February 12, 2025 • 34 mins
Ag with Emma, a leading voice in agriculture, shares her journey from novice to practical mastery in field mapping with ADMS. Through engaging anecdotes and expert guidance from mentors like Kyle Okke, Emma's passion for mapping shines through. She emphasizes the unique blend of science and artistry involved in creating accurate agricultural maps, while also highlighting the importance of personalized learning approaches in mastering these complex systems.
Our conversation dives deep into the meticulous process of soil fertility analysis and sampling, revealing surprising insights into how historical elements like tree rows can impact soil nutrient levels. Emma walks us through the exhaustive steps of mapping fields for future soil sampling and fertility planning, with a focus on understanding the intriguing variance in phosphorus levels. We also discuss the mystery behind "snirt"—the nutrient-rich mix of snow and dirt—and the importance of avoiding skewed soil samples to ensure accurate data.
The final part of our episode navigates the challenges and growth opportunities in agronomy. From humorous tales of file naming to the serious business of defining boundaries and organizing data, Emma's insights illuminate the high-stakes, rewarding nature of agronomic data management. We wrap up with a discussion on the unpredictability of farming and the continuous journey of learning and improvement, as Emma reflects on the joy of hands-on fieldwork and the crucial role of providing accurate, data-driven advice to farmers.
Connect with Ag with Emma here: https://linktr.ee/agwithemma
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jodi (00:00):
And now it's time for a Geek Speak with GK Technologies,
sarah and Jody, friends and Ican't wait to get in the fields
again no, I can't wait to get inthe fields again all right,
(00:30):
we're back here with part two ofour episode with ag, with Emma,
no eggs ag with Emma, egg withEmma same um.
But we're super excited to haveEmma on the podcast today, and
last time we talked a little bitabout Emma's background, how
(00:52):
she got into the world of socialmedia, influencing in
agriculture, so please go backand check that first part of
this conversation out.
But what we're going to dotoday we're going to talk to
Emma a little bit about what shedoes with precision agriculture
, how she uses ADMS and, ofcourse, gk Field Mapper too, and
(01:13):
talk about what she's learnedso far.
Sarah (01:15):
I think one of the things that's really important to
bring up is that, emma, you havea little bit of a GIS
background, don't you?
Yes, okay, can you tell us alittle bit about that?
Emma (01:29):
Yeah, so when I was going to school at College of Southern
Idaho I mentioned that brieflyin the last episode, but we had
some really great courses andreally great professors that saw
the value in having thosecourses at the college.
So I took some GIS classes andthen I actually took a precision
agriculture class specificallyand at the time I didn't even it
didn't grasp in my brain likethey were talking about honestly
, like they were talking aboutGDUs, they were talking about
DVI and I was like, okay, butwhat do you use that for?
Sarah (01:51):
you know, I was like that's nice next, you know.
Emma (01:54):
And then I started working with Kyle and I was like, oh my
gosh, it was like unlocking alittle box in my brain.
I was like everything just myprofessors from school, like I
told you you'd use that one day.
So I never got my certificateof GIS but there was like I
studied it for a semester.
I took like one or two classesthat just let us sit in the
(02:16):
computer lab and make littlemaps and do stuff like that.
So I can't remember how similarthat software was to GK's like
mapping stuff.
But I know that I have aneasier time clicking around and
like drawing maps and boundariesand understanding the gist of
it because of that like lockedup little memory cube I had
sitting in there and and it isinteresting because, uh, you
(02:37):
know well, both Jodi and I willwork with different customers
and clients, helping them learnhow to run our software.
Sarah (02:44):
We do this in a lot of different ways.
One of the things we do iswe'll do team viewer sessions
with them online so they can bein their office.
We'll be in our office, but wecan see what's going on on their
screen.
We can actually take over themouse and move around and do
clicks.
And so I know, emma, you and Iworked a little bit online and I
was very surprised.
Yeah, I had to show you where acouple of buttons were, but you
(03:07):
kind of knew the concepts andyou really picked up on things
quite fast.
