Speaker 1: John Falm with Auburn University. I’m in the bio-systems engineering department and actually a precision ag extension specialist from the state of Alabama. In Alabama some of the future I think is going to lie in nutra-management and utilize the technology some of the site specific practices that we’re seeing here at the international precision ag conference really implemented to encourage farmers to be good stewarts, nutrients but also pesticides at the same time. We’re seeing a lot of work in the seeding realm in terms of [inaudible 00:44] seeding. In the future I think that it’s really bright for data management as we start to collect more and more data as farmers stockpile their yield maps and various data layers from the farms utilizing that to gain insights and knowledge that is needed to make decisions in the future as it relates to their operation and enhancing their operation over time.
We talk about guidances as the base thing that our growers are adopting. What they then quickly recognize is they can do more with that technology. They can maybe do better [inaudible 01:29] they can add section control whether that’s on a planter spreader type machine. I think long term with some of the telemetry type technology that’s coming over, being able to push and pull data from those machines and even knowing agronomically what we’re getting out of yield, whether it’s a yield map or someone that has a applied data. We’re able to better stockpile data that farmers can then turn to either themselves, a retailer, someone managing that data, to generate information that they can make better decisions on in the future on input specifically.
I also see a turning of, and what I spoke about, is being able to manage my machinery down the road and making sure that the price of machinery is increasing, I got to make sure it’s efficient, make sure it’s operating at maximum capacity. I won’t have losses, I don’t have drift, I don’t have those types of things but manage that machinery is going to be as critical in the future as well. Plus agronomic type data management that you’ll hear about that people speak about here at the conference.
I think at this point in speaking in 2012 and in the very near future, just managing data, bringing data in and making sure that farmers are getting the data off of their machinery, archived in a database, we’re seeing the retailers really providing that service for the farmers. They don’t have the time to have their own software in many cases. The retailers are providing that archiving capability plus adding in analysis capabilities today to help them while at the same time retailers are providing soil sampling, soil analysis and fertility recommendations back and working with the farmers on that end as well.