Betting Big on Precision Ag
(From Modern Farmer, March 2014)
Seed planting is a bit of a crapshoot. For centuries farmers have been relying on the smallest tidbits of information about the makeup of their soil – trusting one field is a better producer than another, but not understanding necessarily why. It has worked for generations. But it hasn’t been an ideal situation for optimizing every inch of a field.
That’s going to change, as John Deere and Monsanto square off for an Apple vs. Google-style battle. The result? Farm gear so high-tech a farmer from the 1920s would barely recognize it.
It’s hard to believe, but seed planting has remained much the same for the last century. To understand their fields and where to plant, farmers have relied on historical documentation. From the 1940s up until the 1970s, universities and the USDA sent members of their agronomy departments (sometimes students) out to local farms. These farm scientists would walk through the fields with an aluminum tube that had a sharp point on one end. Picking about fifteen key places in each field (depending on its size), the agronomist would push the tube into the soil and collect a sample. Back at the lab, the samples would be analyzed and the field would then be mapped, on paper, detailing the chemistry of each field.
Seed planting is a bit of a crapshoot. For centuries farmers have been relying on the smallest tidbits of information about the makeup of their soil – trusting one field is a better producer than another, but not understanding necessarily why. It has worked for generations. But it hasn’t been an ideal situation for optimizing every inch of a field. That’s going to change, as John Deere and Monsanto square off for an Apple vs. Google-style battle. The result? Farm gear so high-tech a farmer from the 1920s would barely recognize it.
It’s hard to believe, but seed planting has remained much the same for the last century. To understand their fields and where to plant, farmers have relied on historical documentation. From the 1940s up until the 1970s, universities and the USDA sent members of their agronomy departments (sometimes students) out to local farms. These farm scientists would walk through the fields with an aluminum tube that had a sharp point on one end. Picking about fifteen key places in each field (depending on its size), the agronomist would push the tube into the soil and collect a sample. Back at the lab, the samples would be analyzed and the field would then be mapped, on paper, detailing the chemistry of each field.
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