rocks below the surface that could ruin a lot of headers and drills.”

So mapping their fields is key, too.

“That’s how we use precision agriculture as well,” she said. “We’re able to provide that pinpoint on each part of those rocks, so that when it comes to harvest, we have those dead heads flagged. So we can weave around them, making sure we’re lifting the header up manually at those points and making sure we’re not going to crush a header or ruin the drill there.”

Stone’s farm near Davidson in central Saskatchewan has flat and rolling ground, too, and he uses yield mapping for variable rate. One of his key pieces of equipment is an 84-foot Väderstad Seed Hawk drill.

“The shanks lift up and go in the ground. It’s a great piece of technology,” said Stone. “It cuts our overlap down. This is our second or third drill with some sectional capabilities, but the most comprehensive, probably about eight per cent over solid seeding that we were doing before.”

Stone said he’s been playing with variable rate technology for fertilizer application and experimenting with different fertilizer products. He’s also been selecting three different rates with the applicator. And with the spray program, he’s been looking at different products to get the most precise rate.

“We like to track our field efficiency,” he said. “We employ the use of crop intelligence sensors. We really enjoy the information that comes in from them.

“What they don’t do is make it rain — but they certainly tell you how much resource you have underneath your feet. Decisions at times can be very easy.”

That sort of info is valuable both in the short term (such as knowing if there’s enough moisture to make top dressing worthwhile) and in tracking moisture use efficiency over long periods (for fine-tuning management practices).

Moisture is always on the mind of deConinck Smith, who farms with his wife, son, and parents in the brown soil zone of west-central Saskatchewan.

“Because of this, drought is always definitely on our minds,” he said. “We use this disadvantage and turn it into an advantage and use our long season available to us at seeding and harvest to use our equipment over very large acreages.”

The family usually seeds 9,000 acres and leaves 3,000 acres to chem fallow. Again, efficiency is the name of the game.

“We do a lot of acres with one drill,” said deConinck Smith. “We have a 68-foot drill and we’re seeding on our own farm, plus our neighbour’s 11,000 acres with that.”

But it’s not just the size of the equipment that matters. The operation targets precise application of nutrients and chemicals and employs spot spray technology.

“All of this tech helps with our profitability and our long-economic stability on our farm,” he said.

One piece of technology used on the farm is a Bourgault air drill with a “triple-shoot” system

and tanks with weigh scales.

“We have basically eliminated static calibrations, a time-consuming operation when you are switching from seed to seed and different fertilizers,” said deConinck Smith.

The tank scales also allow them to seed a variety of crops, eliminating clean-outs.

“At times, we’ll even seed two different crops in the same day,” he said.

But while the equipment and tech varied on all three farms, it’s the mindset that’s key.

It’s important to constantly do research and exercise critical thinking skills to make sure the farm is the best it can be, said Wourms.

That includes attention to everyday details, she said, pointing to her high-clearance sprayer with individual nozzle control.

“This is a big piece. It also means paying attention to the fact that nozzles have to be upgraded. You have to have the right nozzles. That’s kind of underplayed as well.”

And everything has to work as a unit, said Stone.

“We’re putting all our platforms together to document and track and better leverage all of the things that we’ve got going on.”

“All of this tech helps with our profitability and our long-term economic stability on our farm,” added deConinck Smith.

The post LIFE ON THE EDGE: Three farmers share their experiences with precision ag appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Wade McAllister used an OMNiPOWER autonomous platform to seed a small part of his family’s 3,500-acre farm near Innisfail this spring — although he was present at the same time, seeding with a conventional rig.

“This is the first time ever that an autonomous drill and a conventional drill have worked together in the same field sharing the same field map,” said the 34-year-old.

The machine, a Canadian invention originally called DOT, was borrowed from Olds College, which wanted to test it on a farm.

“For me it was wonderful that Wade gave us this opportunity because now I can compare the performance of an autonomous machine and a conventional machine in the same field,” said Roy Maki, research program manager with the college’s Centre for Innovation.

“It doesn’t get any better than that.”

