A Profitable Tool With a Side of Sustainability

Posted on

Yara’s Adapt-N software is a field-proven innovation for measuring nitrogen uptake in corn.

By Douglas J. Guth

PrecisionAg Alliance Contributor

Precision agriculture is sustainable agriculture, particularly when harnessing the high-tech tools currently transforming that ideal into reality, says Yara International Digital Sales and Business Development Advisor Bret Shaw.

To that end, Yara is boldly guiding precision into the hotly competitive agtech sector. Via the multinational chemical company’s Adapt-N software, farmers now have a field-proven innovation that actively monitors nitrogen uptake in corn. Through its precise measurement capabilities, the solution recommends nitrogen use efficiency rates to ensure maximum return on investment.

cornfield

“Adapt-N is unique in the sense that it brings both profitability and sustainability into the marketplace through nitrogen-use efficiency,” says Shaw. “Yara is going through a digital transformation, which is bringing new and improved precision tools to the market.”

Developed at Cornell University, the technology was initially commercialized by agricultural field modeling company Agronomic Technology Corp (ATC). Yara acquired ATC in 2017 with an eye on new nitrogen management solutions for farmers, agricultural retailers and technology firms.

Adapt¬-N combines soil, weather and field specific data with meticulous crop modeling and field management. Yara, a Norwegian chemical producer dealing in fertilizers, animal nutrition and industrial biologicals, views the technology as a means for detailed fertilizer treatments that avoid environment-damaging nitrogen losses, such as those that occur from nitrogen leaching.

“We like to say Adapt-N was science-created, field-tested and grower-approved,” Shaw says. “This model is not a flash in the pan – it’s been around for a long time. This is a tool that has created its own baseline of nitrogen management. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of acres per season running through this system, and millions of acres over the span of its lifetime.”

The right technology for the right time

Though Yara caters to multiple markets and a varied grower portfolio, for now the company is offering its Adapt-N technology to North American-based corn producers only. Hyper-focusing on a niche market will help scale up the technology for use in additional crops and geographies, remarks Shaw. Although Adapt-N is focused on corn, other crops such as wheat are actively being explored and will someday be available for nitrogen modeling as well.

Adapt-N’s web-based system and integrations into popular farm management information systems gives operators complete control in how they configure individual fields. Growers simply plug in vital data like variable yield zones, while key details such as soil type, slope and weather are already factored in by the software.

Shaw says, “You can utilize previous nitrogen and manure applications, or enhance efficiency products. It goes through the whole gamut of anything that integrates into the nitrogen equation. The tool then feeds 13 different models that work together to create a nitrogen recommendation you can then take to your field. We say it’s a nitrogen recommendation ‘when you need it, where you need it.’”

Recommendations are created every 24 hours, meaning farmers can let the software run by itself over an entire season. Although Yara has a full suite of nitrogen containing products, Adapt-N does not tout any particular product to use for nitrogen. That decision is left to the producer.

Adapt-N instead provides a nutrient recommendation based on nitrogen deficit, giving farmers freedom on what product they will ultimately employ. Shaw says the company is a committed partner of the 4R nutrient stewardship program, promoting fertilizer use through the framework of “the right source, right rate, right time and right place.”

“Adapt-N is a profitable tool with a side of sustainability—that’s the way it’s always been put into the market,” says Shaw. “When you optimize the use of nitrogen, you’re reducing the amount of loss going into the watershed or into the air. As you get more precise with those four Rs, you’re ensuring that nitrogen is being utilized by the plant in the most efficient way possible.

“The opportunities are endless when it comes to any crop that uses nitrogen—we don’t see any change from that,” Shaw says. “The four Rs are scalable, meaning you can get more specific with the management practices of each one. Adapt-N allows us to manage nitrogen in season, or pre-season, based off the information actively happening given the field specific conditions.”

Shaw has been working to integrate with other farming software systems, bolstered by a technology poised to change the industry’s nitrogen management practices now and into the future.

“My goal is to make Adapt-N the traditional nitrogen management practice—to take those growers from where they are now and help them to understand their nitrogen better, ultimately increasing their profitability through that process.” Shaw says. “At the end of the day whenever they get a nitrogen recommendation, our goal is to have it coming from the Adapt-N model.”

Preparing for an Autonomous Future

Posted on

Agtegra harnesses Raven’s OMNiPOWER technology as driverless equipment becomes reality

By Doug Guth

PrecisionAg Alliance Contributor

Mainstream agriculture may conjure images of a farmer-piloted tractor trundling among the cornstalks as the first light of sunrise illuminates the plain. While hands-on farming remains part of the American fabric, the move to precision technology and automation continues to grow.

