Precision farming reaches new levels

Times Reporter 

 

Precision farming is about to get a whole lot easier thanks, to the introduction of a new satellite-imaging product called Power-Zone, developed by Agri-Trend.  

Power-Zone can gather up to 30 years of field data, cull out the years that were no good due to poor weather conditions, or poor crop growth, and help find zones where vegetation has been high or low.

On July 19 Premium Ag held a crop tour and discussions to celebrate its 10th anniversary. One of those talks was by Doug MacKay, Geo-coach for Agri-Trend, who spoke about Power-Zone and how it can benefit today’s farmers. 

“It’s a good starting point for your farm to get involved in precision farming. If you’re not sure if variable rate (VR) is for you, if that’s the way you want to go, before investing in Veris and going and getting your fields maps, you could get your whole farm Power-Zone analysis done much more economically” said MacKay. 

Veris collection is one method to collect Electrical Conductivity measurements that are geo specific across a field that are GPS referenced.  Once the collection is done there are tens of thousands sets of data including 12” and 36” EC, lat/long, and elevation.  That data is analyzed and polished to create a zone based map upon discussion with the producer, Agri-Coach, and Geo-Coach. 

“It will rank all of your fields, from best to worst candidates for variable rate, and which ones have the best potential for savings.  Some fields that produce very well may not have a fit for investing more capital into VR technologies. ”

Power-Zone can get a Crop Productivity Index (CPI), which lists what your potential savings could be, and net gains from yield if you go to variable rate applications. Savings in fertilizer combined with potential yield gains can also be calculated, and Power-Zone is specific to each individual farm.

Precision farming, also known as satellite farming, is a farm management concept which observes, measures and responds to both inter- and intra-field variability. 

Rob Saik, founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Agri-Trend group also spoke about the potential Power-Zone has for today’s farming communities. 

He shared a story about a farmer from Red Deer that he spoke to just before the Agri-Trade Exposition last November. The farmer had called when there was still snow all over the ground and he told Saik he wanted a variable rate on two quarters this year, and he wanted to compare it to two quarters if they just did their standard program. 

Saik said you couldn’t run a Veris machine when there is snow on the ground. Agri-Trend had just gotten the Power-Zone technology, and within 24 hours Saik was at the Red Deer farmers home with maps showing interpretations of the fields. Saik and the farmer took soil samples and all winter long they developed the variable rate maps. The cards were produced and installed into the machinery and this spring the farmer did two quarters of his land with variable rate technology.

The second story Saik shared was about one of his longest customers from Vyefield Cattle Company from Burdett, Alberta. 

“They don’t do variable rate technology but they’re really big into cattle and they have a very large dairy operation. So I talked to Kevin Kielstra into doing Power-Zone for his operation,” said Saik.

The first thing they did was sat down and looked at the maps and picked out where they would scout the fields for disease, because, said Saik, you scout where the historic crop vegetation index is the highest. The second place they used the technology was for manure application. Saik said in some spots the irrigation pivot is heavy, and in the other half it is light but they have been putting on the manure application over the whole circle, which is something Vyefield now plans to stop. It was about a $5,000 bill for 1,800 acres.

‘The third thing we noticed was on one circle called Marathon we didn’t know how much poor area was in that circle,” said Saik.

“In other words the poor zone was much larger than we had anticipated, so we’re going to go back there and we’re growing grain corn there. So we learned an awful lot about the field, even though these guys had farmed this field for 20 years all of a sudden you’re seeing this field through a different set of lenses.”

The Power-Zone technology, whether you’re into variable farming or not, will help farmers understand their fields better. The price of the service also ranges from $2.25 to $5 an acre, depending on the volume it is used on. It is geared as a full farm product.