 Hi, I'm Mark Hall with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Welcome to our Advanced Precision Agriculture course. With me today to help you improve your planning efficiency is Dr. John Fulton, the precision agriculture specialist for the Ohio State University. John, planning is one of, if not the most important job since successfully growing the crop. And it's unbelievable how much planners have improved. Tell us how precision seeding techniques are saving money and improving crop yields. Hey John, welcome back to Alabama. Hey, it's good to see you, Mark. Precision before we get into planners, we were talking about phones. Yeah. Farmers say, I don't do precision agriculture. If you got a cell phone, you do precision agriculture. This is can do technology. Tell us about planning. Hey, you know the other thing I'd add into your comment is, you think about seed costs today. Wow. You know, we talk about just corn itself. A lot of guys will have a hundred, in some cases you go to some of these triple stacks, $150 an acre, and it's sitting there in a bag. That's not even in the planner and putting it in the ground. And so, you know, my comment on this is, with that kind of investment that when I hit the field, I want to make sure that I'm getting that placed at the target rate for population, and making sure I get to the depth I want. And we talk a lot about uniformity of emergence, timing of emergence. Man, that affects your yields. It comes up. Every plant comes up within hours of each other. Yeah. If you can get all that up within a 24 or so hour period, it's very critical. So, the quality of planning really can influence that. And every season is new, as you know. Every spring is a new challenge. And so, this technology, I think, when we talk about planners, it's very important to have not only for the operator to maintain the performance of that planner, but I think as we go on and data becomes more of an important aspect, collecting that and verifying what went on. And I think there's also some other things that you can glean out of that kind of data that's being collected today. So, but let's talk about planning technology. And then we'll kind of get into, these are just some of the things that we were going to talk about today, kind of in reference to the technology itself, a few of the ideas around precision seeding, you know, the verberate, the multi-hybrid. And then we'll talk a little bit about some of that data I mentioned that farmers can capture and have not only for verifying what went on, but kind of in the season type analysis as well. So, you know, I know here in Alabama, as we even go to Midwest, Ohio, where we're at currently. I mean, this is not a new phenomenon. We know our fields are variable in nature while that deals with the soils themselves in terms of texture, organic matter. You can see that in this. And so, but the real key and we need a lot more science behind this is how do I take advantage of that on a profitability perspective? How do I implement precision seeding, verberate seeding and be profitable? But we know it's out there and certain years is probably going to pay off more than others. But you know, how do I take advantage of documenting this variability that we know about and then generating prescriptions on the back end that's going to make me some profit or save me some money in some cases? Well, this is a big deal, John. We're talking about reduced input on the front end and maximizing yield, maximizing profit on the back end. And you consider today's commodity prices. It doesn't matter if we're going to talk cotton, corn, soybean, sweet. I mean, we're at a relaxed state here today. And so, you know, we want to make sure that what we're investing in space that heavy investment in seed is going to try and bring us some profit. And so we're learning that's long this way. But I think the technology itself on the front end can really, really be an asset to the producer in terms of making sure that that planner, which isn't a cheap proposition itself is performing from day one to seven or 10, whatever that planning window is. Make us some money, John. Tell us how to do that. Yeah. So, so, you know, I just wanted to kind of let's outline just some of the technologies when we talk about precision planning or precision seeding on the right side there, basically is a demonstration or an illustration of what's capable today. Mark, you know, a lot of these planners, you know, we're talking 12, 16, 24 row, 36 row planners, large planners. They got weight distribution differences across those planners with the central field, but with the technology, what happens is you're starting to get, we're starting to get that planner from that. It's not a 24 row planner today. It's really 24 one row planners. That's, that's where we're at with technology. So the smart thing and we, the first thing is that technology is smartphones and information. I think we think about growers taking advantage of consumer products, smartphones, iPads, but getting a variety information, hybrid information on these prompts, having that at your fingertips to study, communicating, all that kind of information is, you know, either through an app or some of the basic texting and emails that come on. All of us, it seems like an ag now or utilizing these as a way for either gain information or communicate. And today, some of these apps can talk directly to your, to your machine or you connect to your machine. So you can kind of check in if you're not in the machine or you can kind of watch at a very detailed level of what's happening. Guidance technology, Mark, think about where we're at today versus, you know, 10, 15 years ago, but guidance today is air conditioning in these machines. It's, it's embedded. It's there and we'll talk about what that kind of savings, but in general guidance is going to reduce and make sure you got straight rows, but it's going to reduce any kind of overlap or on those, what we call marriage rows, you know, not to make sure they get too far off. And so guidance today just is naturally a tremendous fit. And I think growers that are using these type of planners are watching their bottom line if they've already bought into an implemented. So guidance has been a great asset. We've got bare braid technology. I don't know a planner manufacturer in North America today that either doesn't have it as a standalone already on the planner or primary option on planners, but the ability to, to vary the rates and think about this, Mark, we're not just talking about varying rates. But when I go out there and I'm planting variety A and B, and I want to just switch over and to change population based on the information, that's an easy task today. And so these drives