So I thought that was that wasreally fun.
Um, and I was like, hmm, you've, you've got a bat, you've,
you've got a little backgroundhere.
Emma (03:18):
So that's how I kind of found out about it, but it seems
like it really fit in well andhelped you out a lot yeah, and
the fun part about where we didthe team viewer thing was Kyle
showed me one way to do it andthen you showed me a completely
different way, and I love that,because there's so many
different ways to do the exactsame thing and we're all out
here like doing it the way thatit works for your brain.
I think that's the coolest partabout the mapping stuff is,
(03:40):
everyone has their own thing andit works for different brain
types.
Sarah (03:45):
It is a science and an art to make zones, and you can
make zones from all differentkinds of data, and that's that's
great.
But you have to find that waythat works for you.
And yeah, it's very true,there's a lot of times when
people don't make zones exactlythe same way.
Even within our own company,here at GK, we can find
different ways of doing things,absolutely.
Jodi (04:04):
And things are all kind of the same in terms of when we're
making a boundary it's acombination of points and lines
that form a polygon, right?
So, like having those conceptsand knowing that, okay, when I'm
drawing a boundary, what mygoal here is making a polygon,
even though you might not thinkof those as like being your
terms, like once you kind ofwrap your head around that, it's
just like okay, now I'm gonnamake a cut out of this polygon.
(04:29):
So that means I need to makeseparate polygons, make sure
they're all connected.
Like the point is is, once youkind of get that base concept of
like what are these things andwhat am I making, it helps, just
helps you to create and thinkabout things.
Or like make the things you'retrying to make in your head, on
the computer and then in thefield, yeah so it's been really
(04:50):
fun to use the software for that.
Sarah (04:52):
So what sorts of mapping things have you been doing with
Kyle so far?
Emma (04:56):
so when I started with Kyle, I think he had me start
like bare minimum on justdownloading images to make some
zones.
Like I was just looking atimages making sure there was't
clouds and making sure it wasthe right time frame, um, and I
didn't really grasp like the why.
Because Kyle gives things to mein little bites.
You know he's like, okay,here's this new.
I think he's learning that I'ma better like big picture
(05:18):
learner but like also smallbites are good.
Um, but I started with justdownloading like a bunch of
images for certain fields thathe hadn't mapped out yet, though
he we needed to get done beforesampling was over.
And then I started there was acouple of fields that he needed
boundaries drawn for, and thenhe had a couple of times, like,
after I downloaded all theimages, he had me merge them
(05:39):
together.
Like it's been very bite, size,manageable pieces, to the point
that we had a farmer that wejust started working with, the
farmer that I have actuallyworked with for the last year
and a half or whatever and I waslike, hey, I know you need some
fields, man.
And so, like Kyle's goal, likewe talked about this, he was
like, well, it'd be good for youto start from like bare minimum
(06:02):
or not bare like ground zero onfields that you've been on.
So it just helped anyways thatthe farmer needed soil samples.
So I got to like build thosemaps from the ground up and then
we went soil sampled them andthey were such complex fields
like they had tree rows they hadtree rows from 20 years ago
that you could still see on theimagery that we had to like
(06:23):
pencil out and then you had tomake like three different maps
to soil sample and pulled zonesoff.
It was insane like the amountof work that it wasn't just a
draw a square, go do the zonesand then you know pull 20
samples of zone.
It was like I think we pulledit had to be like 400 samples
because you guys ended up with alot of like, not 400 mod.
Sarah (06:45):
Yeah, mod areas in those fields from that and so you made
them all yourself right, yeahand these were fields that you
had actually um done harvestingon yep, yeah, so they were the
third.
Emma (06:56):
Like their productivity is varying so much in those fields
because there's just a lot ofstuff going on, so they had tree
rows that have been ripped outin the last like year tree rows
that had been ripped out fiveyears ago.
So we had to make separatefields.
