Large crowd learns about precision agriculture

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JAMESTOWN, N.D. - If the size of the crowd at the recent Precision Ag Summit was any indication, there is a lot of interest in this aspect of farming. In fact, one of the speakers during the event said the concept of precision farming is becoming more commonplace.

Terry Griffin, associate professor and University of Arkansas Extension economist, recalled a time earlier in history when those farmers who were changing to using tractors instead of horses were referred to as mechanized farmers, while those using horses were called farmers. But, as tractors became more widespread, the mechanized term vanished. He suggested that someday in history we will be at a point when all farming will be precision farming and the term "precision" will be dropped.

However, there are some challenges ahead for those working with precision agriculture if that's going to happen, he said.

Directing his remarks to those working with precision ag he said, "We better get busy and get something useful to you (farmers) or otherwise the opportunities for precision ag are going to vanish-we (farmers) have all these hard drives full of data and I'm not going to collect any more until I figure out what I'm going to do with this stuff. Is there any science to back up what we are trying to do?

"Data doesn't have any value until it's turned into information and that's where we are right now. We have a lot of data."

There is another side of precision agriculture where the knowledge is embedded into the product and a lot of knowledge isn't needed to use the product, according to Griffin. A good example of that is automatic guidance.

Profitability often comes up in the discussion of adopting precision ag methods, but Griffin said it's hard to put a dollars and cents figure on many aspects of precision ag such as auto guidance.

More at http://www.minnesotafarmguide.com/n...cle_c3cf0cd6-4831-11e1-95e2-001871e3ce6c.html
 
 
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