Precision Ag
1st Major Announcement…Shed Day 5 and A Barn Fire
I guess we can let the cat out of the bag now and make the first of two major announcments that I alluded to earlier in January of some changes here on the farm.
Not only is this a shed we are building, but it will also be a warehouse for Pioneer Seed. Robertson Farms is now officially a Pioneer seed dealer. We will be servicing farmers mostly in the western part of Franklin Co. It is a natural fit for us. We have enjoyed a long and productive relationship with Pioneer as a seed customer and seed grower, mainly because I have felt that their agronomy and sales staff have always had my success at heart when offering me products and services. So when the opportunity presented itself last fall we began the process to become dealers for Pioneer. We have a lot to learn but are eager and ready for the challenge!
The end of day 5 on the new shed…………….now we are ready for metal! The nice sunny days have allowed for quick progress, but the bottom has fallen out of the ground around the site. We had to pull their forklifts and tellehandler out today. The telehandler was setting on the frame with the last truss suspended in the air………fun!
Meanwhile, while the last truss was going up, we spotted smoke accross the field and found that our neighbors old barn was on fire. By the time we got over there the major part of the black smoke was gone but the flames were still going as high as the silo tops!
The old barn has been a land mark on Rt 14 east of Benton and the silos are also the site where the original farm owner killed himself back in the 40′s or 50′s…………more on that later………
KARTA Meeting Review
Last week, as you know by now if you read this blog or follow me on Twitter, I attended the KARTA meeting. KARTA (Link Here) stands for Kansas Ag Research Technology Association.
KARTA (originally KARA) was organized in May 2000 by a group of innovative Kansas producers, university researchers, and industry members who shared a common desire to learn more about production agriculture and continue to be a part of the leading technological and informational changes taking place on today’s farms
This year was the fifteenth annual conference. It was an applied workshop consolidating information about new and old technologies with a focus on supporting scientifically valid on-farm research efforts and increasing overall farm business profitability.
Topics included precision ag, social media, economics of travel logistics between fields and farms, on farm research, and crop nutrition as well as various presentations by industries on their new, current or trending technologies.
The Thursday night after dinner topic covered land rents and land values. This particular discussion was led by Dr. Terry Kastens & Dr. Kevin Dhuyvetter. I would call it the “Bear Pit” of KARTA. It was a fantastic discussion involving any and all attendees of the meeting. The topic was batted back and forth and ripped apart…and that was just the three hours or so that I stayed for it! Very good discussion…….
While the evening session or Bear Pit was my favorite part of the meeting, I must say that I give the entire meeting a “10″ as far as meetings go. It was very well organized, very well attended by producers and industry. It was an open exchange of information. Information was CURRENT, RELEVANT, FORWARD LOOKING and it was HONEST. It was everything that an agriculture producer meeting should be.
I think so highly of the meeting that I believe we need something like it here in Southern Illinois!
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know how much I hate the usual “rubber chicken and roast beef” agriculture meeting circuit here in Illinois. Well, this wasn’t a rubber chicken meeting by a long shot………in my opinion it very closely resembled, for the production and precision side, what Farm Futures Management Summit is for the economic and business side.
I left there with that good feeling, that positive feeling of knowing that I had been rubbing shoulders with the progressive life long learners of agriculture. When that happens you know you have been to a good meeting……….yes their world is different than mine here in southern Illinois, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the mindset I look for. The mindset of being proactive vs reactive.
KARTA is a great proactive meeting………I highly suggest you attend the 16th meeting if at all possible.
KARTA meeting Salina, Kansas
Exhibitor hall at KARTA meeting. Good crowd of progressive thinkers. Should be a good meeting!
New Year: Updates and Changes Coming
Well, it’s 2012, or something like, that and January is going to start off with a bang so to speak. A very busy month ahead for Robertson Farms. First up is the Farm Futures Management Summit followed by the KARTA meeting shortly there- after. Throw in a IEMA meeting, K9SIL meeting and some other training meetings and the bigger part of the month is gone.
In between those meetings I hope we see the start of the new machine shed as well as getting the new (to us) NH3 bar home so we can put the VRT controller on it. There is a planter to rebuild as well as the backhoe and dozer to work on. So we need to hit the ground running and not look back.
Plus if the weather allows we need to pull a few soil samples, grain to haul and some scraping to do.
Fun and busy!
