Digital farming question???

The adaptation of digital farming has really took off in the last five years. I maintain that very little of this digital equipment will actually pay for itself. The auto steer and swatch control MIGHT pay back their cost. Yield monitors and varying rate controllers not so much.

Controlling your distance so you have zero overlap or skips is an economic advantage BUT does it pay for the cost of the equipment????

The varying rate technology DOES not pan out cost wise. Example: The cost of doing grid soil sampling negates any advantage. You can apply extra fertilizer matching the cost of the varying rate technology and get a higher over all yield. I have studied the data and it back this up.

Yield monitors fall into this same category. Know what this LAST crop did down to the inch/foot does not help next year's crop that much. The reason being that the weather is a bigger factor after fertility. We can not control nor predict the weather for six weeks let alone six months. So this technology is "neat" but really does not pay for itself.

The biggest waste of money is much of the corn planter stuff. Automatic row shut offs DO pay for them selves. The electric drives units and lots of the other "Precision" stuff do not. You can take "normal" corn planting equipment and get 95-98 percent planting success. You can spend tens of thousands of dollars and maybe raise that 1-2%. With corn prices where they are you can never regain the cost of the improvements.

I think that we are seeing a bunch of second, third, generation farmers playing with the forefather's assets. They will find that their income cushion will not stand the high cost of digital toys with cheap commodity prices. It is going to be the lowest cost producer winning again for several years. So spending thousands of dollars on stuff that does not positively impact income will not work for long.

You have a lot more experience than I do, but I can tell you that my tenant with all his high tech toys did not produce a significantly higher yield than I do with my low tech toys. My IH 1586, older chisel, disk, planter of the month, and 1660 combine have no computers that I know of and only basic monitors. I bought the whole collection for what he paid for 1/4 the cost of one tractor. He only does roughly ten times my acreage. Don't need to be a CPA to guess that his ROI is going to be a bit lower than mine.

I agree, I have swath control, GPS, grid sampled, yield monitor, all was mainly bought second hand. You can really get to data overload and paralyzed by data. Start second guessing tried and true practices can get you under water quickly. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress. Sometimes I think the best thing to do is don't skimp on fertility, by the best genetics you can stand, and pray to the good Lord to provide.

I remember a saying America is a country that creates a need and that makes a great sales tool that you have to keep up with the neighborhood. I've seen so many times farmers go and say I want to raise corn what do I need? If you did that at a car dealer you would be driving a Cadillac. My previous renter was that way I've seen him talked into buying spray and fertilizer that if he went and got an unbiased view he wouldn't have to buy. My current renter uses the technology you described and yet he pays double the previous renter . He has described to me how he uses it and why so the best I can say it must work for him and he's farming with dad , uncles and grandpa.
One other thing I like to point out is our ag research college's where does there funding come from you think there going to tell someone there equipment doesn't work? Might be hard to get grant money if they did.

Yup, agree with you.
I don't have the new toys however seems to me the auto steer's biggest advantage is the reduction in fatigue. And control the row distance sufficiently as far aa grid soil samples do it with paper and a map. Go out and take the samples and put them on the map then really look at it. I tried it and my conclusions are (1) doesn't help all that much and (2) as a result isn't worth the effort. (3) Knowledge of the field is more important.

rodgeinIL I will agree with your post. Here is what I think will gain you success more often than not:

1) Fertility!!! This is the one area that cutting corners will sink you fast.

2) Good seed/genetics. Most cheap seeds give cheap results. I have done real field yield trails and seen 30-40 bushel differences in different hybrids.

3) Do your work in a timely manner. Meaning be ready to plant when the ground is ready, not when you have to go because you have 20,000 acres to plant.

4) Pray for good weather to grow your crop. The weather will effect your crop more than any fancy computer or piece of equipment. It is the most important thing next to fertility and the biggest we have zero control over.

I don't know much about the corn planters so I can't comment on that but on almost everything else, I pretty much disagree with you. You need to stop painting a broad brush. What doesn't work for you or the next guy doesn't apply to us all. Its easy to have your opinion when in your owns words technology is passing you by.

Very interesting comments JD. I am not a corn grower but in my crop there are some technological trends which I wonder about. This is mostly concerning drones for monitoring and automation systems for irrigation beyond the regular timers and temp switches. We need to figure out what will give us the best bang for the buck and what bells and whistles are going to add to performance.

