 Welcome to Precision Agriculture in the Southeast. Hello, I'm your host, Mark Hall. I'm an extension specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. And with us today, we have Dr. John Fulton. John is an expert on this precision agriculture stuff. It's just amazing what all we've been talking about in these other lessons. John, I thought I knew a little bit about it, but this is really ground changing, rule changing that everybody needs to be adopting this and not be intimidated. A lot of times old guys like me, all this new technology stuff is scary. But this is a must. I mean, this is going to be like email or anything that if you're going to farm, you're going to have to do this. In the case of some of this that we've already talked about, as we mentioned, it's already come as standard options on the implements, the tractors, the applicators. It's integrated into the machines and in the farm equipment today. And that just kind of highlights how the benefits, but how much it's going to, the importance of it as we go into the future. But Mark, we're going to talk a little bit about automatic section control in this lesson. Some other terminology you're here is autoswath, clutches. There's a lot of things that some other terminology. But for our lesson today, we're just going to call it automatic section control technology. So with that, kind of stepping back and thinking back where we were talking about in the introduction and trying to farm, these are real conditions. A couple of field boundaries here for the south. We've got these irregular shaped fields. Got them small to large, as we have mentioned prior, 20 acres to 200 acres. And within those fields, we have not only variant drain, but these environmental structures, these conservation structures that we've implemented. And we want to preserve them as much as possible because they play a key role in our farming system. So when we think about the increase in size of machinery, you know, think back to, we probably doubled the planar capacity in this state just in the last 10 years. And think about spares, Mark. You know, once we were talking about 60 foot, now guys are talking 90, 120 foot. When you talk about these large machines and sticking them in these conditions, how do we accurately apply and how do we manage those machines to maintain their performance and consider time? You know, we want to not be spending too much time because that's a critical component of applying a lot of the crop protection type products. We also, you know, if I've got a waterway that's navigable, I might have to drive around it, or I've got to be in this condition. I've got to compromise. You know, when do I turn things off? I don't want to spray, but at the same time, I've got to cover my crop. And so, you know, you've got to, there's times when as an operator of the machine, in this case a sprayer, but think about a planar, I've got to make that decision of either turning the whole thing on and off or sections of that on and off manually. And making that decision sometimes can be difficult considering field speeds and the size of the equipment. So, you know, and this can happen. Again, this is just an example of cotton. And, you know, we talked about how much seed costs today and these type of conditions. We want to minimize as much as possible. We don't want these areas that are double planted or, in some cases, triple applied to. That's just, that's a waste of money today. And you've got weed pressure coming in there on top of you, right there, that you missed your spray and your planning is messed up. Absolutely. So, again, we step back and we talk about automatic section control. On average, again, we want to highlight these are just averages for Alabama. You're going to see about a 5% savings or essentially an overlap reduction of about 5%. But when you couple that with the idea that I already have guidance involved, you know, that's 15% and we've got cases that we've measured, you know, up to 30%. When I'm using guidance in conjunction with automatic section control, there's a lot of potential savings. And you think about your fertilizer bill, you think about your crop protection bill. So it might not be 30,000, it might be 100,000. That's, you know, 5%, 10%. That's a huge savings and can pay for this technology very quickly. So with that, we're talking about automatic section control is simply put. We're just automating the on-off aspect of the machine. Typically that's in sections as we would call it. So sections of that sprayer, whether there's five sections, seven or nine sections on a sprayer. I'm coupling rows together on my planer, so I might have a 24-row planer, but I might have three or four coupled together that automatically turn that, turn either the rows or those sections on and off automatically. And that's based on a couple of things. Number one, wherever I previously applied, you see the bottom left picture. I did a headlin pass around the field. So as I come into that headlin and start to turn, again, I'm not fooling around trying to figure out, well, where did I spray and it had to turn that sections or the whole machine on and off. It does it automatically. So at the end of the day, to me or to the program, it's two things. There's these savings are really a reduction in overlap. A lot of times people think about double overlap, but in some cases you're going to get triples just because of the field conditions we're in. But the other thing is, is we're not applying product in those areas we don't want product applied, whether that's grass waterways, outside the boundary, those type of conditions, we just eliminate that with this type of technology. Look at that metal slide, John, that is unbelievable. I bet you put somebody in there with a hoe to chop out. That is just too clean and on a, not a straight boundary, but it's curved around there. That is, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. Well, I wish we could say that that was the case. But in this, when everything's working properly, these are the kind of results. We plant those rows right out into our headland rows or our point rows in this case. And you just eliminate a lot of that overlap, as we've mentioned prior. And there's savings, there's yield benefits to that that we've documented. It could be up to 17% yield reduction when I double plant. There's just those type of conditions exist. So getting that right, we've got these inputs, we've got to manage them as efficiently as possible. And this is really the real one of the key enabling technologies that really shines and pays for itself in most cases less than a year. So here's just some examples. On the left side, we've