If that wasn’t enough……..there’s more! First thing in the spare time is a revamp of the website. I have been wanting to a major revamp but have not had the time with all the other stuff going on this fall. The revamp will coincide with two new business ventures we are going to be entering into here on the farm. Can’t say much about them right now but I think some folks will be surprised at what we have planned. These will bring new opportunities for us in agriculture as well as begin to pave the way for the next generation of Robertson’s to enter the the operation.
Hopefully we will be making some announcements in the next 30 days or so……………..
Don’t be alarmed if I miss a day posting this month with all that’s happening.
It looks to be an exciting and busy winter!!!
My .02 on Nitrogen in 2011
Seems like everyone has a blog, newsletter or magazine article on nitrogen and corn yields for the 2011 crop. Well I guess I will chime in with my .02 worth on the topic this Friday.
A pound of N is a pound of N. (Yea, we all know that I hope by now.) It is where, how and when you place that N that matters most. In 2011 where, how and when made all the difference in the world. Yet there are still fertilizer dealers and farmers who are flat out in denial.
I have been told that some calculations have already been done here locally by a few farmers that their sidedressed corn had a $200/ac advantage to their preplant corn. I believe that is the case and think is higher in some instances. A lot higher in some instances. Based on the available N testing that I did this spring, testing for both Nitrate and Ammonia N, there were many instances of preplant N loss, (urea, solution and anhydrous) of 50% with some fields I tested losing 75% by the time the corn was V2 – V3. Some of those fields didn’t have corn growing in them by the 20th of April either…………
Fields with preplant N, where the farmer either tested and believed the results or assumed a N loss based on crop color and looks by V5-V6, and then sidedressed supplemental N at between 50 and 75 lbs/ac, and reported to me a 50-70 bu/ac yield increase over doing nothing.
So 50 bu/ac @ $6/bu = $300/ac Gross minus 75 lbs N/ac @ .50/lb = $37.50/ac Cost equals $262.50 NET/ac (no labor or machine cost subtracted).
So on 100 ac that’s another $26,250 of profit…………..Sidedressed N, applied with a knife, in the ground, between the corn rows.
Will that hold true every year……….. probably not. But if a pound of N is a pound of N and placement and timing are everything, then how much are you willing to give up for convenience? $262/ac? $200/ac?? $50/ac??
In that range of numbers above is a lot of the cash rent that is paid in this area……….Where, how and when could have easly paid your cash rent………plus a great return on your time an machiney investment.
Where, how and when was everything this year……..
Farm Futures Management Summit 2012
Well its that time of year again, time to sign up for the Farm Futures Management Summit. This is the second year that I have been asked to speak and am looking forward to not only speaking but just attending the meeting itself. I just love this meeting and think it is the best meeting of the year and not because I am speaking. It is just one of those meetings where the line up of speakers is relevant, current and forward looking and not reflective and re hashing the same old wore out research or topics.
Its fresh. Its alive…………..that is the best way I know how to describe it. I always leave St Louis with a positive outlook even in those years when their wasn’t a positive outlook to see on the horizon.
I think the reason why is that all the other meetings I attend during the year are based on reacting to what is happening in the agriculture world after it happens. The speakers at the Summit focus on being proactive and managing what is happening in the agriculture world before it happens. The information gained at this meeting has help me be a more profitable farmer each year. No its not one big thing that David Kohl or Mike Boehlje say or that Moe Russell or Daryl Dunteman point to but its the trends they talk about and all the little things that add up to something big that make the difference.
So I have taken to labeling meeting invites I get anymore into two categories: Reactionary and Proactive. Then I try hard to make all the Proactive meetings I can attend and fill in with the Reactionary if I need to.
The problem is, in my opinion, that most of agriculture is focused on being reactionary………… A result is that a lot of meetings beat the same old dead horse to death. Reactionary meeting invites fill my inbox and mail box. Proactive meetings seem to be few and far between these days. They exist and you must seek them out and you will have to travel to get there but that is a small sacrifice to pay for the empowerment they give you.
So I hope to see you in St Louis for what I anticipate will be the great PROACTIVE meeting of the year…………. I wouldn’t expect anything else at the Summit.
Started Shelling Corn!
Got started shelling corn today. Shot this video with my phone. Not the best video in the world but hey it worked! Anyway shelling east of Benton along Rt 14. Corn is doing well, as you can see in the video, some of the end rows along the woods were not so hot, but that is to be expected with the hot and dry July and August. But across the field is good corn for the year and growing conditions it had to endure.
Anyway here is about 1:15 of corn shelling from yesterday.
Everyone is an expert, just ask them.