gives you that capacity to make that change instantly from the cab and seamlessly. So that's an asset as well. Automatic section control, section control or row control. We're going to get into that a little bit more, but that's been a tremendous benefit. And again, when I look at planners today coming out of the manufacturers, it's pretty much already on the planners. And and you can talk to any grower and they'll tell you, Hey, you know, I've saved, you know, 10, 25% on my seed savings, just by reducing that overlap. And that's that's money in the pocket, right? So but we'll talk about that even a little bit more. Downforce, we call it active downforce. We'll give an example of that here in a little bit, but growers basically running these large, large planners, the 16, 24, 36, even 48, keeping those row units in contact, those gauge wheels pressed down in there to make sure that we're planting at the right depth, active downforce, given the fact that we have variability out there in these soils, moisture differences, texture differences, that becomes very important to make sure that we're maintaining our target depth on our crops. The other thing is today, for our no tillers, row cleaners, I can adjust those from the cab, I can bring them up and I'll tell you what, for our, even in our research running planners, as just been a real asset, you don't realize the with the train differences and the size of the planners, you can go from just, you know, whisking away some of that corn stover or biomass that's out there to actually doing tillage and we don't want to do tillage. Those things serve a purpose of getting, getting that prior crops biomass out of the way, not for tilling. That's what there's opening. We want the rest of the row unit to take care of what it was designed to do. So, row cleaners, I can almost adjust those by sections today with some of the technology. Today too, I can plant two, two varieties or two hybrids in one field mark and we'll show an example that a very exciting technology in the Midwest, very new. But again, thinking about profit and if I can identify zones of high yield potential, let's, let's get our racehorse varieties, let's invest a little bit more in that area. And if things happen, you know, line up, I can, I can maximize not only yield but profit, whereas I got some of those areas that, you know, it does good with some years bad and others, maybe I want to be more of a low risk, tolerant type variety. One that's a little bit more palatable and stressed, but it's still going to gain me kind of that median or above average yield, regardless of the growing conditions. That's what that kind of technology can bring. And the last thing, which is the biggest thing and when we think about planters is just electric drives. And we'll give an example that here in a minute, but using electric drives versus the old chains or hydraulics to drive those row units, basically you got a little electric motor on the meter itself today. And that just really opens up the door of really being able to fine tune your seating rate, controlling that row unit very accurately, turning it on and off. It's basically drives all the technologies and some of those above the variable eight section control, turn compensation, I'll give an example all in one, because that I can control that electric motor very precisely. So those are the technologies that are out there. You know, I think, Mark, we've talked about this, but when you've got that kind of investment, and you look at these displays, and there's just a few examples out there. You see, in this case, you actually see a variable eight prescription in there. But the key thing is, look down there at the bottom where I'm actually seeing feedback on each and every row. And if you notice out there in row, about 22, where it's under seating significantly. Okay, you see that bar, basically the 100% of it would be 100% of whatever the target is. But you can see row by row how each one of the how your population is being metered row by row. Hey, if you get a little bit high, a little bit low, think about having that knowledge, you stop the planner, you go back there, check things out, make a correction, and I'm not planting 100, if not 1000 acres and never knowing about it. So this to me, as an investment from a planting perspective, and a utility to really make the grower money, this is, this is the key to have a really high end in cab display that can be utilized effectively. Again, my idea is day one, whatever day 10, day 14, I want to make sure everything's being done as that's in my control to the best of its ability. And so it gives row by row feedback. We call it singulation. So you know how well that meter is performing as a picking up a seed in every hole on a plate example, and going back to our smartphones, whether it's deer or precision planning, or such, you know, they've got it where if you're connected or have a Wi Fi connection, I can actually watch that on my iPad today. And if I'm a grower, where someone else is doing my planning, I think that's a value proposition that gives me, you know, confidence that things are going right in the field. And I can go back and postplay that to I can always go back and look what happened. The other good thing is, is I can enable on farm experiments, you know, how many times you want to go out and do a seeding rain or a nitrogen trial or something like that, these things just make it so simple to set that up and retain records for that. So would be great for if a problem arises, you could look back and say, it wasn't seeding because, you know, we got this record, there's something else, what else is going on? That's right. And having that information, you know, if you don't measure it, you don't know. Yes. Right. Or if you don't have the ability to visualize it, you never know. And again, you know, you just look at what the companies have done to improve planning technology, it's the fact that we're collecting this information or visualizing in the case of a display to make those corrections and ensure that things are working properly. So so displays number one technology, you know, mark and you kind of we worked on this together a little bit, but section of road control, we talk about how much savings it provides, just an illustration again of what it does. I mean, it goes from me having to turn that planner on and off manually making that decision from the cab, and maybe doing that over 810 15 hour day to using it all based on GPS. And the idea here is as you plant, that display, what we call a coverage map is retained. So it knows where it's been planning. So any time a portion of that planner or a road goes into an area that's already pre planted just automatically shuts it off. So