Shane Van Orden and others show how John Deere's precision agriculture tools collect and use farm data. They cover variable rate seeding, harvest accuracy, and analytics that help farmers improve crop performance and cut costs.
Precision Ag in our farm, we have to have it. As the years go on now, everything's becoming more and more expensive. Our inputs are doubling in cost, seems like almost every year. And, and so everything we can do to limit our inputs but still produce the same quality of crop that we're known for, it's everything perfect. With Precision Ag we're able to put our seed in the ground precisely where we want it. With Precision Ag we're able to put the exact amount of fertilizer down, fuel used, how much product were applied. The advances that John Deere has made in the precision agriculture industry is amazing.
Harvest in Idaho is a lot of praying that it won't freeze in September.
Everyone's nervous. I mean, our time's getting crunched now to harvest everything.
This summer was the wettest I have ever seen it in my 34 years. We got quite a bit of rain this summer.
Luckily in September it's been pretty good.
We've been blessed. It's been a really good year this year. We're the end of, you know, September right now. Haven't got a frost yet and the crops look good. They feel like they're finishing right. So I can't complain. It's been good.
So on today's agenda, Hegler Creek they did some variable rate seeding.
So this morning we met at our Burley store and we got together and started reviewing some of the data of our customers. We pulled up Hegler Creek's data in operations center which right now they are chopping corn, making silage for the dairy. We notice that the chopper which is in corn is documenting that it is currently in alfalfa.
Yeah, he's got the crop type as alfalfa.
So if you don't change the field name, it's not quite as crucial because OP center sorts it out. But wrong crop type is going to have wrong documentation.
When we went and calibrated the harvest lot, we had set everything up to corn. So I don't know if maybe they had switched back to hay for a while, hay for a bit and then forgot to switch it.
The good part is we have, we haven't cut any of the fields that we need.
Yeah, that's that. We did the prescription maps on.
Yeah.
So we need to get out there and go fix that, get it switched over so it's documented correctly.
Yeah.
We could have called them and walked them through how to Change that in 30 seconds, but we wanted to check the machine over, make sure there were no other settings that were incorrect and just make sure that it was rolling and that we were getting the correct data.
So we noticed in the office that the harvest slide was reading on alfalfa instead of green corn silage. So we'll. I'll help you change that. So we went step by step how to change that, and then did a software Update on the Gen 4 display that will give us a little bit.
More accurate reading and we can automate that process. The changing of the variety and the crop type through what's called Work Planner. It is something Deere created that makes it that when the chopper or any tractor drives into a field, it automatically knows where it's at, what guidance line it needs, and what crop type and variety that it is doing.
With Kurt, we started off with a low package, so we don't overload the customer with all this technology and data all in the first year. It takes time to kind of get to the top tier where you can utilize your data at the end of the year, make decisions for next year, make decisions in the field. That takes time. Other than that, man, you should be set to go.
So anytime we can automate some of that data collection with workplanner. Now, when we're looking at this data, the data is going to be clean, it's going to be accurate.
We had a few details that weren't exactly right, and we've got them corrected now. And so we are collecting the right data.
Then we went to Shane Van Orden from VO Enterprises.
We grow potatoes, sugar beets, wheat and hay.
Shane said that one of the big things is just helping him with his.
GAP report at harvest time. The data that's coming in through the grain combines and the tractors, we got to make sure it's coming in correctly.
What's the most important thing for the GAP report so that I can understand it's traceability.
They want to know how many loads from this day came from this field where in the cellar we're putting these loads. And like this GAP audit with usda, it is. If we do not pass this audit, we legally cannot sell potatoes.
Currently, anyone running the seller system gets a report every morning of the previous day, how many truckloads they hauled and to what seller they went to, what field they came from.
GAP reporting was really a big thing for all of the growers that we talked to. And then we drove down to Bear River City, Utah, and we met with Riggan Holmgren and he grows onions.
Reagan is currently running our yield monitoring system on his onion loader. So it's documenting how many sacks he's getting per acre. It's documenting what the crop temperature is, and it tracks the truck. As the truck pulls up to the onion loader, it scans an RFID tag on the truck. It knows which truck's there.
You.
And then as it pulls away, it scans the next truck, and we're able to track that back to the seller. So we know where that truck came from, which field and to which seller it went and unloaded at, and about where in the cellar that truck load is currently sitting.
There's two separate audits. There's the field audit, and then there's the packing shed and the storage audit, or they call it a warehouse audit. And so, like, all this data, that'll help train tremendously with that. But now you're really going to start getting after it. Yeah, you got a Cheers.
All right.
Cheers. After we're done with the harvest season, then we're going to start looking at the analytics of how did that crop perform, what was the profitability, what was the best variety, all of those different metrics.
I'm excited about those blocks that Lane put into the fields. We'll be able to see on our yield map what the analytics of starches and sugars and proteins.
So I'm gonna head back down to Arizona, get ready for our harvest in Arizona, and hopefully we can have lots of really good data coming in and just make sure this all keeps flow.