It’s no surprise that the fifth-generation farmer was keen to try out a cutting-edge machine. When not farming, McAllister takes to the skies as a commercial helicopter pilot — fighting forest fires and flying search-and-rescue missions.

There are similarities between flying helicopters and farming, he said.

“The equipment we are running today on the farm is really expensive,” said McAllister. “It costs a lot of money to run a farm these days — helicopters are no different. They cost a lot of money to operate. There’s a lot of record keeping, and maintenance is obviously top quality.”

The seeding with OMNiPOWER, now owned by a division of CNH, only involved 43 acres — but they were the ones that really slow you down.

Modern drills are getting very wide and opening up fields for seeding is time consuming, said McAllister, who farms with his brother Scott.

“Before you start seeding you must do your outside rounds,” he said. “Most guys do two to three rounds around the whole perimeter of their field — then it’s all back and forth from there.

“But if you had a little short drill or narrow drill that could go around all your fields and open everything up, and then you get your big wide drill and all you do is just start going back and forth.”

The McAllister farm (which is just 25 minutes from Olds College) is divided into many fragments. The largest field is around 200 acres. Within that area are “efficiency killers” — sloughs, well sites, power poles, and trees. A small seeder that can go around those obstacles with communicating maps would be ideal, he said.

“You would just crush the acres in a day,” he said. “And the nice thing is that it’s in the same field as you when you’re filling, so logistically for filling it, and everything, I mean you’re in the same field as it anyway. And if something were to happen to it, you’re already there. Somebody is there to work on it.”

OMNiPOWER is a self-driving platform on which implements for seeding, fertilizing and spraying can be mounted. (It takes around 15 minutes to switch implements.) The first step in deploying the robot is driving a GPS-equipped truck around the perimeter of a field and around any obstacles or wet spots.

“Once you have completed that, the drill will not go outside of that boundary,” said McAllister. “It will shut down before it goes outside that boundary. And then you put in how many outside rounds you want it to do, and then you pick an A-B line, so back and forth, and you push ‘go’ and it just starts seeding.

“For a drill that is unmanned to go around the whole perimeter of the field and not run into anything was pretty wild to watch.”

The machine has also been used for spraying and fertilizing on other farms, he said, adding the unit has a safety cable, that if touched by a person, animal, fence or other obstacle, will force the unit to stop.

McAllister said he wouldn’t use a robot to seed his entire farm but would consider purchasing a unit for opening up his fields for seeding.

He also lauds Olds College for testing technology that could help shape the future of agriculture, adding the two advantages of ag robots are time savings and reduced labour.

“It’s on everybody’s radar, but like I said too, a lot of farmers, they love being out in the field, so I don’t think it’ll ever be full autonomy,” he said. “But I think it will be autonomous machines working with farmers. Working together, like getting an autonomous sprayer and a conventional sprayer out in the same field.”

Maki said he was impressed with McAllister’s willingness to try the new technology — and isn’t surprised the young farmer is also a commercial helicopter pilot.

“He goes above and beyond,” he said. “We all take a little bit of risk, but I think he takes more than usual. But you must take risks to move on, especially with technology and agriculture. And he does that.”

The rapidly evolving technology is at the point where farmers can order and use a robot, although factory wait times may be long, Maki added.

“There are people using them besides us,” he said

He noted the McAllisters are using 15-inch spacing when seeding canola with their SeedMaster single rank drill. The brothers are learning some interesting things about wide spacing, he said.

“This is very controversial to do, especially with canola over the years,” he said. “Now it’s generally accepted that 15-inch spacing with canola will grow a good crop, and Wade can testify to that.”

Agriculture robots are a huge leap into the future, said Maki, adding field time is critical for developing new farming technology and Olds College can only do so much on its Smart Farm research station.

“When someone like Wade comes along, we can really learn more, run it on a larger scale and get more experience with it,” he said. “We can really move the needle on advancing the technology when we have producer partners like Wade.

“So if I look at my career, this is almost a perfect storm right here that we can work with the Smart Farm, the technology, and the innovators. It’s all the moving pieces you need.”

The post Young Alberta farmer soars into the future of agriculture appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.