I seems that we are bombarded with experts at every turn anymore. If there is no one to serve as an expert, someone seems to always self appoint themselves. In some cases there are gatherings of experts walking all over each other trying to get to the top of the expert pile. Most of these folks while possibly well meaning or even good hearted generally have no clue what the heck they are talking about or they come across so absorbed in their own self promotion that they are not tolerable.
Case in point #1: I got a notice that a person to whom I have a very casual knowledge of had passed away. Upon following a link to read what happened I found a gaggle of experts on a discussion board that not only knew what happened to him and how it happened, but his life story in many details. The kicker is that the 4 or 5 pages of comments were dominated by three or four people who were telling all the other people they were wrong. The funniest post was were one person commented on the deceased’s connection with Illinois, to whom the lead expert on this fellow admitted he didn’t know he had any ties to Illinois then wanted proof that the commentator knew what he was talking about. Funny to me but I can just imagine how sad it might have been for any of the family members who might have happened upon this mess. I do know the “one” head expert mentioned above in this discussion, he is an expert on everything he talks about, just ask him. He is one of the skid-marks in the underwear of life that we, regrettably, cant dispatch in a burlap bag with a concrete block tied to it over a bridge into the river.
Case in point #2: While I was trying to find some ballistic information online I came across a discussion on how the .17HMR was not suitable as a coyote round and would not kill anything bigger than a prairie dog. Having dispatched coyotes, at range, with my .17HMR I thought that I must hurry out into the fields and tell these coyotes go get up and run along, despite the smell and decay, as they must be mistaken that I had killed them. The expert was using all kinds of “math” and “physics” to show that the .17 lacked the punch and power to take a dog down beyond 50 yards etc so forth at nausea. Despite testimonials and the comments of a real hunting expert (a person acknowledged as knowing what he was talking about), this fellow held to his guns that you needed a big gun to kill coyotes at range. Maybe coyotes in Ohio wear bullet proof vest or their fur is like Kevlar due to difference in their winters or something. Despite this expert, I still dispatch ole wile coyote with a .17HMR at every opportunity.
Case in point #3. I have been bombarded with propaganda to attend a farmer/consultant field day on growing corn and soybeans like a “high yield expert”. I do attend field days, when there is something to learn or there is a topic of interest. Its just part of the learning and educational process that farmers must go through if they are going to compete and stay profitable. That being said this particular field day is a big JOKE. Its put on by a couple of self promoted and self proclaimed experts whom I wouldn’t let on my farm. One half of this Abbot and Costello team I have know and been some what acquainted with for over 10 years through a friend. They are only about the sale and what they are selling today is better than what they sold yesterday. Did I say this was a joke already? What do they know? NOTHING. Most of what they are going to present is either stolen from universities, picked from other companies with similar products or services and other field days or is not proven with independent non biased research and is only being used to end up selling a couple of products that they get kick back for. Yet, with no industry certifications or qualifications, they have set themselves up as experts, and got the backing of people who should know better, on growing high yield crops and are fleecing attendees for big money when its all said and done.
Case in point #4. The University of Illinois Extension. A complete Chinese fire drill of experts who have never “been there or done that” trying to tell the world how much they know about the real world. Nuff said there.
Yes, I have had my fill of experts this year already. That is why I wont be going to any more field days, conferences or meetings other than a very select few for the remainder of the year. That is also why I have assigned junk and spam status to a lot of emails from experts and why I have erased several talk and discussion boards from my internet favorates.
The result of riding myself of so many experts is that my blood pressure is much lower lately.
Trust me, I know what I am talking about…………..
Farm Futures Magazine Extra
Don’t forget you can hear the entire presentation at the 2011 Farm Futures Management Summit Jan 4th and 5th in St Louis. Register Here.
NRCS Photos Reveal Custom App Problems
“My corn yields suck. They have sucked for the last three years, something is wrong and I need you to soil test them.” A Pretty straight forward comment from a grower and one of the numerous valid reasons why we should be doing soil testing.
But the soil tests show nothing is really wrong. Field observation at time of soils sampling shows that nothing is really wrong. So your mind begins to wonder, what could be wrong.
Then the “Oh My Gosh” moment happens, when you process the sample maps from the GPS.
The NRCS color compliance photos that are taken each summer are what I use for backgrounds on the soil sample maps I produce for my customers. They are very useful tools if you know how to manipulate them for something other than a pretty picture. A simple color photo can be used to direct soil sampling or detect problems if you know how to look at them and manipulate them correctly. Well it didn’t take much manipulation to see what was wrong with corn yield in these fields.
