American agriculture keeping pace with changing times

QUINCY — Steve Gardner pulled an elongated case from the bed of his pickup to the tailgate slick as anything a guy can haul around in the back of truck.

It could have been a rifle case, a big one. Could have been tool or something a guy would need around the farm. As it turns out it is something a guy can use around the farm. Keeping up in the business of feeding the world means tapping into the technology.

Gardner took out a tablet and placed it on the tailgate and started punching coordinates into a computer program. Standing right there in the field pecking on a computer seemed a bit out of the ordinary, but when he opened the case and pulled out a remote controlled, lightweight HoneyComb AgDrone it started to make sense.

Drone technology is one way the American farmer is getting out front of problems well in advance of trouble at the harvest. The drone has a wingspan of 50 inches and weighs a little under five pounds. With it, a field man can do a whole lot of preventative maintenance to trouble areas.

“Used to be a time when a problem wasn’t discovered until harvest time,” Gardner said as he loaded a 5 gigabit card into each of the cameras the drone was carrying. “Now a good field man can see if there’s something going on.”

Data is collected and stored on the HoneyComb servers and can be accessed from any computer. Flights are programed and saved to the tablet.

These aren’t just remote controlled cropdusters, drones have the capabilities of hyperspectral imaging along with the standard thermal/visual/multispectral and the capability to create 3D thermal maps of a field. There is also an array of sensors, including thermal imaging, stereoscopic and multispectral NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index).

Spotting trouble from the sky is just one way the American farmers are getting out front of problems before it affects the end game. Maybe it’s an area in the field that can’t readily be seen or because the corn or wheat is too high. Eliminating problems such as too much water, lack of water, insect infestation or something going in the soil can be addressed much more quickly.

“You can fly pretty close to 700 acres an hour. What you’re looking for is stress in that field once you have vegetation coming up,” Washington Tractor manager Cody Hodge said. “It will show in a color spectrum. Green, of course, being good, yellow is questionable and red you need to address something.

“So it’s near infrared pictures you get back and still pictures. Say you’re running drip lines, you can also be looking for water leaks.”

Machine automation on the ground is also moving forward at lightning speed with GPS navigational systems, tractors that literally steer themselves, or remote control equipment that can be run from an iPod or tablet.

“You still have to have an operator in the seat, but the tractors are pretty much autonomous with exception of the drivers needing to turn them,” Hodge said. “You have a screen and a receiver. If you set up the pattern you want the tractor to drive in the field, it will follow that line to a tee.”

The benefit is to reduce overlap, cover more ground more efficiently and eliminate wide or narrow rows.

GPS started in the late 1990s, but past three years there have some real game changers.

“Over in our Linden area, we’re looking at mobile, real time R2K, which is getting the signal for the tractor to auto-steer,” Hodge said. “We’re not trying to eliminate the human element. This just makes the farmer more efficient, reduces their costs and increases productivity. One of the biggest benefits over the years is that it prevents fatigue for the farmer from driving his vehicle all day.”

Even the business of keeping machinery fit for the long haul has vastly improved. Most of the John Deere R-series tractors coming out come with technology called JDLink, which is a telematics system designed to remotely connect owners and managers to their equipment. It provides alerts and machine information including location, utilization, performance, and maintenance data to manage where and how equipment is being used.

“You have a modem in the tractor with a data plan that allows hourly updates on the health of that tractor,” Hodge explained. “It will notify you by text or email if it leaves a certain area. Where you used to have to keep track of maintenance schedules or mechanical repairs in a notebook, it’s all recorded in your computer.”

The tractor is capable of sending an email or text stating it has a hydraulic leak or some other mechanical issue as a preventative measure.

“We can run a remotely view of the display in a specific tractor. So if a farmer is having troubles with something, with their permission, we can go in and see what’s going on through an iPhone or iPad or computer and guide them to the solution,” Hodge said. “If we happen to be in Quincy and someone in Linden has an issue we can look at their tractor using a cellphone and get them back up and running. What it does is reduce down time.”

Another part of the process is that should they need to send a repairman to the field, they already have a diagnosis and know which parts are necessary.

The business of feeding the world is in fact keeping up with ever-changing times.