got a couple sprayer examples. We'll come back to this later in the presentation. But again, just examples. Going across that waterway, I can have that pre-mapped into the display. So example, we've got our 26-3. I could either tell where I've already applied so it has that knowledge or, hey, I don't want to apply in these areas. And when I go and drive across that, it just shuts on and off. There's no compromising in the case. I can move down and there are a few systems that are available today that you do on a nozzle by nozzle basis. So all of a sudden, think about on the bottom example. All of a sudden, you can really fine-tune where you're applying and where you're not. On the right side, on the top, this is the situation. It's normal. I've got to plant clear out in that headland. Normally in order to get all areas, we don't want areas not planted. And in the bottom left, in the example, we've got row clutches on that planter. And as it moves into the headland, I'm still planting, but it's automatically shutting those clutches so we don't get that double planted area. So that's what we're talking about, automating that process and having these scenarios very quickly dealing with these type of scenarios. Would this be pre-programmed into your computer on your tractor that you would be taking a map and lining it up that way? So there's two approaches. Some people allow you to preload a map. So the boundary map, as we saw in the first slide or second slide. So I could preload some of the systems, some of the displays will accept that. So all of a sudden, you have what the cropable areas and then outside the boundaries. Or the other thing that can occur, I don't have to have that information. I can basically run my headland or that first pass around the field and start to fill it in. And so I don't have to have the map. I just kind of have to outline it that first pass. And then I start filling in and it memorizes where I've applied. That's impressive. So that's kind of the overview. These are the conditions that we try to really clean up. When I'm manually driving a machine, this is a spray courtesy of Joe Luck at the University of Nebraska since this. But I can use guidance for my pass-to-pass and really eliminate those blue. You see some areas where there was a lot of overlap on pass-to-pass. So my guidance gets rid of that in terms of that overlap. But the section control really cleans up the areas. Those overlaps are potential skips around the edge of the field, in this case point rows. So you got two technologies that really coupled together to get the blue areas to be really reduced. One thing that we tend to forget about and there's some research that just recently published that we make the decision normally as the day goes long. We're probably not as tuned to turning things on and off, but that decision-making time. And that can be anywhere from about one to two seconds somewhere in there. Again, added more overlap at the end. But just because and again, if I'm out there 12 hours on end trying to get a field operation done across my farm, that can vary quite a bit. But I go over to the right and I've got three section control. Basically, I take that big area that I overlap down to those small little three triangles as an example. That's just what we're saying. That whole area in light orange on the right there is savings automatically. And then we'll do that at the morning and it's going to do the same thing at night, Mark. But we tend to forget about that operator response time as well. Here's an example and I think you can see on the top basically this is a spray application. Blue is overlap, red is skips, same field basically throwing the technology back on the sprayer and all of a sudden look at that. Look at what we've done on those blue areas. All of a sudden they're pretty small and we don't want those skips especially if we've got weed control. Well that's a tremendous difference. And you think about weeds and we talk about escapes and some of the resistance issues. We don't want those red areas appearing. So that's what this is a really good example. Same field, same operation just done under a scenario where no zero technology on the top or on the bottom we're adding the guidance plus the automatic section control and look at how much better of a job we do just with that. Here's some savings and we emphasize that the average was 5% presented earlier. It can be a long range. This is some data that out of the University of Kentucky but it shows how the orange basically shows with no section control so that sprayer operators having to make that decision all day in that field. Whereas if I throw the technology on all of a sudden look at where the green bars end up. And so it varies field by field. Every field is different in terms of size and shape and so there's some tremendous savings in there. You look at the difference between the orange and green and the idea here is there's a tremendous amount of savings and I think no doubt about it that's a very tangible benefit that most people can pencil out very quickly and say man I saved 10% on my seed build just based on the technology. So just some example that really highlights what the true benefit but the variability from field to field. The other thing that we emphasize too the bigger the machinery is the more savings that you're going to get out of this type technology and we know when we move from a 12, 16 up to a 24 row planter just a lot more going on with a larger machine in the field. So again so there's some savings as the size of equipment goes up. So at the end of the day a lot of benefits. We won't go through all these but anyways the overlap is what we've really emphasized but there's a lot of other things you know you can really improve your efficiency within field getting timely on your applications or more timely and then there's that environmental aspect that really shines and you can show that back to people and say listen this is how I'm being a good steward with my crop protection with my nutrients out there in the field. But we will once again emphasize shape size really impacts the real percent going back to the bar charts that we saw that again the more irregular shape the field is the more savings there's going to be. So equipment options we're seeing it adopted at sprayers are quickly I don't know too many sprayers especially large sprayers today that don't come equipped with automatic section control. Primarily we're looking at boom sections marked on these sprayers and every company it's again it's almost like guidance it's just standard options on the sprayer. We're seeing it on planters today it's not necessary a