 Hi, I'm Mark Hall with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and with me is my friend John Fulton. We were talking about old days when I was young, riding the back of a four-row planter and pulling it up with a rope, the row markers. Boy, this piece of equipment, John, has changed more than any piece of farm equipment I can think of. Planning is so important, and we've been talking about planning. If you just tuned in, go back and watch the first part of our precision planning demonstration. Planning is so important. Help us, John. When we talk about, you know, you've got that seed, and if you don't get it placed right or give it, you know, put it in the ground at the proper time, you're losing yield right away, right? Yes. And so at planning, we want to give that seed maximum yield potential when it's placed. So some of these technologies, which we've already reviewed, will help ensure that, improve that. And so, but the other part of this is, is once you've got a lot of this technology, the normal aspect that growers want to do, or farmers, is what about variborate seeding? You know, I've kind of got, you know, I've seen some gains with my section control, I've got some savings that's been, and I know my fields are variable, but how do I, what do I do? And so, we just wanted to kind of cover some of the prescriptive seeding where we're starting to use data to define zones and determine how much and things, but kind of just go through a few scenarios that are becoming very popular here. So variborate seeding, you know, that's been going on for probably several years, but it's become more mainstream, Mark. I can't tell you someone, a retailer, a co-op, or kind of a precision ag provider, agronomist providing service that can't write prescriptive seeding racks for people, and so it's become a little bit more mainstream, but at the same time, in order to do that, you've got to have the right technology in place. And so I think that's kind of what we just wanted to cover is, you know, to do this, you want to, there's some basics that I think that you've got to kind of follow is, number one, you've got to have the right technology, and so I've got to have either a hydraulic drive or the ability to change rates, and then the other piece of information that becomes very critical is you've got to have some data. We talk a lot about yield data, right, and having that, but on a field-by-field basis, we need the data layers in order to begin to explore how do I set up my zones because that RX or prescription in the top right is what we're trying to find, and so we'll comment on that in a second. Beyond those keys, I need that display, and I think that becomes very critical because we want to do everything as right as possible to ensure success, but you're going to have to have whether that's internal to the farm or the agronomy, but people have to, we're at a point where computers just can't, we don't have the analytical capabilities today, but agronomic expertise, what makes sense, and so there has to be that piece, and then typically you're going to have to get your seed salesmen involved and have them give some recommendations on varieties, hybrids, rates, things like that. I mean, your extension people have been around this, and then you've got to have, at the end of the day, you've got to have someone or yourself have some data management experience. How are you going to generate these racks? There's so many variables, so much data. Wow, when we started this, John, back in today, I thought it was field by field, that this is good field, and that field is not so good, but within field variability is unbelievable. And that's where I think we're slowly heading, and that's a real key. You brought out a key. We still got to manage on a field by field basis, but now we're trying to evaluate and investigate how do we do subfield management that can improve our profit and reduce our risks, right? Reduce our risk. And another key piece is that if you're going to do any of this, is you've got to have some kind of evaluation plan. Put some strips out there to check that you actually have a response, because if you don't, how do you define success and how do you learn and advance your program? So, very great seeding, I would tell most people, I think we found about a five to 10 bushel potential in most fields and very great seeding of corn, but I think you've got to really explore and make sure you get your data in place and evaluate and learn and expect that you're going to make changes either the way the zones are made or how you're trying to establish rates within zones. So, that's kind of what we're after. That's just a general prescription map mark as an illustration. It's been generated. You export that out and either put it on the card or you use the wireless or the telemetry today and it just pushes it up to cloud and down to the tractor. And so, when I arrive at the field, that prescription comes up and you can see they're green, yellow, red as three different rates and you let the planner execute on that. And we talk a lot about field execution. That's where the technology becomes, I mean, I want, if that's my plan, I want to accurately fulfill that plan. So, you've got to have the technology to make sure it's properly calibrated and running and operating to execute on that. And so, the new technology, and so that was kind of variable rate seeding. You know, that's kind of an advanced piece having the data. And like I said, some of our studies would suggest five to ten bushel gain for growers that are ready and prepared and have the right advice. But the new thing marked it, people are getting really excited about that just kind of come out as multi-hybrid planting. And so, this is, I can now go out with a couple companies providing this technology and I put in one bin, variety A and the other bin, variety B. Now, I got this prescription that says where I want