GPS-guided applications, automatic adjustable spray systems, and automated steering are among the new technologies the industry is learning to love. Full-service agricultural cooperative Agtegra recently embraced such bleeding-edge innovation through adoption of Raven’s OMNiPOWER system.

The cooperative is utilizing Raven’s driverless system for its own processes, along with a portion of its 6,300 member-growers in North and South Dakota. Using the innovation, Agtegra hopes to streamline operations through a high-tech platform that transforms existing equipment – whether a spreader, sprayer or spinner – into an autonomous machine.

“We’re hoping for more automation and technology that would allow us to not replace our workforce, but offset it and specialize it, and utilize that to expand our services,” says Kaleb Bowman, director of agronomy operations at Agtegra.

In the field, OMNiPOWER is interchangeable among multiple machines and controlled via tablet by an operator. The platform can also send driverless equipment on autonomous tasks, ideally servicing more acres and giving growers the option to automate processes through connected workflow.

“You can file-share without having to pass a jump drive back and forth between drivers,” says Bowman. “And you can visualize your acres rather than having paper copies that you have to find an FSA map for. Raven has the ability to visualize those work orders and filter them based on crop and product. It makes you more efficient in the office before it gets to the applicator, so our applicators can be efficient as possible going from field to field.”

Agtegra officials are excited to harness a system allowing our operators to command, supervise and monitor equipment anywhere in the field, or even from another machine. OMNiPOWER lets operators plan path alterations to satisfy changing field conditions, with short- and long-range sensors detecting obstacles that could damage equipment.

However, enthusiasm around new technology still requires buy¬-in on the grower side, notes Agtegra director of technology services Brent Wiesenburger.

“ We need to prove to our member owners that this technology is as accurate or more accurate than what we currently offer today,” Wiesenburger says. “That’s education that we as retailers will need to consider to help make autonomy widely adopted. The more our technology team can be involved in the implementation for our needs, the more we can assist our producers to help them with their needs as well”

Wide-ranging benefits

Agtegra implemented OMNiPOWER in early November, in the time since determining exactly how the platform can be a value-add to farmers. Although driverless technology may not be of immediate importance, growers must start preparing for an at least partially autonomous future.

Bowman says, “It’s going to be about working with another machine in the field. Currently, it’s a cabless design where you have to transport (the machine) via detached trailer, get it to another field, and then click on the runs you want it to make. It’s going to have to work in tandem with another piece of application equipment in the field. It will take a knowledgeable applicator to monitor and set that up.”

Growers can skill up current employees on the cutting-edge platform, saving on labor costs, says Wiesenburger. Agtegra itself is using Raven’s Slingshot application for nearly 200 pieces of equipment that tend about 3.5 million acres annually.

Industry-wide labor shortages – combined with expanding farm operations – has left growers little choice but to consider automation, says Ben Voss, Raven’s director of sales for North America and Australia.

“Everyone believes that without some automation and autonomy, we won’t be able to grow the crops at the levels we have been,” says Voss. “We’re running out of workers, and farms need to cover more acres and introduce people into the workforce who don’t have natural farming backgrounds.”

Paul Bruns, business development manager at Raven, says some operations start with lower levels of automation – like autosteering – before investing further in the technology.

“Where autonomy is really going to start is with those mundane jobs, like pulling a land roller across a field, or tasks where there’s little thinking involved,” says Bruns. “Those mundane tasks are going to get tackled first, because there’s not highly valuable agronomic decisions that need to be made.”

Wiesenburger doesn’t expect his customer base to adopt all aspects of OMNiPOWER immediately. Growers desiring a hands-on farming experience won’t have to give up their tractor or sprayer seat, as the technology is years away from being perfected. In the early-going, clients may simply have an applicator in the field, with a piece of equipment connected to another human-operated machine.

“Our customers will adapt to this technology the same way we are adapting to it, and will slowly incorporate autonomy into their fleets as well,” Wiesenburger says. “That producer who likes working the land is still going to play a major role in the execution of farming activities for quite a few years. It’ll be a ways down the road before this farming system is 100% autonomous.”

Agtegra agronomy director Bowman admits some reluctance upon first learning about OMNiPOWER, a viewpoint that rapidly changed when understanding the innovation’s wide-ranging benefits.

“There’s less skepticism working with Raven, because they won’t put forward a product that hasn’t been thought through,” says Bowman. “We then went into the mindset of how are we going to utilize this technology? What are the benefits it will provide, not only to us as a company, but to our producer base as well?”

As autonomous agriculture continues to be fine-tuned, growers and retailers alike must make room in their operational domain for this technology, says Voss of Raven.

“I’m working here because I believe it’s going to change agriculture,” Voss says. “We’re facing an apex in the industry which we’ve never faced before. The only way that we’re going to maintain productivity is through advancements in automation.”

