Precision Ag: Hype or Hope?
Field Work
Field Work
5.0 • 652 Ratings
🗓️ 26 June 2019
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
There are a lot of technologies available these days like sensors, geo-mapping, robots, and all sorts of other big data tools. The idea behind them, of course, is to make farming more efficient, and ultimately more profitable. Those technologies can also help growers farm more sustainably. Mitchell and Zach talk with precision ag expert Raj Khosla and Illinois farmer Michael Ganschow and try to parse how good some of the tech really is at this point, especially when it comes to nitrogen sensors. Zach and Mitchell also contemplate a world where robots take over. Skynet is becoming aware, people.
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| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, Zach here, and I wanted to let you guys know that field work is brought to you in part by General Mills. |
| 0:08.0 | General Mills is partnering with farmers and suppliers to advance regenerative ag practices on a million acres of farmland by 2030. I'm |
| 0:23.6 | Hi, I'm Zach Johnson. |
| 0:27.6 | I'm Mitchell Horo. |
| 0:28.6 | Welcome back to another episode of field work. |
| 0:31.6 | This is the podcast where we talk about sustainable egg practices and conservation |
| 0:35.6 | and how we can implement those at the ground level |
| 0:38.8 | on our own farms. This is a podcast by farmers for farmers. Today we're going to talk about |
| 0:44.0 | precision ag and kind of digging into where are we at right now. How do we implement and how do |
| 0:49.7 | you utilize this on your farm to continue moving us in the right direction. We've got a couple of guests |
| 0:54.3 | joining us in from Skype today. Michael Ganshaw is a sixth generation farmer from Bureau County, Illinois. |
| 1:01.5 | He also sits on the Illinois Nutrient Research Education Council. Joining us also via Skype, |
| 1:06.7 | we have Dr. Raj Kosla. He's a precision agriculture researcher at the Colorado State University. |
| 1:13.7 | Michael, how about you first? |
| 1:15.8 | Thanks for joining us. |
| 1:17.3 | Give us a little background on you. |
| 1:21.4 | Yeah, absolutely. |
| 1:22.4 | Thanks for having me on, guys. |
| 1:23.7 | So I'm a sixth-generation farmer. |
| 1:25.9 | I started farming full-time with my dad. In the fall of 2008, we farm about 3,000 acres, corn and soybeans, and then we use cover crops in the wintertime. And what I do is we plant all our fields using variable rate technology. And the reason why we do that is because we have such variability throughout most of the fields that we |
| 1:44.2 | farm. You know, you've got higher organic matter areas and low organic matter areas and are sand |
| 1:50.2 | and clays. And so the need to do that is more important on the stuff that we farm compared to |
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