And then there was a chunk ofthe field in the middle that was
an alfalfa field, so we had tomake that a separate field then
(07:17):
there was a section on the otherside that's always been wet, so
we had to take that out and,like it was always in hay or
something like that, so I had toavoid that area.
And then there's the tops ofthe sand hills that are
completely different from otherred zones, so we had to, like,
leave that stuff out, and it wasjust really crazy.
Sarah (07:32):
And so normally okay.
So when you're talking aboutpulling those separate places
that field out, would the farmeractually like just drive across
that area once and and plantthe whole thing going straight
through?
Is that kind of the intentiongoing forward?
So like where that old alfalfafield is, would he plant going
through that alfalfa field?
Emma (07:54):
Yeah, so now it's all one field, like they farm it as one
field.
They just recently ripped outtree rows on a place that they
had to like do the loop de lawsaround the tree rows, but they
took all of them out, so rightnow it doesn't have any hay in
it except for, like, the preventplant side that's literally
always wet.
Sarah (08:11):
They can't get in okay, so um have you had the chance to
make a prescription yet?
Emma (08:18):
oh yes, kind of it's like in the process, like we got the
results, we plugged in what cropit's going to be and then I
don't think we've made like theprescription map okay so because
the cool, cool thing about thatis um, yeah, you can totally
pull out that alfalfa field andmake sure that you get that soil
sampled separately from theother things.
Sarah (08:40):
you can even have its own zones within that little
alfalfa field and theneverything else can have its own
alfalfa field.
But once you get yourprescriptions made for each one
of those fields separately, ifyou're going to farm through
those, you just merge themtogether, exactly.
Emma (08:54):
And that's what Kyle and I were talking about.
So we just haven't got to the.
We're still working on gettingeveryone else's like fertilizer
recommendations.
So we're right now we're at thestage of taking the soil sample
results and plugging them in tomake the maps for that to get
like the average rates that thefarmers need.
So after I'm sure, likeagronomy on ice, it'll start
kicking back up into making.
(09:15):
He showed me how to make theprescription maps of like what
it looks like, to plug theprescription into gk and then
plug it into a tractor like youshow me how you have to like,
break it down, like and D,pixelate it basically to like
get the certain amount of pixelsper equipment.
Um, but we just haven't like Ihaven't sat down and done it yet
.
Sarah (09:34):
So it hasn't really clicked yeah.
Once you do it, it'll fall intoplace.
Jodi (09:39):
And so thinking back to like okay, you've got this big
area, this big field, andthere's a lot of different
things going on in it.
What was it was?
It?
Was it nice having that mapthat had all those mod areas
when you were sampling?
We didn't necessarily like ma.
Emma (09:54):
So when we made the sample map I just boundaried out the
mod areas because there wasn't aton of them, but it was just
like we had when we started.
I was like this is going to besuch a mess.
So I started naming all of thelast like where I wanted it to
be like final boss image.
Like this is the final boss,but inside.
So there's one field and thenwe had three sections within
(10:15):
that field.
So we sampled one section, thehay section, and then the north
section where the tree rows were.
So I think the 400 400 sampleswas probably accurate because
there's three zones.
Within all of those there's 20to 30 and we pulled like
astronomical amounts because ofall the stuff that was happening
.
And then in the south fieldthere was a hay section and then
(10:38):
there's the main section, andthen we pulled off tree rows
that had been there like 20years ago and that's when we got
those like crazy phosphorusresults.
That was insane.
So like between all that, Ithink it probably was close to
like 300 or 400 samples.
We pulled that day Cause it wasfive fields.
Sarah (10:52):
Is this the first time that this farmer has done
precision soil sampling?
Emma (10:56):
Yes, so he used to do composites and then we took the
composite sample resultscompared to the zone sample
results and found like kind ofwhere they got skewed, and I
loved that.
Jodi (11:07):
I was like have you had a chance to sit down with the
grower and talk through those?
Emma (11:11):
yeah, so we talked about, and we actually saved soil from
all the samples, so we have atube full of like top soil
subsoil yeah, so they're allsitting in the office because I
wanted to be able to see it.
