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.

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.

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 [...]

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 [...]

Over the years, Ag Leader has worked with various universities and research organizations on precision farming projects.  These have ranged from the development of new technology, such as cotton harvesting, to studying the benefits of products such as autosteer and variable rate application.  One of the research organizations that Ag Leader has worked with is [...]

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 [...]

As I write this I am at the end of my second week in South Africa. During my second week here, I have been travelling around meeting some farmers.  We’ve been discussing their thoughts on precision farming and why they have adopted it. Coincidentally, I was also present during the installation of the first ParaDyme™ [...]

As I write this post, I am enjoying the warm sunshine in the Freestate, South Africa. It is currently winter down here but even so, temperatures rise to 25° C (77° F) during the day. However it does drop to zero (32° F) overnight. My reason for being here is to visit our South African distributor CLM Precision [...]

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 [...]

Croatia – not a country that immediately comes to mind when talking about precision farming.  However, in this country of 4.5 million people there is one company that is now adopting this new technology.  Agrokor Group is the largest farming company in Croatia and farms approximately 40,000 ha with a variety of crops from wheat [...]