While I really do think this equip has a place...it doesn't change the fact that we still need to go out there and be farmers...doesn't mater what the crop is.

With regards to the weather and how it affects our crops, that is an interesting dilemma. We compline about the weather but really can do little about it. Somehow I believe we need to understand the interaction between soil and their reaction with other environmental conditions. This may help with predicting how or why our crop will respond.

I guess at the end farming is a bit of art and science. The art is predicting what the science can tell us.

Very interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up. Grant

I agree. I paid for this farm, and everything I've got with old, simple, used, cheap, machines. Over the last few years I was able to update, upgrade, buy some new. Those days are gone. Now I have several thousand dollars into an auto steer system, that, like this computer, is handy, until it screws up!

Thanks JD Seller. I was thinking about up-dating my old corn planter but after reading your post and reasoning I will stick to the one I have.
I believe there was a big boost in purchasing equipment with all of the fancy dodads when corn and bean prices hit the big high in 2012, after the drought. Yet it is nice to have all of the fancy stuff but I too believe it will be a long time before it makes economical sense.

All the electronic do-dads may have their place,but at today's corn prices I can't make it pencil out at $30-50,000+ for the ad ons for the tractor,sprayer and planter. Oddly enough some of the straightest rows and best looking corn in our area is grown by the Amish. Don't recall seeing a GPS antenna on the lead horse.

I have an uncle that has farmed or 60 years in Northern ill and he says you can do everything 99 % right all season long and what you get is is 95% depend on what mother nature lets you have. i have Farm over 30 years and agree with him

I agree with you Kent,, This "digital" farm fad is a marketing ploy for the Ag industry, and the young farmers are eating it up,,soon they will get their fill of electronic component failures that will stop a shiny new piece of equipment dead in it's tracks. A young farmer near me bought a new 83R Deere with all the guidance systems on it,, then bought a different brand of a big liquid manure spreader,,he was going to apply exactly the correct amount of liquid on with this fancy new system...after a bit it all started to "Fuzz Up" and they found that the system on the spreader was not compatible with the system on the tractor,, Deere did not want to warranty the damage caused to the tractor system because in their warranty claim "Only Deere compatible equipment" could be used.. all this precision stuff sounds so wonderful,, but stand back and decide if it is truly worth it...set the planter correctly and roll with it,,,plant the field in a way to limit the point rows,, actually pull the lever to raise the planter at the end,, and does it really matter to know what the moisture of the crop is on each round?? your gonna run the whole field anyway,,just pay attention to the truck samples...and the list goes on...

Digital farming ?? I thought this was going to be about counting on your fingers the number of times you really made money farming .

Greenenvy: I not totally against digital technology in farming. I am just trying to get fellows to think about IF it works financially in their operation. I do think that GPS systems are a good investment for spraying and planter row unit shut offs. Much of the rest really needs to be looked at on a farm by farm basis.

Our operation has these issues. The younger sons want to have all these toys on the combine and planter. Their "need" for it changes real quick when the older sons and myself told them IF they wanted to update this and that then they had to show us were it would pay for itself or buy it themselves.

In the next few years paying your bills and surviving with what you already have is going to be tough. I do not see spending much on digital up grades or "new" digital equipment during this time.

Most of us wouldn't get to the other hand ;^),, But Yes,, we should be looking at making money and not just making another round...Cost effective farming should be an important thought,,and a pile of digital information that will not make common sense is not cost effective,,,get your pencil out and see where you are and how you got there,,with no smoke and mirrors...there were a lot of farms paid for with a 4020 and a 494 planter,,and a pocket ledger kept track of it all....

I've wondered if it pays too. I see a lot of the younger farmers with every gadget. It seems to me the only advantage would be in GPS so you could save skipping or overlapping fertilizer or chemicals. I guess the more you farm the more practical it may be. As a small livestock farmer that is approaching retirement it just isn't practical.

Digital farming aside there are quite a few farmers today working with the fruits (wealth) of their ancestors. As you hinted at one wrong move might mean the end of these multi-generation farms. Here in the East soybeans were a life line for a lot of farmers back a generation ago when wheat and oats were fading away. Today, hay prices are in the cellar and soybeans are at a price that does not allow much room for bad times. I think quite a few are going to fade away in the coming years as they will not be able to see the next step in maintaining their current holdings.