I'm like here's what this soiltest looked like and here's what
the soil looks like and all itreally shows is like difference
in organic matter basically.
(11:31):
But it's even cool to see thatbecause the tree row organic
matter was so much higher andyou can see like it's just a
dark brown tube, you know.
But the other tubes where youpulled sand or you pulled like
whatever, was completelydifferent.
So it was so fun to here you go.
Sarah (11:52):
Did you show the farmer the different soils?
Emma (11:54):
Yeah, he loved it.
He was like, oh yeah, this isso fun Cause it used to be my
old boss.
Like he loves learning aboutthat kind of stuff and he knows
that it's all different on thatfarm, like that field especially
so, and he's always had aproblem with it.
Jodi (12:07):
So you mean it's amazing, right, Like you, you put in a
lot of time.
Um it was literally so much.
Emma (12:12):
It was like a week straight of just work for that.
Like, and it was two fields,yeah, yeah, so it was just crazy
.
Jodi (12:20):
But the beautiful thing is like OK, you've got that map
made now and you pull thoseinitial samples Now you have
that map to go forward in thefuture.
You keep using it again andfine tuning that, that soil
fertility plan that you've got.
Emma (12:34):
Yeah, and Kyle mentioned that we're just trying to get
those samples to all lookrelatively similar and then we
can combine them.
So until they look better,until we like apply what needs
to be applied at the differentrates and get it all to match
again, like we'll probably justkeep sampling.
Jodi (12:48):
Yeah because you can mine that.
You can mine that phosphorus inthose old tree rows for a long
time.
Yeah, no, kidding, rightcompared to the rest of the
field but we just did that aslike a test.
Emma (12:58):
It was just to see, like, what do the tree rows actually
look like?
Because kyle wanted it for likein, like research and like
educational purposes to be likeharry, this is why you map
around the tree rows and fencerows, you know, like this is why
this is literally because weonly pulled from the green zone
of the tree rows and thencompared it to the green zone of
the main field, and it was justcrazy yeah, and just to take a
(13:19):
second to think about that.
Jodi (13:20):
Um, so when I first started working at gk, I like
you know you think about it, youknow not to like sample in
weird spots of the field, um,but I never really thought about
it.
You know why you'd mod that outand send it out to the soil
samplers.
But, yeah, think about it.
Okay, so you've had a true rowsince 1930 and it maybe it was
(13:41):
taken out in 2003 or something.
So like 70 years and so overthat time you have all this top
soil that's blowing into thesetrue rows, and these true rows
with all the brome grass is justsitting there is going to
collect all that top soil.
And where's the phosphorus andpotassium and other non-mobile
nutrients?
Those are in the topsoil.
And so these, these places thatused to catch this soil right,
(14:04):
super high organic matter, superhigh phosphorus levels.
So you know, if you're using acomposite or even if you're
pulling samples for zone maps,it's really important to stay
out of those to make surethey're not skewing.
Your average soil test resultis in those areas.
God, that's great info.
Emma (14:20):
And I didn't even know the tree rows were there to the
extent that they were, until Iwas using the NDVI and I went
way back because I was justcurious and I went to like 1990
or something just to see and theimages weren't like top knot,
you know, because it's just likesatellite.
Stuff from back then is not asadvanced as it was today yeah,
but you could even just likeseeing that difference of like
(14:40):
what it looked like back then,what it looks like now, like,
and I just needed a clearer lineof where the tree rows were
actually at.
So it helped me out a lot.
But it was crazy, like when Istarted seeing those little
lines through the fields.
I'm like no, like there's noway, because even you can see it
in the seat, like the drillswill go across and you can see
it.
When the crop comes up, you cansee the line and I'm like you'd
(15:02):
never know that, though it'snot like that distinctive line,
you can see it from anywhereelse.
Jodi (15:05):
So and that's you know.
It's so funny talking aboutwhat kind of images to look at
when you're making zone mapstogether.