Blow is the NRCS photo from 2009. The field was in corn that year, beans in 2010. Can anyone pick out the problem…………..if you look you can see where the custom applicator drove applying Urea pre plant prior to incorporation into the soil, as are the practices of this farmer. Those are the green strips, you can also see where he left the spreader on during turns on the headlands and if you look real close you can see where he ran out going across the field.
In 2009, on this particular farmer’s farm, 80% of the corn fields have this pattern in them. In other words 80% of his corn acreage was spread with a problem. We can determine that the strips are ~50 ft wide from center of green to center of green. So we have either have an issue with the truck or with application width or both. Then again maybe even more problems than that.
When we manipulate the maps by changing the color bandwidth, we can estimate that 50% of this field never got any N. 50% of this farmer’s corn never got a fighting chance to develop to its fullest potential.
And it wasn’t just 2009. It happened in 2008 and I am told that yields were bad this year in 2010. But we will have to wait until July next year to get the 2010 NRCS photos to confirm that the problem still exist.
Let me be clear, the Custom Applicator here has a problem that needs to be fixed, but it is not a slam or indictment on just this Applicator. Note I said Applicator……..Custom or Personal, it could happen to anyone. This is why we need to always check not only the job of those we hire to perform but also our own spreading, spraying and other applications. It is important to do pan test on spreaders, nozzle checks on sprayers and make sure you have the application width correct for any device you operate.
It is important to get as applied maps made of not only what is custom applied but what you and your hired men do. Keep those app files, those guidance lines those planter records. Keep and ANALYZE it all.
To quote the theme from the Six Million Dollar Man: “we have the technology, we can rebuild him”.
Folks we have the technology; spreaders, sprayers, GPS and NRCS photos. From high tech to low tech but we have the technology so USE THEM to insure that you and those you hire are doing the best job possible on your farm today. The volatility and risk are too much just to assume that all is well
Dust Dust Everywhere
It is dry and dusty. It did try to rain last night, but not hardly a tenth of an inch. Got another 40 acres of beans cut leaving 30 and I got about 30 acres of wheat drilled leaving about 60 more to go. Today and tomorrow are going to be long days.
Drilling yesterday was a challenge and would have been even worse without Auto Steer. The WAAS works great on the drill. It even works great on the 12 row corn planter, but is especially nice in the dust where you cant see a thing!
Lots and lots of VRT
There seems to be the greatest interest in VRT this fall. From lime to P and K producers who never gave VRT a second thought seem to be fascinated with doing it. Its about time for many of them.
With fertilizer cost where they are and the prospect of a below normal or less than normal crop in many areas because of the heat this summer producers are looking for small ways to cut back on cost. This is funny in some ways because not to long ago when Potash spiked at $1200/t producers either put some on or didn’t put any on at all. In that year I wrote many a VRT recommendation, more than I had ever done, but it still is nothing compared to this year. This year has seed a whole new level of interest.
I think that we have found our point of “balance” between the price of an input and yield. Kind of like $4 gas for our cars. When gas gets to a point we watch our trips and how much we run in the tank. When gas is $2.50 we buy gas and don’t think to much of all the running around we do. But when gas is $3.00 we all at once buy gas and watch were we go because we know we are only going to buy what we need at $4.00.
So I think we have reached that balance here in Southern Illinois. Price is to the right of the middle. Its not as high as it has been but its going up. Yields are average to below average. So between the two, farmers say lets buy but lets buy with caution and apply it in a conservative manner. And VRT fits that line of thinking.
This is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination.
How far we have come.
Was cleaning out a bunch of junk from under my desk trying to find a bunch of other junk when I came across a milk crate full of old equipment manuals. I had took them out of the shed when we cleaned the shed out last winter and had forgot all about them.
There is a manual for just about everything it seems. All of them for equipment we don’t have anymore. Technology changes, thank goodness. I would hate to have to harvest on a combine with no cab! Not only that, but our efficiencies and our productivity increases when we adopt new technologies.
So, it is still amazing to me when some of the older generation out there doesn’t get it about technology. Yes, it costs money. But just because something worked then doesn’t mean it works now. Or maybe it works but it is not efficient or as productive. Maybe we didn’t have a choice “back then” and we do now. Maybe to be competitive we don’t have a choice but to adopt the newest technology, no matter short lived it might be.