A versus B and gives us an opportunity to place hybrids out there if we have a little bit of knowledge of what we're trying to accomplish there. I don't believe that, John. You're exaggerating. It's exaggeration or not. This is an example of Kenzie working with Bex hybrids. Give these with Raven, really the credit of doing about a three-year program to bring this to light. So now, Kenzie has this multi-hybrid planner as illustrated here. And precision planning, you can go to them and they've got options to multi-hybrid meters, which we'll show in the next slide. But this is real. There's a cost to this. I think we're at early stages of understanding value. But some of the preliminary results would suggest, you know, there's some potential yield and profit bombs. So and the other thing I would add on to, you know, in our world of agriculture, is things like biologicals and seed coatings. And that's not a cheap proposition either. And it might not be a variety change I'm making, but it might be the investment that I've put into the seed where that I'm trying to better manage. The same variety, but with different seed treatments and different prescriptions. That's right. Wow. And so I think, you know, when I think about the treatments and the common investment growers are making on those as you move around regions and in a necessity to have those, to get good quality emergence and ultimately yield. The biological is becoming more of a mainstream and available. Again, not a cheap thing. I think there's going to be some opportunities to manage that and manage the risks. Well, that's news to me, John. That's big. Yeah. And so just an example here. The prior, we showed Kenzie's planter, but if you get down to it rather than one meter, you got two meters on each row. Okay, and so this works well. If you look on the picture on the right there, you basically see a central fill. And you label one as A or blue in this case, another one B or an orange. And you essentially have two tubes running out there. Each meter, each row has electric motors. So you turn one motor off and the other one on it switches between A and B. And, you know, I think we're excited about this. Again, I think as you get these new technologies, all of a sudden you get your mind wondering, man, what can we do with that? All of a sudden, things that we used to just dream about, Mark. I mean, I can go out and actually test it or I can do things that I just had only thought about in the past. And this would be prescriptive. You wouldn't be making changes as you go through the field. It would be the computer and the tractor would be deciding based on your prescription. That's right, which A or B. And the other thing I would bring up here is there's two prescriptions now. I've got my seating prescription because I'm going to, you know, not if I'm doing this variety change, I might want variety A is certain optimum population and variety B. And so I'm going to have to have my population prescription. But then I'm going to have to have my variety or hybrid prescriptions. So there's actually two prescriptions now. And yeah, the complexity, but the opportunity. Yes. The opportunity. So that doesn't mean I can't just go back to a flat rate and a flat hybrid. That doesn't, you can still do that with this technology. But the opportunity, you can change both and do some things. This is an example mark. We work hard at a higher state of developing our management zones. This is our mascot, Brutus. And that's what this is what multi hybrid planning can provide. And this is just a demonstration. I thought we'd show, show everyone. But this is two different corn hybrids in this case that are planted and we do this intentionally. So we do some different colored tassels and we do some different maturity dates to help really bring what we're trying to show out. But just look at the Christmas of the of the lines and the ability of that planner to go out there and do what's prescribed. So a lot of people excited about this technology. It's unbelievable, John. You've talked about things in this video that I've never heard before. And it's just changing so quickly. And again, I think there's a lot to explore on the grower. There's a lot going on in terms of investment and how to manage that farm. But again, all of a sudden this technology and who knows. We talk, it's not cheap, it's 20% typically compared to an equivalent planner without it. But if I'm making myself another 10 bushels, seven bushels, five bushels potentially, that begins to add up pretty quick, Mark. So Mark, we've talked about technology. We talked about very great seeding. We talked about the ability to do hybrid placement today. And kind of the final component that we talk about here is kind of this data piece. And a lot of growers have adopted this. It's tremendous. We've already talked about these in-cab displays. But just the ability and detail to understand what that planner's doing. This is just some illustrations that would an operator in a cab can see. You can see an iPad sitting there. And even if I'm a farmer and having someone plan, I can have that iPad as well as long as I'm connected to the internet. I can watch that operation from my iPad sitting in a meeting, having lunch or whatever. And just look at that. Sitting in an apartment meeting in Ohio State, you're looking at this. Yeah, during planning it's amazing what you queue up. Just to see what's going on and make sure things are going all right. We already mentioned investment in planners today. And a planner-tractor combination is not a small feat. And we want to make sure that when the window is right, let's make sure that keeps going. And we're doing the best job that we can, the place and seed out there. But you just look at the information here. It gives you the population, simulation, down force. And there's just a variety of that. And it shows you on a row by row basis there. And the nice