Like it might sound weird tolike look at the drg, which
typically will have you knowinfo on water movement, and like
maybe old tree rows or houses,but like those are absolutely
something to take a look atbecause they might contain some
(15:26):
of those old tree rows, some ofthose old like houses, farm
sites, just where some of thatweird stuff might be in fields.
Sarah (15:33):
Yeah, Did you remember the actual numbers from the soil
test phosphorus levels thatwere in the tree row versus some
of the others.
I think it was like 16.
16 parts per million on anOlsen test in the tree row.
Emma (15:47):
It had to have been like 16, 17.
Sarah (15:49):
And what was out in the field.
Emma (15:50):
The others owned it had to be below, I think below 10.
It had to have been.
Sarah (15:56):
That sounds about right.
I mean, if I had to guess.
I was just trying to look upreally quick if I could find,
because I have a friend of minethat actually did some studies
on this.
She was taking a look at snert.
You know the snow that getscontaminated with dirt from
erosion in the ditch and it'salways super rich in phosphorus.
(16:21):
It was just so interesting.
Jodi (16:24):
So we did that at Agvize a couple years ago, going into
2021, when we had a really openwinter and we could take all the
snert and we could test it.
But the hard part was like it'snot a zero to six inch sample
yeah, so like what is?
Yeah, yeah, some wet dust yeah,wet dust that has a lot of, you
know, non-mobile nutrients init which is super interesting,
(16:47):
because you don't think aboutthe snow being like hey, yo,
you're a high phosphorus yeah Idon't look at snur and be like I
put that at so much phosphorus.
Sarah (16:56):
I look at it and I'm like that's gonna be all over my
pickup people don't ever look atthat the soil blowing though in
the air, and think about itthat way, either they're just
like, oh there goes the top soiland it is.
It's really sad from thatperspective.
But man, that's a lot of moneyin phosphorus blowing away, holy
hannah, start mining that off.
Emma (17:13):
The snow plows man.
Sarah (17:18):
It's crazy.
So what was your favorite partof making that zone map?
Emma (17:27):
When I made all the maps, like I was so exhausted I had
brain frog, so bad, it was justlike I lost track of where I was
at so many times, cause it wasjust so much putting together
and I was kind of new to it.
But the day that we went out andsampled and I saw the red zones
, before I was in the red zonesand then I was sampling them and
making the connection about,like what the yield was like
(17:48):
during harvest the last year,cause like I just helped harvest
those fields, and like seeing,like oh, last year, because like
I just helped harvest thosefields and like seeing, like, oh
, there's so much pigeon grassin this red zone and you can
like see the pigeon grass seedin the soil, sample, like there
was so much, it was disgusting.
And then you see the resultsfrom that and I'm like, and then
Kyle explains why it's allthere.
(18:09):
Like it was just we had thistalk, I think, in the group, and
you'd said a lot about it.
I can't remember like whatexactly we're talking about, but
it was just, we had this talk,I think, in the group, and you'd
said a lot about it.
I can't remember like whatexactly we're talking about, but
it was some kind of thatnutrient, the nutrient tie-up
that leads to all of the likepigeon grass stuff, because it
was super high yes yeah, yes,yes, okay, yep yeah so the pH in
(18:29):
those spots was like four and ahalf oh my gosh, that's really
low, and then we go from talkingabout low ph to talking about
like variable rate spreading onthose spots, and that's when you
get into the grid samplingdebacle and you don't you know
you know like no thanks, but um,yeah, so it's just really cool
to see like the domino effectwhen you had your zone map and
(18:53):
you were out soil sampling youcould actually like, because
you've run a combine overthat ground right well, I was in
the grain cart but I alwaysknow what the guys were like and
you can.
We have the yield map fromharvest and it looks like the
zone map.
And that's the craziest part tome, because people tweet and be
like the zone map, like zonesampling is such an old,
outdated technique.
And I'm like brother, look atthe zone map, look at the yield
(19:14):
map and then tell me that againwith a straight face, please.
It just makes sense right.
