Technology continues to move the agricultural industry forward and make a tough job like farming a little easier. For those who have been in the farming business for a while, one of the first technological conveniences you may recall is cell phones replacing truck radios. Once the towers went up and signal coverage improved, communication became a whole lot easier. Farmers could talk to each other and to their consultants and retailers almost instantly. This was a great benefit, especially when quick decisions needed to be made or farm inputs ordered.
On page 16, Georgia cotton specialist, Camp Hand, shares a great resource for tuning up your planter. The Row Crop Planter Checklist, which can be found at https://bit.ly/3oZicMJ, was developed by University of Georgia precision ag specialists Drs. Wes Porter and Simer Virk. With one click, you can see illustrated instructions about what to do to get your planter field-ready.
“If we can’t get a good stand and get the crop off to a good start, then all the money spent on fertilizer won’t do any good,” Hand says.
Virginia researchers are stepping up their game by using drones in the sky to collect data to be analyzed on the ground.
“An exciting part of this research is that we can take the data that we generate from the cameras and try to correspond that data to other factors, one of them being irrigation,” says Virginia researcher Emmanuel Torres Quezada.
He says the ultimate goal is to deliver this technology to growers.
“I want to make the production systems that we have in place more accessible and efficient for growers in the sense of an increase in yields and a decrease in costs,” he says.
Read more about drones and data and their potential to improve your operation’s productivity in the article on page 6.
And as we stand on the cusp of spring, variety selection and breeding traits have been the main topics of conversation in cotton circles. In “Select Varieties With Confidence” on page 10, one of the strategies discussed is the AU Variety Selection Platform (https://auburn.medius.re/) that was created from a partnership between Auburn University and Medius Ag. It’s really a toolbox with multiple tools that allows users to search for varieties based on various criteria.
Put technology to work on your farm in 2022 to save time, increase efficiency and be more productive and profitable.