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 [...]

Farmers are beginning to take notice of OptRx crop sensors. I know this because tech support seems to be taking more and more calls from growers who have questions on OptRx, and it seems as if everyone is asking mostly the same questions. What most people don’t realize is how simple the system really is to use.

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.

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.

This video demonstrates using planting prescription, demonstrating how to adjust rates and import prescription files.

Prescriptions are synonymous with treating a problem differently than the rest of the group, be this in the medical field or the farm field. When a drug company conducts trials to treat illnesses, they always have a control group to monitor the effects of those that received the treatment, as well as those that didn’t [...]

This video demonstrates using planting prescription, demonstrating how to adjust rates and import prescription files.

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 [...]

What are the best applicator options for using OptRx crop sensors?
For optimum performance, OptRx should be used to apply nitrogen when the healthiest corn is between V5-V12 (about 2 foot to 7 foot tall).  When using OptRx sensors on wheat, topdress application can occur anytime between tillering and stem elongation.
The ideal side dress applicator [...]

As a grower, it’s important to take whatever steps needed to ensure maximum yield potential. Variable rate nitrogen application utilizing OptRx crop sensors is one way to reduce the risk of over fertilizing in early growth stages and ensure optimum plant health across the entire field.
How can OptRx help maximize my profit potential?
Organically Speaking
The amount [...]

One of my recent trips took me to Poland to meet our distributor Kamil Szymanczak, who owns the company KAM-ROL (www.kamrol.pl), located near Warsaw. I spent very little time in the city but instead headed southeast to the Lublin region. On the way through here, we met with another dealer, Henry Pawelec, who also sells [...]

One of the main advantages of precision farming, as we have discussed in previous Lessons, is the ability to base management decisions on site-specific information, making an operation more efficient. Variable rate technology is another way that precision farming can benefit an operation’s bottom line.
Variable Rate Technology (VRT) is the technology used to vary the [...]

Now that we are mid-way through the planting season, it would be a good time to read your data into your precision ag desktop software.  This is good for several reasons:

Verify that you have correctly set up your precision ag display.
Verify that the planter is applying the rates that variable-rate prescriptions called for.
Verify the operator [...]

p>Well, spring has finally sprung over here!  It seems to have been a long time coming because of an extended winter, but there is no doubt it is here now.  Even as I write this it is 17°C (62°F) which is positively warm for the UK!
Along with the warmer and drier weather comes an increase [...]

 
 “What is the application window for side-dressing nitrogen (N)?” I hear this question a lot from corn growers thinking about using crop sensors for variable rate N application.  Imagine how much better we could answer that question if we knew the weather! Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury.
 
For those who may not be familiar, the [...]

Planting season has arrived.  Time to implement all the things you learned last year into your operation for the 2010 growing season.
If there is one thing I learned while growing up on a farm, it’s that a farmer’s job changes every day.  As an owner and/or operator, farmers are tasked with jobs ranging from electrician [...]

Become a field doctor and prescribe the needed rate of population, fertilizer or chemicals for your field according to its needs. Our SMS team shows you how to create a prescription map using SMS Basic or SMS Advanced