standard option but looking at sales here the last two years it's definitely increasing the number of road clutches that are being put on planters rolling from the dealer or at the on the assembly lines. Nitrogen side-dress units you want to really try and focus on your nitrogen bill section control can really work on that we're seeing spreaders fertilizer spreaders litter spreaders you know when you're out in the pasture not knowing very hard to see where you've been or haven't been you know again it takes a lot of that guesswork out and so there's pretty much anything that applies something we can really retrofit or in most cases are going to be a commercial product out there you can buy and put on the equipment very quickly. Most guys recognize you take this John Deere 2630 display mark it's already got section control built into it you might have to pay a fee to unlock that capabilities but again it's very nominal in comparison what the savings are going to be whether that's on your plan or on your sprayer. Is that about the size that a unit would be today in a tractor cab or combine cab it would be a screen that size? I would say there's kind of the across the board this is probably the higher end and probably mostly what guys are purchasing yeah but most of companies too also do have smaller screens okay it gives you maybe a little bit more less cost to get into some of this but the higher end screens are very similar to this one as we see here today touch screens and have all the capabilities that we've been talking about automatic section control guidance rate control berberate all that's already built into the capabilities and their touch screen and their touch screen so but but there are smaller ones out there that work just fine and it really depends on what you're comfortable with I think a field operation what you're focused on so you know if I'm looking at litter and I'm just doing that on a routine basis I could probably buy a what we talked about kind of a simplified light bar that can do the rate control and the section control so so let's talk a little bit about the components you know what we're talking about is back in the day mark if you think about spraying or even planters to some extent we really didn't have the ability to turn sections on we could turn the whole planter on and off but in terms of the sprayer a lot of that's done right from the joystick and again I had to turn the sections on and off press a button make that decision you know coming up to the headland I'm trying to turn and there's a lot going on or could be going on and doing that all day you know you can get tired and not being as consistent so you can switch off individual sections or whole boot but again all that rests on the operator's responsibility I've got to make that decision and manually press a button or flip a switch to turn something on and off and your action times would change as the day goes on absolutely and again there's some good research that really highlights that that's recently published we'll talk about planters we'll talk about planters we'll talk about road clutches there's really two different styles out there maybe three today as well but pneumatic what we normally call true count which is owned by tremble but that's basically a pneumatically operated on the bottom right there on the case planter today most of John Deeregg leader using some kind of electric clutch or electric motor and that goes across other brands as well Raven has a hydraulic drive system called their OmniRow option it does the same thing so it's again all we're talking about is turning that road clutch or that meter on and off okay for those that are really interested in doing the picture that you highlighted before I'm going to do a road by road type control going back to GPS or DGPS mark we really emphasized the need to go to RTK to be consistent to get that type of response out of your planter clutches each and every time it's RTK so that kind of covers planter we're talking about most of planters today if you really want to save on your front end capital cost buy the planter with the clutches already installed if you're going to do it after the fact you know you're probably going to spend somewhere six to nine hundred dollars per row expensive but again going back to the savings thing very quickly I can pay for that components you got the receiver you got the display we got these valves or what we talked about the clutches you know what we really emphasize is get with your trusted consultant whether that's your dealer or the technology provider and see what makes sense for you what you need to buy but you're going to have to have all this to make it happen most of the time if I've got guidance it's a very especially on a sprayer it's a very simple ad to bring an automatic section control less than four thousand dollars I could be doing automatic section control displays we mentioned this prior but everyone's providing automatic section control already built into their technology you know figure out what works best for you who's going to be able to service you and then purchase that which allows you to upgrade you know section control might be you might go from guidance to section control the next thing you know I want to do variable rate buy something that can do it all and you just kind of grow with the technology from sprayer perspective most of the sprayers are equipped with boom shut off valves okay and this example again taking all those components and focus down on the bottom right we've got three boom set up on this particular sprayer this will be very common on some of the 60 foot sprayers out there today mark and all we're doing is plugging into those boom shut off valves and clicking them on and off automatically from basically the display okay so that's kind of the setup on a sprayer there's those boom control valves we really have two options most people are going to use the boom shut off valves to shut the sections on and off we do have cap stand and now cases of marketing the ability to do some of this at the nozzle level you're also seeing T-Jet and some of the other technology companies come out with nozzle level control so we're doing each and every nozzle on there and controlling them so you're either at the boom shut off which is probably the majority of the sprayers out there but we do have the capability to really fine tune and go down to the nozzle level here's an example from Purdue this is a sprayer that has nozzle level control mark and you can see moving out that corn crop that on the left side of that picture that the nozzles have turned off individually as soon as it comes and it just keeps shutting