Sustainable Farming with integration of Precision Technology

With increasing margins and decreasing commodity prices, how can we make precision technology work in correlation with our farm’s goals?

A good place to start building your digital footprint is with the collection of precision boundaries of each field farmed, and mapped with a high level of accuracy (ideally sub inch). This step will allow for acre maximization & sustainability in the long run while offering the following:

·   Higher number of Engaged Acres in Conservation Programs

·   Reduction of Agronomic Inputs

Demonstration of the John Deere 616R See & Spray Select system in Pendleton, OR

·   Precision Ag Adoption of Autonomous Machines

·   Seamless Billing for Leased Acreage

·   Field & Farm Record Keeping Cloud

·   Seamless Governmental Reporting

A study conducted during the 2022 season showed results of $46,000 of lost income in a Seed Corn crop due to lack of precision adoption. This kind of total adds up by not planting just 4% of the available acres in the field! Over a 5-year span this could cost the grower over $230,000 dollars in inputs and loss of revenue. However, knowing this, the question still remains of what can we expect for a return on investment?

Return on Investment really doesn’t become attractive unless you start thinking about the unmanned systems as just a part of a solution, not the solution in and of itself. This technology can offer opportunities of machine monitoring, budgeting of jobs, expected fleet turnover rates, field trial options, record keeping, and operator management!

With some precision ag technologies, the return on the investment can be relatively easy to quantify, and in some others not so easy. On sizeable operations things like section control on a sprayer can pretty much pay for themselves in 3- 5 years on a dryland operation.

However, collection of things like yield data, grid soil sample points, remote sensing imagery, grain quality samples— there’s no economic payback to that until it drives a decision that provides more revenue for your farm. Then that additional revenue must pay for the cost of collecting and analyzing this data. Which in turn means profiting off more yield in various parts of the field or saving on input costs. You must decide if you are going to have a goal of being efficient in all aspects of the farm, or it’s not worth investing.

Blue Mountain Agronomy or your local machinery dealerships provide options to help growers begin this process of building an operations “Digital Footprint”. However, beginning with a goal will be crucial for this kind of technology to pay off on your operation.

Stay tuned for next Friday were we get into further detail of ways this technology can bring efficiency to your farm!