The value of the variabe rate tech is directly related to the ground you farm. If you have smaller sized fields that are fairly uniform it won't pay. Here in ND where all the fields are 1/2 or 1 mile rounds you can have a lot of variation from one end to the other. I think the tech that can change seed variety on the go will be a big thing here. We have fields that can be saline gumbo on one end and the other is a pile of sand. Its a case of figuring what works for you and your ground, probably won't be the same as the guy down the road, much less half way across the county.

My last combine (9610 Deere) came with a yield monitor on it but I never paid a whole lot of attention to it. I have always considered the envelopes with the little windows in them that came from the grain company as my yield monitor.

I agree with both of you. My life is so dependent on weather these days...I never would have believed it possible.

Young farmers do seem to be the target of the hi-tech farm equipment sales. My tenant was originally a man older than me but then his son took over. That is when the toys started showing up. He was a nice fella, but a sucker for toys. Only time I ever saw him really ticked off was when he got stuck in my back field with a 4WD dually tractor. Was a muddy Spring and that thing went down to the frame.

I am an automation guy, but believe there needs to be a place in the middle.

Ooh yes I can see some thing to that situation,,,and again "cost effectiveness" needs to be figured in,,more so now than ever..We plant our low ground differently than the hill ground and it can differ from farm to farm,,but up there you may have more acres in one field than most plant all together..

The way some people are talking on here is the assumption we all farm little 40 acre square fields with one soil type. We have fields that vary from 10 bu to 80 bu going across it. Tell me variable rate technology doesn't work in that situation. We custom spray and we have one neighbor with a field out in the oil patch that is 110 acres. If he sprays it with his Flexi Coil sprayer with a 120ft three section boom, the total acres come out to around 150 due to tremendous overlap going around pump jacks, power poles, and such. If we use our sprayer with GPS, swath control, and 11 section boom the total acres is around is around 116. The chemical cost is around $20 per acre so do the math and the savings from using our sprayer pays for the application from my neighbor's view.

And yes it will be more cost effective on a larger acreage and with a sprayer more than ever.We farm 3,000 acres half corn/beans,,Deere sprayer, non-variable rate 16 row planter and a 660 combine that has way more information than we use...

Technology is pricey at $20K for Gps but the cost continue. All of the companies do it. If the Gps globe goes down, most will re charge the subscription fee. That is thieft. But with cut up fields, the row shutoffs work and save big money. Run a machine with and without Gps and see how you feel after a long day. But there have been many days that I would like to have a hammer and bust the thing in as many pieces that I could. Planned obsolescence is the name of the game and you pay for it through the nose. If you are a BTO, then after 3 the price goes down considerable.

greenenvy : Your making the point I was trying to make. You need to make sure that the technology pays for itself on YOUR farm. In the case of the row shut offs on planters and the nozzle shut offs on sprayers it will pay sometimes. I find it hard to believe that a fellow would have 22% over lap spraying with sectioned booms.

Also I do not have square field on my farm. 75% of our ground is planted in contour strips. Many of these strips are not as wide as two passes with a large sprayer or planter. So the shut offs pay for them selves. The varying rate planters and fertilizer units do not on our ground. The soils do vary but the cost verses the gain is not there to justify the investment in the technology.

A yield monitor is a high priced machine recording last years crop. Change the weather and the data is next to useless. If you do not know the good from the bad in your fields your knowledge is an issue not technology.

The return on any of this technology will be determined how one uses the information. If you ignore it, there will be no return.

In regard to yield monitors and field mapping, it's a great tool to identify areas of a field that may require drain tile. We can all look at a standing crop and identify "that part needs tile," but when it's harvested, it can be hard to tell. Having that map can help quantify where one should start or stop.

Yield monitors can also be good at sorting out which hybrid or variety is yielding better than another. Yes, there are other ways, but the yield monitor can be a help there, too. Data from your own farm is just as important as that from the seed dealer... especially when he chooses to leave some of it out.

Here on the dairy farm, we have milk meters, and they are a godsend. Yes, they were expensive, but they can give you data as to what each animal is doing. They can find a sick cow faster than a good "cow man." Or one in heat that nobody saw in the middle of the night. The digital livestock scale is also wonderful... no guessing at rates of gain.

Another great technology is a scale on the grain drill. That paid for itself in one season. Remember, "You can't manage it if you can't measure it."

