New Tech for 2020

It’s been a busy week around the HTS Ag office learning about several new product announcements from several of the vendors we have partnered with. First up, Ag Leader announced their SureSpeed system, which was co-designed with Kinze giving us a solid product that will perform very well right away. You can see the full press release from Ag Leader at the bottom fo this post.

Next up was a big announcement from Autel Robotics, announcing their EVO II drone, packed full of great features

• First foldable drone with interchangable payloads
• First foldable drone with an 8K camera
• 40 minute flight time

The list of features for the EVO II goes on – check it out here https://youtu.be/XDiWQps-Rxc

Last but certainly not least was the announcement out of the DJI
Open Innovation Initiative. From this, DJI provides promising startups with guidance, resources and financial support to solve industry challenges with new technology Livox is a prime example of that. With a industrial grade Lidar sensor starting at $599, this company is definitely one that will change the future of many aspects from self driving cars to high definition mapping. Check them out at
https://www.livoxtech.com/

Ag Leader to add SureSpeed™, high-accuracy, high-speed planting system to its full-farm precision farming portfolio.

AMES, Iowa, January 7, 2020 –Today, Ag Leader announced its high-speed planting system SureSpeed, to serve row crop farmers with accurate seed placement at speeds up to 12 miles per hour. The meter with integrated delivery system was developed in collaboration with Kinze Manufacturing. Introduction is planned for the 2021 planting season through each company’s respective dealer networks.

“Working with Kinze made sense in many ways because we’re both family-owned companies that put the needs of the farmer first. Leveraging Kinze’s expertise in leading seed meter technology ensured a high-quality product,” said Al Myers, president of Ag Leader. “Ag Leader strives to provide the highest quality year-round platform in precision farming. SureSpeed broadens our planting portfolio allowing us to meet a wide range of grower needs for planter technology.”

Sure At Any Speed

The SureSpeed planting system was created with accuracy of seed placement in mind at all speeds from 3 to 12 mph. Many factors can influence planting speed, and when conditions are right to speed up, farmers don’t want to be limited by their ability to accurately place seeds in the ground. The system is designed to accommodate the need of the farmer at any speed without giving up proper seed placement.

Engineered for Accuracy

Every detail of the SureSpeed system was designed to account for superior accuracy at any speed. Unique meter orientation on the row unit allows seed to move seamlessly between the meter and delivery system resulting in accurate seed placement. Additionally, the meter was designed to handle a variety of seed shapes and sizes accurately and without singulator adjustments for hassle-free planting.

Paired with Ag Leader’s hydraulic down force solution, SureForce®, the system provides the highest available force capacity on the market to maintain consistent ground contact and smooth row unit ride with increasing speed in varying conditions.

Industry-leading Display

Ag Leader’s SureSpeed planting system is controlled by Ag Leader’s industry-leading display, InCommand™ 1200. The InCommand 1200 display provides a window into your planter to view individual row detail with side-by-side planting performance maps. Additionally, InCommand displays help farmers stay connected by instantly sharing live maps, autoswath coverage, guidance lines and more to other displays. View live or historical field maps and summaries from your phone or tablet anytime, anywhere.

See it in Louisville

Come to Ag Leader’s booth at the 2020 National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky February 12-15 for the first showing of the SureSpeed planting system.

Precision Calendar and Checklist – A step by step guide for 2020

Many people think they only need to utilize precision agriculture a few weeks a year, while they are in the field running their monitors on the machinery, so I thought it would be a good time to break down things to be doing or thinking about each month of the year as we kick off 2020.  This list is not all encompassing, but will give you a good base to run with and keep you in the top tier of precision technology operators / managers for your operations.

January – Monitor your grain in storage with a system like OPI Blue.  You can take advantage of the warm parts of the day to get some run time on your fans automatically, and rest easy knowing that the system will let you know if your grain condition is anything less than stellar.  With a wet crop from 2019, this system is a must have!

February – Create variable planting recommendations with your trusted advisor.  There is no shortage of programs out there that offer some ability to create variable rate planting recs, but this can be overwhelming to tackle by yourself without any guidance.  We offer assistance to help you write these recommendations with AgFiniti, assuring a good outcome.

March – Pre-season equipment checklist, updating firmware and performing system checks on all of your displays, steering systems, GPS units, and any modules that connect to them.  This simple bit of work can save hours of frustrating troubleshooting once you get to the field by highlighting potential problems early.

April – Maximize use of your display for fieldwork.  You can often utilize one piece of technology across many operations.  For example, if you do tillage and apply NH3 with the same tractor, you can use autosteer for both.  Likewise, you likely can utilize the same display for planting and spraying by moving it, pending you don’t need both operations running at the same time.

May – As you are wrapping up fieldwork, now is also the time to start scouting your crops for the year.  Drones have proven to improve both the speed and accuracy of crop scouting, and in recent years have become very inexpensive too.  Check out how a high quality, “flying camera” can benefit you if you haven’t already done so.

June – Time to get the sprayer rolling again, and make sure the second pass of your herbicide program goes as planned.  Your display can likely save you money with auto shut offs, but also is a great tool for keeping spray records.  Speaking of record keeping, AgFiniti makes certifying your acres with the FSA quick and easy, with your acres and planting dates at your fingertips!

July – Dust off your drone, as it again becomes a valuable tool to scout your crops.  This time, couple it with DroneDeploy, and you can stitch images together to get a map of the whole field, and even get a crop health index.  Most of the crop health maps from this time of the year will mirror your yield map, so you can start planning with some estimates of how the crop will do.

August – Many guys are getting the last of the grain cleaned out of the bins, so this becomes a good time to inspect your grain management system, and make sure it is ready to go for the next season.  This pre-season system check is vital, as once the bins are full we can’t replace sensors in the bin.

September – With harvest right around the corner, now is the time for a harvest pre-season checklist, making you have your equipment up to date and ready to go, with some of the basic pre-field calibrations like header height, vibration, and temperature out of the way.

October – Hopefully you have your yield monitor in good shape, as it can be incredibly valuable once harvest starts.  Not only can you avoid harvesting crops at moisture levels above what you desire, you can also load trucks on the way to town and rest easy knowing they don’t have to worry about overweight tickets on the highway.  The data collected can also be beneficial for many other things, as this is your report card for the year, so you know what worked, and what didn’t.

November – Already have a display, RTK, and a big tractor?  Post harvest is a great time to take advantage of the last nice days for field work, and you can install your own tile with Intellislope.

December – As you wind down the year, you can utilize all the data you have collected to make informed decisions for the coming year.  Your yield maps are very helpful for determining hybrid performance, and each pass across the field helps build another layer of data, either to analyze or for record keeping.  Compile multiple layers and the information becomes even richer!  Comparisons like yield by planting speed, or yield by fertility can help you make management decisions to improve for the coming year.    

Check back throughout 2020, as we will expand on these topics each month with an article dedicated to the topic of the month listed above.