off sequentially across the boom again I don't have to make that decision you can see very accurately we're not spraying out there in that that's a good picture so you add back in this idea that we presented about trying to manage around this in this case I got a grass waterway that I can drive through so I come in with your sprayer and drive around that and not kind of set up that no spray area when I can drive through it and if I can map that in and establish that as a no spray zone here's a sprayer we were out doing some research it's very hard to see but basically if you go back to that prior picture from Purdue we got a buffer strip and you can see he's running about 18 miles an hour right there we were measuring and so he's coming but the right edge of the boom had kind of come over the buffer strip he's essentially coming to the end to make a turn and the nozzles shut off and we're not spraying in that buffer strip and impacting that vegetation that we want to see growing well if that wasn't automated you couldn't be quick enough on your joystick to get that done again this is nozzle level control that's just starting to come maybe a little bit more popular we'll probably see more of this in the next few years starting to come out with several companies but you know there's what maybe three nozzles that were sticking out over that buffer strip and they are not on at 18 miles an hour it did it for you so at the end of the day look at this how we basically cleaned up that field we've got grass waterways we've been able to drive through those grass waterways but with the technology we've managed around them and we've been as efficient as we can with that machine in the field to get this application done in a timely fashion but that's what the technology can really do and highlight that improves efficiency or infield efficiency while maintaining some of the environmental structures that are within that field so with that Mark you know it's kind of the same thing pick what's right for you and you're comfortable with if I feel like you're the person that's really going to be the person to help me then I'll probably go with your technology and put that on you know evaluate if it's new and versus old equipment and tell your dealer what you're dealing with you know this is what I have you know what kind of correction service do I have do I have the right receiver in place to work with that technology you know and what rate controller so most of the times most of the software today is already built into any of the displays okay even the basic displays to the higher end displays that's not a real issue today one thing I point out with is what's the number of control channels what that represents is how many sections can I manage on the machine so if I buy something that can only manage three sections but my sprayer is set up with five sections I'm only going to have the capability of managing three sections again today most of these controllers are up into 24 or 48 levels of control that's not going to be an issue but if you're starting to get some of the basic technology or an older technology and trying to adopt it the number of control channels could not match up with what your machine or what you're trying to get accomplished just be aware and the size of our sprayers and planners I mean sprayers are 90 foot kind of norm and up to 120 and planners boy they're 30 foot it's not uncommon not 40 foot in a lot of cases you know just to emphasize you know when you're buying technology get things you know guidance is your first step make sure that technology can work itself up to doing the variable rate can do the section control I call that growing with technology because it's just addictive it really can enable you to do the right thing on your farm and really help you manage those inputs as accurately as possible so those capabilities just don't buy a guidance system on your sprayer very soon you're going to be adding section control because it's just a nominal fee in terms of what the savings are going to be John it seems like the RTK that we talked about that earlier but that seems cheaper and cheaper every lesson we go through it gets more and more detailed and I'm like I thought RTK to start with absolutely and that's what most people or most of farmers you'll find that they might start next thing you know next year they're upgrading RTK so think about capabilities by technology that's going to give you the full range of capabilities plus give you those GPS corrections as you grow because I might not be willing to pay for RTK this year but next year I say hey your value system has changed so we've already emphasized that all the time we're getting upgrades to these at least once a year for anything the documentation side make sure they can document I know that seems a little bit far in terms of how I might use that data but more and more having that documentation has become a real value at the farm level and who's going to be your personal support system out there who's going to really be the service and support to call when something happens and that's something to consider so really great technology across the board mark whether it's on planters or sprayers in particular you're looking at a one and a half and a lot of times less than one year payback period on automatic section control it's just a smaller fee in comparison to some of the other technologies and it really shines and really can pay for itself so if you've got a ten year life cycle you break even one year and you're way ahead for nine years and you've got that benefit each and every year you know I've heard we've had some people in Alabama call it I've saved up to 25% on my seed savings just because the idea of having small regular shaped fields saved 10% on my crop protection just because of technology so next year when I go to water my numbers have already changed and the environmental impact John the environmental you show those grass waterways when it's not dead and it don't get sprayed with herbicides and that's a tremendous impact on our environment and water quality so thank you John before we go today let's thank our sponsors John the Alabama Soybean Producers every year they fund your spreader and these planner clinics and sprayers they are so good to us and that is the check off funding when you sell a bushel of soybeans there's a penny or two goes into these programs and the Alabama Wheaton Feed Grain Committee those folks have just been so good to us and this is your money if you grow corn or soybeans in the state of Alabama you've helped fund this and we thank you for that yeah thank you very much for the support and thank you for tuning in