Much of this stuff is not going away. And I'm sure some grandpa thought the kid was gonna go broke when he bought a tractor with power steering. Or traded in the 4010 for a 4430 with a cab. In fact those improvements probably had a lot poorer ROI than much of todays gadgets. Some will struggle to pay for technology on the "bleeding edge, " but others will make it work and prosper. The difference is in the approach and the attitude.

I have about 4 linear miles of point rows on the land I farm, some are gradual and some are sharp angled, so I did some rough figuring on the seed saved and the yield increase if I had GPS controlled individual row shutoffs on the planter. With a 12 row planter I figured an average of five rows were double planted in the point rows and the yield reduction was in the 50% range from over pop. I did not come up with all that much loss over all. My seed expense is in the $100 per acre range and my corn yields are in the 185 bushel/acre average range.

Last winter I got to looking the planter over and it looked like all the chains needed to be replaced plus the bearings on the drill shaft and counter shaft. I forget what the replacement cost would have been but it wasn't all that terrible bad considering. Then I got to talking to a good friend who sells Graham electric planter drives and he had a set of used motors and harness for half of new price so I took the plunge and converted the planter to electric drives. Each row has a little motor driving it controlled by the planter monitor. No more chains, shafts, clutches, just a little motor bolted to each row with three bolts. About that time Precision came out with a deal where for $500 per year for three years I could get a new precision monitor that would retail for I'm guessing $5000. I can even set each row to a different population if I want to, depending on what the particular corn hybrid I plant needs. The rub is whenever that planter is planting Precision is recording what the planter is doing and how it is performing. I already had the Precision seed tubes and torque sensors on the planter from the first Precision monitor I bought four years ago. The whole works cost about $1000 per row. When the planting season was over I was really tickled with the system. The motors gave no trouble whatsoever. If a motor does conk out, replacing it takes 15-20 minutes max. There were no chains to jump, bearings to seize, clutch to goof up, it just plain simple. Each individual unit shut off at the end of the row, no need to stop and wait for the planter to raise at the end of the field, when it comes to the end of the field the planter stops planting whether I am stopped or moving so that adds up to a time savings and wear on the tractor clutch. Precision had a few software glitches on their end that hopefully will be fixed by now. My stand was near picket fence partly because of the smoothness of the electric motors. This was all being recorded on an Ipad, a map showing the field, my travel speed, roughness of the ride, skips, doubles, planter swath spacing, the works. Last fall I had the tablet in the grain cart in corn and I noticed a place where the corn stand had some stunted plants once in awhile. I looked at the recorded map on the Ipad and found the planter units were bouncing more in that spot, hence a rough ride. The stunted plants came from seeds that were planted either too deep or too shallow from the bouncing and came up at a different time from the rest of the plants. In that area I should have been watching the ride quality on the monitor and pulled the throttle back until I came to smoother ground. That is an example of the kind of information the new electronics can give us. I have time to watch the monitor because the tractor has auto steer.

Now, for the down side of all this besides the cost. If the planter quits planting for no reason, what do I do? remember, there are no chains, sprockets, shafts to check out, it's now all fly by wire. The cell phone has suddenly become the repair tool. I would call a tech for help if there was a glitch, that was all I could do. Most of the time it was in the software or programming and as the season went on I got so I could figure it out myself, but boy those first few times when the planter quit on me or would not start a new field map I was fit to be tied. The biggest source of frustration was the clunky way of programming the monitor like I had mentioned in another post but that is becoming easier by the year, not by the minute, by the YEAR! LOL Anyway, I am real picky about the way my machinery performs. So yes going modern is expensive and it requires an open mind to be able to slug through the first year, but I am more than glad I went ahead and made the change. There is absolutely no reason for me to trade my old planter for a new one unless I need something bigger and that won't happen at my age.

Totally agree, no tractor will pull much buried in the mud. And no GPS is going to tell you when it's too wet to be on the ground. That is good judgment, and good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgment.

In the short term and on a small scale, over-fertilizing may still pay off. Nutrient run-off is becoming a bigger and bigger issue every year and is near a tipping point. Closer control of nutrients will be mandated in the near future, just like manure management is now. The guy or the company who invents a way for crops to use 90 plus percent of applied nitrogen with almost no run-off could become very wealthy. Any ideas on how to do that without GPS and computer monitoring?