GPS is one of those technologies that has brought about change. Chemicals are another. Things have changed greatly, but in some respect they haven’t changed all the much lately. You don’t see many cultivators anymore. You don’t find anyone with a rod and chain for measuring off acres. Yet there are those who say that cultivation is better than chemicals. There are also those who say that we don’t need all this GPS stuff to farm with either.
Those few loud voices are right to some extent. We don’t need all of the latest and greatest technology to farm. But it sure makes it much easier. And it makes it more productive.
Is RTK oversold?
There is a lot of press on RTK right now. RTK is that super accurate GPS correction, survey grade, to plus or minus a half centimeter. It is pretty impressive. It is also pretty expensive. It is also, in my opinion, being over sold.
Accuracy is addictive. Just ask any target shooter. I admit that accuracy with a rifle is addictive. Being able to cut the same hole at 100 yards with my rifle is a goal. Its more about the man than the machine with a firearm. Yes the tolerances in the action and barrel along with the consistency in the load help to get better accuracy, but its more about if you can hold still, hold that same point of aim, and control the trigger than anything else.
With GPS, it’s all about the correction signal, not the GPS signal. It is all the machine and nothing to do with the man, minus the initial calibration, which a lot of people don’t do correctly. The more accurate the correction signal to the GPS unit, the more precise your implement will be in the field….assuming you calibrated it correctly.
And what are you doing with that level of accuracy? If you are not saving A B lines and moving them from machine to machine, or if you’re not employing management practices that require you to be that accurate, like ridge till, or you’re not using the mountain of data that is collected by the controller with that type of accuracy, then you have just blown a bunch of money for something that is underused.
I use the analogy that its like using a Barret .50 cal Sniper Rifle to shoot chipmunks. Impressive, but a bit of overkill at $10 something a shot vs. a .22 at something like $0.10 per shot. Yeah, you have to be a little more accurate with your .22 than the .50 cal, but the chipmunks can’t tell if they have been shot by one or the other.
So, why then do so many farmers bypass the WAAS system with its lower accuracy level to do RTK when they don’t do anything other then drive straight? Like the illustration above, you have to be a bit more precise in you calibrations but no one can tell the difference in +-.5 cm vs. +-3 inches at 6o mph while driving by your fields. A lot of times that pass-to-pass accuracy is even better with WAAS, than what is advertised. Again, it’s in the calibration of the machine, not the correction signal.
Don’t get me wrong, when it is properly employed, RTK can make your life and farm more profitable. But I have yet to see a farm that exploits RTK to its fullest potential. Most of the time, its just used to match up equipment of different widths for convenience of planting or harvest. And if that is the only use you have for RTK, you’re losing out on a bunch of real benefits other than being able to run your 12 row planters and combine with your 8 row head.
He who learns to exploit the accuracy and data goldmine of RTK will win the race to greater profits. And those that don’t are shooting chipmunks with a .50 cal, impressive but wasteful and expensive toys.
Precision Ag Thoughts for Today
Agwired has a bit on the Precision Ag Conference going on in Denver. I also have a buddy who is out there. I read with interest the post on AgWired and I could almost guess what my buddy’s comments were going to be word for word.
You see, the problem with Precision Ag right now is that there is nothing fresh. Most of the academic types have fallen by the wayside, more because they just didn’t grasp the concepts of PA outside the bounds of the university system, than anything else. Even with that there are still some of the same people trying to push the same research and principles, that might work in small plot or research, but don’t translate to the field. When I say field I mean the farmers from one side of a state to the other. Precision Ag is still talked about in the theory stage or “in a year or two when we develop the tools”.
It seems like it is always next year……..at least for those of us who have been out on the bleeding edge…..doesn’t it?
Precision Ag has to be site specific or it fails. I think Dr Kholsa says it right when he says in the AgWired blog ” precision agriculture is putting the right inputs in the right place, at the right time, and in the right manner.”
But what Dr Kholsa says and what many sell and preach is two different things. Big Iron and many of the smaller “toy” companies are still pushing things out into the field that are not necessarily what we need or want. Yet they know better than we do, after all they spent lots of money to make it……..even when it doesn’t work right. And all the consolidation that is taking place is also limiting our choices and ability to get what we need in the field vs. what they think we need or what to sell.
I hope there are more people like Dr Kholsa at the conference. But I predicted my buddy’s comment on the conference to a T. “The same old group of people selling the same old group of ideas for 20 years now. Nothing new at all.”
Sad. I was hoping for one fresh idea at least……..