About the PrecisionAg Alliance

PrecisionAg® Alliance, administered by Meister Media Worldwide in cooperation with its Alliance Partners – topflight agricultural organizations committed to advancing modern crop production agriculture through wider use of technologies and data-driven solutions. At its core, the PrecisionAg Alliance’s mission is to help move the needle to more widespread use of digital technologies though the agricultural distribution and food chain.

Rodney Wright: Better Farming With Precision

Posted on

Leader in Precision

Even if you leave it for a while, there’s something about growing up on a farm that’s been in your family for generations, says Rodney Wright of Wright Farms in Tyronza, AR, recipient of the farmer award in the 2018 Awards of Excellence program.

“It just gets you. I went to school and majored in ag engineering. I saw all these things on the farm and thought, ‘Why do they do it like that? We should do it like this to make it better.’ My dream job at one time was to go to school, get an ag engineering degree, and then go to work for John Deere. That last thing never happened.”

Instead, after undergrad and a stretch working for Jacuzzi Brothers and at the University of Arkansas in irrigation research, Wright returned to his home base in Northeast Arkansas in 1993 – to farm ground in the same areas that his grandfather and father farmed. From that point on, he has never stopped improving it and making it the most efficient operation possible.

It’s perhaps the reason why precision agriculture has become such a passion for Wright. Precision is a way of conservation – a way of honoring the history of his family farm and ensuring it thrives for years to come.

Precision ag first grabbed Wright’s attention 15 years ago at the Arkansas Crop Management Conference. “This farmer was there, and he was presenting all of these fields with yield maps, and I was like, ‘Man, that’s incredible.’ I had worked in research, so the details were really interesting to me. Yield mapping was probably what really got me on the track, and the guidance systems for tractors is still kind of mind-boggling – how the little receiver on the top of the tractor can talk to those satellites and can steer your tractor in a perfect, straight line. That’s always been kind of neat.”

While he produces a variety of crops, including grain sorghum, cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat, the huge water management challenge of growing rice is what has captured his interest the most. Wright is currently in his second year using Dr. Chris Henry’s (University of Arkansas) Multiple Inlet Rice Irrigation (MIRI) program, which uses shape files to determine the acreage of the field’s contour levees. Based on the pipe diameter, well flow rate and drop in field grade, it calculates the size of holes to be punched so that the field waters evenly, eliminating the need for spillways.

“If you can imagine, 30 inches is a lot of water you have to put on the field,” Wright says. “With this system, you never lose water at the end of your field. My goal is to never see water running out at the end of this field all year.”

Wright employs a similar irrigation system in his row crops, and is also looking to utilize his yield mapping to create management zones for fertility, seeding, and other crop decisions.

Many have not only taken note of Wright’s dedication and expertise in irrigation, but followed his lead. Just some examples: He was appointed to the Arkansas Agriculture Irrigation Science Technical Working Group in 2016. He was also appointed to the Mississippi County Farm Bureau committee on Research and Extension Resolutions, and served on board of the Mississippi County Conservation District for 10 years until 2014.

“Rodney’s role with the Mississippi County Conservation District formed close connections with USDA National Resources Conservation Service personnel that enhanced his use of precision agricultural technology to simultaneously reduce risk at the farm level and reduce potential runoff of nutrients via over-application and erosion,” says Jennifer Bouldin, professor at Arkansas State University who worked closely with Wright when he was attending the school. His roles with NRCS, Farm Bureau, and academic publishing “has placed him at the focus of decisions being made in Little Rock and Washington, D.C. Once Rodney decides whether a technology is profitable for his farm, his neighboring farmers follow his lead … He is a pillar to the agricultural community of Northeast Arkansas.”

Asked to reflect on the big picture of precision ag and its potential, Wright commented: “Farming has always been a business, but it’s one that took care of itself if the grower took care of his crops. Precision agriculture has changed all that; now a grower has precise information on practically every square foot of his farm. With this new level of intelligence, the grower can analytically and economically take his production to the next level to supply an increasing world population, while being environmentally friendly at the same time.

“I would like to encourage farmers, even if it requires getting help, to utilize yield and other data to manage crop production better and stay abreast of new technological innovations as they come online such as drone capabilities. Drones are getting more user-friendly and can allow for instant feedback on crop conditions.”

Brent Rendel: A Leader in Developing Precision Ag Practices

Posted on

Brent Rendel is a man who has been actively involved in farming and ranching his whole life. After graduating from Oklahoma State University with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1986, Rendel went on active duty with the U.S. Navy, retiring with a rank of Commander. He returned to the family farm near Miami, OK in 1997 and has been an active partner of the operation ever since. Rendel Farms has about 3,000 acres of winter wheat, winter canola, corn, grain sorghum, and soybeans.

