Ag Leader Technology Blog

With colder temperatures here and the crops out of the field, fall application will soon be in full swing.  Last week, we provided some safety tips for fall application. When transitioning from harvest to fall application, there are also a few things to remember to keep your data in order and prevent downtime in the [...]

For several years now, Ag Leader has been selling precision farming products into China. Over the years the interest in precision farming has increased as China modernizes their farming practices and imports more western made farm equipment. China has been forced to rapidly update their farming practices and equipment for two reasons: 1) the growing demand for food from a rising population (and a population with more disposable income) and 2) a labor shortage.

With fall upon us, another management decision that may be on your list is whether you are going to soil sample your fields. Soil sampling your fields can help you do several things. The first item that comes to people’s mind is the ability to create variable rate prescriptions based off of the lab results you receive after sampling. Another benefit to soil sampling that may not be quite as obvious is that this provides an extra layer of data for analysis. For example, you can overlay a grain harvest map with a soil sampling map and then compare the soil test value for high and low yielding areas. How much yield difference do you notice between areas that have different soil test results?

Now that the training season has come to an end, it’s time to start thinking about crawling back into the driver’s seat of your combine.  As you are preparing for your journey to the field, I thought it might be good to share some common questions from customer training and the pre-harvest checklist to ensure [...]

As many of us prepare for harvest, the list of tasks seem to increase, ranging from lining up workers, vehicle maintenance, grain handling system maintenance, and… oh yeah, setting up your precision ag equipment! Your precision ag desktop software can be used to export things like Field and Product Names, Boundaries, Guidance Lines, Prescriptions, Crop [...]

It seems only yesterday that I wrote my last blog on the Cereals event, but according to my calendar it has been over 2 months. Time flies when you are having fun!
Shortly after the Cereals show, I attended the Boregby field days in Sweden to visit our distributor Datalogisk. This is a very similar show [...]

What are the most cutting edge farmers in Western Canada doing this week? Implementing all of the new practices they learned about at the 2011 Western Canada Farm Progress Show!
Regina , Sask., was buzzing with activity June 15 – 17, 2011, as nearly 40,000 visitors descended upon the city to enjoy the industry’s leading agricultural [...]

Regular readers of this blog may have picked up that some of the authors are farmers themselves. Most of us work our normal hours here, and then take to the fields on the weekend or evenings to take care of the crops. Some are directly involved with their own operation, and some help their family farm in the busy season. So we often know the ups and downs of the lifestyle that our readers make a living from. We are also subject to those production issues that make a person sigh in frustration when something goes wrong. I had one such event this year on our farm.

The crop is about planted here, and I am beginning to plan for side-dressing corn. In our operation we have a target range of total N that we would like to provide the crop. That range is a lbs/ac goal, something like 175-250lbs/ac goal.

Nick Ohrtman and I attended the AGRISHOW in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil during the first week of May. AGRISHOW is a large outdoor farm show similar in size to Farm Progress Show here in the US. The major OEM’s (both international and domestic) have elaborate booths showcasing their new products, and customers have an opportunity to talk with factory representatives about equipment they are interested in.

Things are busy on our operation in southeast Iowa! Corn planting is progressing nicely, and we should be done in a few more days. Here are a few key updates from our planting season so far.

It is planting season in the Midwest, and this means that farming activities are increasing. One item I have been trying to manage on my operation is guidance lines. In our operation, consistency of the planter following in the exact same path as our strip-tillage machine, as well as ensuring the sprayer is also moving [...]

Ag Leader offers several resources to growers as you get started this spring. As always, you can reach our Tech Support team by calling 515-232-5363 or emailing support@agleader.com. Ag Leader Tech Support has extended our hours for spring. We are now open Monday-Friday, 7:00a.m. to 8:00p.m. CST; Saturday, 8:00a.m. to 4:00p.m.; and Sunday from 12:00p.m. [...]

The weather has started to warm up and dry up over here in Europe and that can only mean one thing – time to go to the field! This is the time of year when spring crops are sown, vegetables planted and nitrogen applied to the winter crops, and it is the nitrogen application I [...]

Last week, Ag Leader Technology had the distinct privilege of hosting Riley Pagett and Wyatt DeJong, two National FFA Officers, and their sponsor Maggie Halferty, Regional Director of the National FFA Foundation, at the Ag Leader campus in Ames.
The visit on March 23, 2011, was just one stop on the National FFA Officer Partnership Tour, [...]

Earlier this month, 34 distributors from 18 countries attended the Ag Leader International Distributor training event held in Merida, Spain. This is the second time we have held training for our overseas distributors outside the US. The first was held in the UK two years ago. The week included a mixture of classroom based technical [...]

As winter trainings come to an end, someone will inevitably ask me “What are you going to do with all of your free time now that training is over?”  Some one will ask me the same question at the end of planting, and again in November at the end of harvest.  The truth is, tech [...]

Ag Leader had the privilege of hosting NAFB Farm Director Von Ketelsen, host of the KWMT AM 540 Power Lunch, at our booth at the 24th Annual Hawkeye Farm Show at the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls, IA, on Thursday, March 3, 2011.
Ketelsen met with Ag Leader’s Russ Mormon to discuss spring planting and all [...]

One of the big draws at auto shows is always the concept cars that manufacturers exhibit.  People get excited to see what cars and trucks may look like 10,15 or 20 years from now.  Most of the time these concept cars never come to market in their original form, but go through various modifications and [...]

In recent years, many growers have started utilizing their precision ag displays to log hybrids in the field.  Quite often, these displays are controlling clutches to prevent overlaps, changing population on the go and even monitoring seed tubes and population. (How far we have come since those little, dim blinking lights.)
So what benefits do you [...]