Like and I get that you knowthere's the human aspect of it,
but the part you know we werejust talking about this like it
makes you an agronomist when youtake your human brain and
interpret the data and go aboutin your field and go soil sample
(19:34):
and make conclusions and likethat's why you'd make the maps.
Sarah (19:40):
It's not just outdated technology, like maybe your
brain's outdated brother I don'tknow well, sorry, and it's
interesting just to bring tolife like what that yield map
actually looks like, yeah, andwhy it does.
And so I.
This podcast today is supposedto be about you, but I'm going
to share with you.
It is so much fun when you makea map for a farmer and you know
(20:04):
that you nailed that mapbecause you can just see it
light up in their face.
Emma (20:09):
You just know when you nailed it Because they know all
their problem spots and theyknow it before you're making
that map and they know whatthey're going to look at when
you present that map to them andthey know what they're going to
pick apart and they knowthey're good areas.
Sarah (20:20):
They know where they're getting those really super high
yielding areas.
So it's it's really fun to seethat come to life on a map.
And then it's really fun to seewhen you're soil sampling, to
see all the differences in theactual soils that you, you
handle yeah, well, like in thebuckets, especially like when
I'm in the pickup, it's justcrazy.
Emma (20:38):
And then you mix it all up and you can still see the
difference in the buckets, butthen when we put them in the
tubes, it all it.
It looks the same, kind of likeyou can tell the difference
between the top soil and the subsoil.
But like I just feel like inthe buckets it's just such a
reaffirming little hey, you didyour job right, you know.
So that's the cool part.
Jodi (20:57):
I'm so excited for you to start scouting next spring, like
when you, when you think aboutlike crop scouting a lot of
college students will scout fromlike May and maybe those soil
tests at the end of the year.
But I feel like how you'veapproached this and maybe it's
all by accident, that's, that'stotally fine, but like you're
kind of taking it from the frontend of like, okay, you've
harvested, um, and you've seenthe yield maps of these fields,
(21:20):
you've been around them.
Now you've gone out, you'vemade the map, so you're kind of
looking at the whole field froma, yeah, 100 foot perspective
and you've soil sampled, you'veseen the results.
You're gonna go fertilize andnow you going to go look in
scout and see, okay, oh yeah,this spot looks a little bit
different and I remember this isa different zone, right?
Emma (21:40):
Like.
Jodi (21:40):
I'm so curious what you're going to find in terms of like
weed issues and like make thoseconnections between.
Is there some sort of like,other underlying thing or
activity that took place on thispiece of ground that might
explain why I'm seeing somethingdifferent here than over there?
Emma (21:55):
I'm literally so excited, so like after I wasn't even
supposed to stay on for a wholeyear, um, like I was genuinely
just supposed to help Kyle's oilsampling and when he called me
on the phone the first time,he's like yeah, I could help you
get some connections to likesome other people in the area,
if the agronomy is something youwant to do.
And then we were talking aboutit.
He's like do you want to just,you know work here?
And I'm like, okay, becauseit's like the dot connecting is
(22:19):
so cool.
And I just and the fact thatit's not a sales position, like
I genuinely feel like I'mgetting such a better
educational standpoint from thisthan just like trying to sell
product, because trying to sellstuff like I'm a air quote
influencer and when I have totry to sell stuff to people I
just choke.
Sarah (22:36):
Like but you're, you're really going to be selling
quote-unquote information.
Yeah, and it is so much fun tolearn, yeah, out in the field
and you have a great teacher.
So when you get to be out inthat field and you get to learn
all the ins and the outs and youdo get to see it come together,
oh, it is so rewarding I'm soexcited.
(22:58):
It's a lot of work, it's a dope.
Gonna be hard work, but yeah,and and I don't think you get
the chance to have as close of arelationship with farmers as as
you do when you work with themin this consulting capacity
exactly you get to know, youknow what, what's important to
them, how they think, how theymake decisions and what they
really need on their farmingoperation.
(23:20):
And it's just, it's a veryspecial job.