For more than two decades, Rendel has been a cooperator with OSU extension specialists and researchers. He was the first to bring winter canola into his area as rotational crop, worked with OSU to evaluate using minimum tillage beds on his poorly drained crop ground, and was the earliest adopter and advocate of the N-Rich Strip, GreenSeeker (NDVI), and Sensor-Based Nitrogen Rate Calculator (SBNRC) methodology.

“In fact, adopter is not the best term to use. Developer is more accurate,” says his nominator, Dr. Brian Arnall.

“Brent hosted the earliest farm studies and provided feedback on every iteration of sensor and online calculator. He has been a leader in developing technologies and practices via sound science for Oklahoma and the surrounding areas.”

Arnell adds: “Brent never been afraid to share his wins or trials and tribulations. He also never gives up on an idea that has merit.”

PrecisionAg spoke with Rendel about his history on the farm and what drives him.

THE BEGINNING: “My great-grandfather moved to Oklahoma in the late 1800s from the Ohio River Valley. He bought his first ground just outside of Miami, in the far northeastern corner of the state, 5 miles from Kansas and 7 miles from Missouri. This is dryland country; there’s good groundwater but it’s too deep for irrigation. In this part of the world, we’ve got to maximize resources and do everything we can to keep costs in check. I’m not against spending money, as long as the dollar I spent on the crop returns more in the dollar in income. That’s why I started looking at precision ag – it’s all about maximizing return on investment.”

FIRST FORAY INTO PRECISION AGRICULTURE: “In 1996, the opportunity came to put my money on the line in the farm. Around 1998-99 is when I heard about the GreenSeeker that Oklahoma State University had been developing to better manage nitrogen in wheat and other crops. At that time, it was simply a large handheld device with a shoulder strap that you walked around the field. I was really impressed by the results, and with my engineering background, data and numbers speak well to me. It showed me the first year the dollar savings that I could have, so I went all in after that. My father was open-minded, so he embraced it, too. The ultimate thing with engineers is that numbers and data mean more than visuals. I deliberately left check strips in and adopted that system wholeheartedly after three years of testing and it always working in my favor.”

ON THE GOAL OF PRECISION: “Nitrogen is the hardest nutrient of all to manage, in my opinion, and it’s absolutely critical to manage right. Too little, you cost yourself yield; too much, you waste money. When I first started getting into (precision agriculture), I was talking with Bill Raun and Brian Arnall, who were my mentors, as well as Randy Taylor. They used a long-term study that goes back decades looking at the right amount of nitrogen to use in wheat. They came to find out that in some years, zero was the right number, and in some years, 4 or 5 lbs. per bushel of yield goal was the right number. When you average it out, it’s 2 lbs. per bushel of yield goal, and you still hear that.

But when you dig into the numbers, you find out that’s right one-third of the time. Two-thirds of the time it’s wrong. I wanted to be right more than one-third of the time. That’s what attracted me to GreenSeeker and was my whole leaping-off point into the concept of precision ag. Precision ag is not perfect and never will be perfect. The goal is that it’s better than what we’re doing now. So many people are turned off by the lack of perfection: ‘What if it’s wrong?’ But in many cases, a computer is more right than you are.”

ON LOW ADOPTION OF HIGH-ROI TOOLS: “If you put hard numbers to a tool like auto-steer, it has a very low payback in dollars. So why does it have universal adoption? The answer is, as soon as I push that button, my life just got better, and I know it. I feel better, I drive better, my rows are straighter, and I have time to look at my smartphone. When I punch auto-apply on nitrogen using an NDVI system, my life instantly had questions added to it – ‘Am I doing the right thing? Is it too much nitrogen, or not enough?’ A lot of adoption of technology seems to be about how it makes you feel, instead of what it does. That’s a challenge for the entire industry. If I’m running a center pivot, I need a soil moisture probe out in that field. The return on investment is massive, yet the adoption rate of those technologies is very low. It’s improving, but it’s nowhere near where it should be.

We plant about 1,400 acres of corn a year – that’s a lot, but a lot of farmers are bigger and can easily justify higher levels of precision. We just added planter that has ability to variable-rate plant, but it’s hard to cash flow that. The ROI just isn’t there, and at the end of the day, I’m about ROI.”

ON FUTURE TECHNOLOGY: “One that I like is (John Deere) Blue River’s See & Spray. I think that could be a complete game-changer. It helps farmers because it reduces cost of chemicals, and immediately starts paying itself back. I think in eight to 10 years it’s going to become the industry standard. I was talking to one of the guys at the company and said, ‘Even taking the spray off the table, you’re telling me today, you could drive one of my fields and give me a map and tell me what weed species I have mapped across my field?’ He said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s easy.’ Do you understand how valuable that one piece of information is? If the spray piece is hard, give me that piece where I can go across field and map my weeds. I think that’s a really exciting piece of technology.”