but the interesting thing that I think that we learned during our research here when we worked on this is that not only gives their savings and there's a 4.3 4.4% on average savings with this technology and it could be high as 10 15%. And he's really odd shaped, you know, it's all dictated by shape and size of the field. So it can be a lot higher that's just on average. But we don't think about the yield loss and harvest loss in those double planted areas. And that goes for cotton or corn. And when we researched this, in this case, we've got an example of corn, but the yield loss in those areas that are double planted is 17%. There's a lot of reasons for that competition plants a lot closer together and I get in the area that there's more incidents of disease, etc. That can happen. But then the other thing is when I go around the field and I get into those double planted areas, you know, there's going to be the snouts pushing, pushing stalks straight down and and here is a lot of kernels to be lost and that's six times higher. John, it's more important for corn. You know, soybeans can compensate a little bit cotton can compensate with corn. If you don't get it planted right. That's it. Yep. That's right. And and the nice thing and there's a reference here to the publication we put out at Auburn, but the cotton data is in there. There's an advantage to this and cotton as well as far as it relates to yield and even harvest loss. And so there's savings, but there's also these other components you got to consider. So you talk about making money with technology, you know, the idea of whether it's section or road control is has become pretty much a one maybe two year max type payback. I mean, it's almost a no brainer today. So that's one of the key technologies talking about variable rate or rate control. This is just an example of a hydraulic drive. Again, going back to Mark, if you remember back way back when we basically had all these chain transmissions, right, that were ground driven and I'd have to change out the gear ratio to meet kind of my population. I wasn't even sure if I was doing it at that point, right? Right. But with this feedback and the ability to drive that this a hydraulic motor, like I mentioned, as an example, one again, any manufacturer building planners today, a lot of the ones if they're not using electric or equipped with these hydraulic drives. So we just want to kind of illustrate that here to to folks. So but today, you know, the new thing is is getting rid of all the chains and even the hydraulics. And now we're going to electric drives. And you can see a pretty standard seed meter there that's used around the world, in this case, but you take those chains and gears and etc out and you put essentially electric motors that kind of look familiar to you. Yes. Very similar that you might find on your windshield. Yeah. But you know, our ability today to make those motors more compact, we can control that meter very precisely. And it's just amazing where we're heading. And I think as we we advance further, or pretty much majority of the planners, at least large scale planners that are sold worldwide will will end up having electric drives in the long run. So again, going back to my comment is not only can improve our control, but we're going row by row. You know, you get fascinating, John, how you think about a skier skiing behind the boat. But this is a big deal. And it took somebody a lot smarter than me to figure out how to do that outside and plant the same spacing in there. And this becomes a bigger deal on these larger planners, right? That's we're not 30 row 20 rows. It would be a small planner today. Yeah, we're not eight, eight 12 row. I mean, it's big. And so when you think about even Alabama or the field I showed before, when you plant those headlands, how many times does that as that planner put into some kind of curve? And so and the inside would be too close. That's right, you're overpopulating on the inside underpopulating on the outside. And we didn't worry too much about that. But now that these planners are larger, I've got a little bit heavier investment in that seed. And I think this is again, naturally, a lot of this technology will give you this turn compensation. And this is just an example of a 12 row planner mark. We did a little bit of research and found out it without turn compensation. The difference between the population on the inside row one versus the outside row 12 was anywhere from eight to 20% depending on the curve, you know, the radius of the curve, you put turn compensation on, it basically got you down to 3% or less. And kind of the rule of thumb is if it's 15% could be a little less and depend on the crop, but you're having a yield difference across there. So again, just just kind of fine tune in the planning operation. Then the last thing here and we'll take a kind of kind of change in pivot to kind of talking more on the data and using variable rate. But the newer thing again, going is this active downforce. And we used to have those mechanical springs that we could adjust to maintain contact. But now we either put basically an airbag or hydraulic cylinder in there, hydraulics are becoming more popular today, but actually to maintain the down pressure on that row unit that ultimately is trying to keep that the gauge wheels and the opening disc and everything engaged and running at the proper depth and downforce. And so I just think about all the field variability that a planner can run into. When we think about moisture, we're talking about texture, your combination there of, how do you manage that and ensure that that's, you know, getting planned properly and not causing compaction, a lot of moving parts, a lot of variability, a lot of variability. And so this is a kind of technology that can help maintain the common downforce on those gauge wheels across that planner. And we have found that being a very valuable and a value add to the to the planning operation that can pay off in just a few years for growers that want to implement it. So that's kind of a quick overview mark of just technology itself. And we think about section control, we think about downforce today, a good display in the cab, for example. Those are very key ingredients, I think, especially for growers to consider if they want to. It's not only technology, but it's it's technology that can bring some some profit back to their farmstead. So thank you, John, we're going to talk. This is a question. We're going to talk some more about planning. Yes, we're going to come back and talk some more about planning. Please watch our other videos. We've got several videos on production agriculture, but we're going to have another one on precision planning in just a bit.