Yeah, I'm very excited, so yeah,what were some of the
challenges that you really facedwhen you were making your map?
Emma (23:33):
So, with it being, I guess the process of it was like what
should I do?
First, because you have thisbig field that's farmed as one
right now, like they have beenfarming it as one for two years.
So you're like, okay, well, Ineed to make a big boundary.
But then you make a bigboundary and you can't really
use it, like you have no use forit.
So you have to go in and belike, okay, when did the field
(23:56):
change?
You know like, what were the,what was the year?
And then you have to go andcollect all of the data.
And the way that I collecteddata was like I wanted to get
one chunk done at a time becauseI wanted to be able to be
thorough and like, look at it,and there was a couple times
that I could download the wholefield.
But I was like I can't reallymake a zone map for the hay
field at the same time making azone map for this field, because
it was also really nice,because the field was so big.
(24:16):
If there was a cloud in thissection, I was like, well, I'm
downloading for this sectionanyway.
So that was it, I think, justthe process and there are so
many files.
Kyle looked at it and he's likeyou gotta clean this thing up.
Sarah (24:30):
I was like I'm very aware , but I know.
Emma (24:33):
I know where everything is .
Let me tell you, it's like amessy room.
I know.
My hairbrush is like twocentimeters away from the pencil
.
Jodi (24:44):
It is so funny Like I I know I look back at like the
maps that I made before workingat DK, like I knew where
everything was, but like thedata structure and organization
was, it was janky.
Emma (24:54):
Well, yes, janky, to say the least.
I'm a janky organizer and I willgive things weird names, like
the other day we started namingthings graveyard because I was
already making maps and the maps.
We had to redo the maps becausewe had a different fertilizer
needs and everything like that.
So I was like, well, I can'tremember if Kyle said it or if I
(25:15):
said it, it was just like, well, it's going in the graveyard
and I had to make a graveyardfile in every single field and I
was like, oh well, graveyard,final boss.
Sarah (25:24):
We need to get this girl a fiery trash can of death shirt
.
Emma (25:28):
I used that icon the other day.
Kyle and I were looking atsomething with data points and
he's like we're going to bringthese to the fiery trash can of
death.
Sarah (25:43):
I points and he's like we're gonna bring these to the
fiery trash can.
I was like that's not real andhe's like it's right there.
There's no way.
Oh yeah, I thought it was sofunny for the listeners.
If you want to delete vectordata and gk technology, we have
a fiery trash can of death andonce you hit that, that data is
gone don't ever let me get myhands on what to name things at
bk, because it will be the fierytrash can of death.
Emma (26:02):
It's where the bad data goes yeah, but that was the
hardest part is, I think, yeah,just making it organized and
being new to it, because I can,I can grasp it, but just knowing
where everything goes and howeverything lines out and like oh
yeah, you have to download inthat specific folder because
that's where it's going to endup and you don't want to have to
sit there and sift through allof it.
(26:23):
So Kyle showed me a lot of liketips and tricks on how to keep
stuff organized and like, ohyeah, when you're making soil
sample, like test result maps,like copy the boundary, drop it
in your zone result folder like,keep it all square so it's not
all over the place.
Jodi (26:41):
It is good advice.
Yeah, it is super handy to havea more experienced hand just to
walk through, like, like youmentioned too, like this field
that you're working with, it'sgot multiple years it's a
monster it is a monster.
That's a really hard field tostart on, like so having
somebody there to help walkthrough, like okay, let's think
about it this way.
Or like let's work on these inpieces, like just having that is
very helpful.
Emma (27:00):
Exactly, it feels like a long process and I think the
next time I get a field likethat it'll just be like boom,
boom, boom, Cause I call mystride with it.
But you'll, you'll know once you, once you walk in there you'll
be able to be like okay, what ifI think about it this way and
how do I divide it up?
And it always improves.
(27:20):
Yeah, that's the exciting part.
It's like it's always room forimprovement in the industry that
we're in, like in the agronomic, like there's room for
improvement and everything.
