View from the Cab: New wave of farming is droning along
In recent years, we have seen drone technology expand into agriculture and look for this to increase as we move into the future of farming.
There are new projects under development during this exciting time for the industry. I visited last week with Scot Benson, owner of an ag company known as Nitrogen Pulse. He sees drones as a dynamic force in agriculture over the next one to three years.
Those little things buzzing the skies above the field will likely have pointed missions on what to do such as controlling weeds, replacing nutrients and applying fungicides to help out the growing crops.
“There are huge opportunities coming right before us and it’s an exciting time in agriculture,” Benson explained.
Drone technology is expected to connect the data we are now generating and greatly assist farmers in making decisions on their operations.
“We are forced to drink from a firehose right now. Hopefully, we’ll be a part of helping to clear those decisions up,” added Benson.
Benson’s company also has an arm known as Weather Pulse with weather forecasts for specific fields a grower enrolls in the program. This is much more than a general region forecast as the information is generated for an exact location.
“There is a just a tremendous amount of new resources that we can be utilizing to make specific and pointed decisions that we don’t even realize are there yet,” Benson said.
Nitrogen Pulse and Weather Pulse both closely watch water — the water we receive for free in the form of rain and also with irrigation water that is used. An interesting tidbit Benson shared with me is that the international standard for corn production relative to rain is nine bushels per inch of rain.
Across much of Illinois this year, we are going to witness corn somewhere around 15 to 20 bushels per inch of rain in many places.
Benson feels crops look good for the most part this summer but those soils with lower water holding capacity with more sand could see a 20 to 30 percent reduction in yield. Hard to believe while other locations could reach record yields this fall, according to Benson.
It is a busy but fun time for fairs in Central Illinois this week as the Illinois State Fair is underway at Springfield and the Fairbury Fair runs this Wednesday through Sunday at the fairgrounds south of Route 24 near the speedway. See you on the midway and don’t forget the elephant ears!
For the latest ag news, podcasts and midday market interviews, visit www.centralillinoisfarmnetwork.com and follow the Central Illinois Farm Network on social media.
This article originally appeared on Pontiac Daily Leader: Kent Casson View from the Cab and using drones to farm