thing is, is not only do you see that in real time or why that operator can see it in real time is, but that's all collected as well. So maybe I didn't see what was happening yesterday. I can pull that up through an app and look at it as well. And so, and I can keep it for the post season. And I just want to kind of, we're just kind of throwing in a couple of things. We call this as-planted data right out of the cab. And then again, this is something after the fact we had planted this field. And if you notice, we planted kind of from left to right as it looks on that screen. But if you notice at a diagonal where some of those arrows are, you kind of pick out. And in this particular map, what it's looking at is the ride quality of each row unit. And what that means is there's an accelerometer on that row unit. And so if that row unit gets real bouncy, think about that in that red or yellow range. If it's smooth, it's green. And so that row unit is going across the field. And so anytime there's clods or you get to a scenario where maybe not be smooth, that row unit is going to be bouncing a lot more. And so in this case, the red would mean it's really bouncing. The green means it's just kind of floating or being real smooth. But you notice those red and yellow kind of lines are diagonal to the way we planted. It just shows you the information and what that actually is from if I blow that up. If I blow that up, you see those diagonals. And what that was was actually, that's compaction. The field cultivator came to the field prior to the planter, a little marginal on moisture. Let's go ahead, we need to go. And what you're actually seeing is an articulated tractor pulling a 40 foot cultivator, but you're seeing the wheel marks left because it's a little bit wet. You trace that through the season and why sometimes it's hard to see that. But I can go out right to those points and I could actually see where what we did prior to planting actually influenced what happened at planting and this data picks it up. Your eyes get to go on, well, why is that out there? And you just go out there and you kind of, like you said, you kind of play this back. But this is kind of information that there's things that gets exposed. And so next year maybe I don't need to be out there quite that. Maybe we'll wait till afternoon. So these are, again, some data. This is a downforce map. We talked about the active downforce. And so while it's pressing on the road unit, it actually gives us how much it's pressing down. And so you can think about the red areas where it's really pressing down on the road unit and then the green and blue areas very little. And you can kind of see on the legend there it's a little over 400 pounds being pressed down. The reality is, is when you went out there to the field, what those red areas are telling you is, is actually compacted soil. It's compacted. And again, you may know about this, but this is an observable way of kind of identifying those areas, going out and kind of ground trees in it. And sure enough, we had some distance in this particular field. It's actually highlighting some of the soil compaction. That exists out there that needs to be dealt with. And so again, this is a planner giving you this information, Mark. This isn't remote sensing. It's just, hey, it's there. I'm just saying that there's an opportunity to look at it sometimes and pick out some things that you might learn how to make changes in the operation and such. So this is as applied as planted data as we talk about it. The other thing that's new that all the companies are providing today is what we call machine data. Again, I can capture this. And so very similar to that as planted data, this is actually, well, what's the tractor doing? That was what all what the planner was doing. And again, this is all through an app. I get this. It's got spatials, got GPS. And if you notice down there on the left, at this point, he's coming to the end to turn around. He's doing 4.1 miles an hour, Mark. Burning 6.9 gallons per hour of diesel fuel, engine RPMs, right at a little under 1,800 RPM and doing about a 55% torque load on that engine. And so again, data information, maybe I get a better handle on what my variable costs are just by having this. I would contend that as we collect this over time, there's things that this is going to expose to help not want to give you tangible variable costs on a field by field basis. But spatially, it's probably going to expose some things maybe to help improve the operation as well. And so just want to kind of point that out. So you got all these data. You got this technology today. It's a lot to keep track of. But as you said, the important thing is that the investment in planning is critical. Doing the best we can is more important than ever. A lot of us would probably argue that planning is the most important operation. And not only is it technology, but all of a sudden, this as-planted data can really verify what went on. As we've talked about, I can kind of go back and kind of replay when we see things. And I've got it collected today. I've actually got something measurable that I can use. And so that's kind of the full suite of where we are today with the planning tech and kind of this precision seating, prescriptive seating type scenario that's playing out here in agriculture. Thank you so much, John. It's unbelievable the changes that have happened. And just in filming this video, I've learned quite a few things I didn't know. After spending 40 years working with agriculture, I didn't know this stuff. And it's changing so quickly. I really appreciate you helping us out. And please watch our other precision ag videos. John, you're smarter than anybody I know on precision ag stuff. You're pretty dumb on some other things. Precision ag, you're terrific. And we've got quite a few videos with John talking about precision ag. So please watch them. Thank you.