Humboldt farmers use new technology to look at fields

It wasn’t until April of this year that Farm World really got into the drones.

Fleischhacker said precision technology is evolving really fast.

“We went from easy steer to add-on easy steer to easy steer being integrated into just about every piece of equipment out there now. And then we went to yield monitoring where it will actually map out your yields throughout a field,” said Fleischhacker.

He said they then went to something called ‘variable rate technology’ which allows farmers to put fertilizer where it needs to be; more or less depending on the area. Proper distribution saves producers money in the long run.

There are various ways producers can figure out what areas of their fields need more or less fertilizer.

One of those ways is by doing soil sampling, another way is to fly the field.

“Once the crop starts coming out of the ground and you’re able to see the stress spots, from there you can actually go and create a prescription map and put fertilizer in areas that need fertilizer,” said Fleischhacker.

He said that’s the benefit of having drones that can fly over fields and help create those prescription maps, ultimately saving farmers money.

Other benefits to having a drone map out a field is that farmers dont have to walk their fields which is time consuming and expensive if they hire extra help.

Fleischhacker said you can’t walk every acre which means you’re not seeing the whole picture.

“With the drone you can actually go 15 minutes and map a quarter of land and then you have that image in real time, you don’t have to wait for a satellite image which could be seven to 14 days later,” said Fleischhacker.

Drones allow producers to focus on areas of their fields that really need attention because of various reasons like lack of fertilizer, disease, insects or weed pressure.

“[Drones are] basically turning farming from being reactive to proactive,” said Fleischhacker.

He said the drone allow producers to do things in real time.

Fleischhacker spent the summer out in the field with farmers testing these drones and seeing what some of the benefits were to using them.

He said technology has come a long way and there are a lot of producers getting into the new technology.

“As [producers] have more acres they can’t check their crops on a regular basis. So the drones give them a tool where it can hopefully save them some time,” said Fleischhacker. “Everyone is after more yield so what can we do to get the maximized yield out of the land they do have, and one of those ways is making sure that they tackle problems when they still can rather than getting to harvest and figuring out they should have done this, or that, in certain areas that they might not have covered when they walked it.”

He said everyone that’s seen the drones are very interested in the concept and said they can see the benefits of having a drone.

Beginner drone models begin at about $4,500 and the higher-end models range up to the $23,000 mark.

The higher-end models have things like auto-pilot and inferred cameras so you can check vegetation.

“It’s not something everyone just jumps into without making sure it would benefit their operation,” said Fleischhacker.

He said they have three months’ worth of data from doing demonstrations of the summer that will allow them to go back and see how the fields faired over harvest with using a drone.

He said there’s been a very positive response in the Prince Albert area.

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid

by Sarah Wallace

Humboldt farmers use new technology to look at fields

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