But I really like beingsomewhere where improvement is
necessary and encouraged, Iguess and there's never two
things the same either.
Jodi (27:33):
Right like there's, there's never perfection,
because none of us can predictwhat the weather's going to be
like, and that it's literallylike a high risk.
Emma (27:40):
Like everyone talks about how farming is so high.
Like I feel like the agronomyside of it is just as high in
risk there.
Like you're putting everythingyou know on the line, not
knowing what's going to happenAt the expense of someone else.
Like that's insane to me.
Jodi (27:58):
Now, when you put it that that way.
Emma (27:59):
That's kind of what it is like.
Farmers put it all on like atthe expense of themselves.
Sure, like the people that theywork with, but like when you're
an agronomist and you haveadvice, and like I'm not at that
point yet, like I'm not anadvice, like I'm not there, but
like watching the decisions that, like Kyle has to make for the
farmer, I'm like good luck butit's very, it's a very special
(28:20):
rewarding when it goes right,but like when it goes wrong, it
goes wrong it most the time,though, it doesn't go wrong,
yeah there's enough proven dataand events to be like this isn't
gonna go wrong, but in the offchance, I would say that's
terrifying to me but like ithappens, like it happens to
(28:40):
everybody, um, everybody thatworks in that, that line of
making guidelines andrecommendations for things like
you can't be perfect, no, youcan't be perfect and like
sometimes there's like withlabels, right, sometimes you
don't read the back page andthere's one little clause or
that says, hey, you don't havethat much rain, or you miss that
, that, yeah, that rainthreshold by like three inches.
Jodi (29:02):
Then you probably might have crop response.
Like it's just, there's so manythings, there's so many factors
and it's impossible to knoweverything.
Yeah, exactly, and if anybodyis telling you that they're out
there crop consulting and notmaking mistakes, they are
they're lying.
Sarah (29:17):
Well, if anybody's out there um crap consulting, saying
that they're not learningsomething new every day, that's
probably a better way to put it.
Emma (29:25):
You probably have a closed minded consultant.
Sarah (29:27):
Yeah, Um, that's the one of the best parts about the
whole thing is just being ableto constantly learn.
Um always trying to do things alittle bit better, trying to
help the farmer do things alittle bit better, but it is
always very educational and it'sa lot to keep track of.
Emma (29:45):
It's a lot of brain space.
It's a nice challenge though.
Sarah (29:51):
Oh, it's super fun.
It's great.
I am so glad that you're doingthis.
I am just so excited to keepwatching you on social media to
see what's going to be happeningwith your experiences as an
agronomist with Kyle goingforward.
Emma (30:05):
I'm excited to make it like fun and yeah, not that
agronomy is old, but I haven'tseen like agronomy videos aimed
towards the younger generationof kids that are getting into it
, like that type of style ofcontent, like a lot of the
agronomists that post on theinternet post for other
agronomists.
There's not a consumer based,like consumer pointed agronomy
(30:28):
standpoint.
So that's my goal for this year.
Jodi (30:30):
So that's amazing.
It's gonna be really hard.
Emma (30:34):
I like I'm struggling with it, but we're not in season yet
either, like I'm so, like Istruggle so hard sharing the
office stuff, because I'm likethis is kind of redundant and
like people consumers don't knowabout that.
Like, yeah, that's the goalit's so.
Sarah (30:46):
It's interesting because you have to start at baseline
yeah, and while it doesn't feellike there's a lot going on
right now, because you're not-in the field, but there's so
much because, you're trying todo planning.
You're trying to make the maps,you're trying to make the
herbicide plans.
Emma (30:59):
You're going to conferences and learning and
meeting all these other peoplewith all these other ideas that
do things all totally different.
And then you're like meetingnew people that are like what do
you even do for work?
And I'm like I don't know, Ifeel like a hamster wheel right
now.
That's what I'm doing for work.
I'm just running man, I'mblowing off steam, trying to
like get everything done.
It's a lot of fun.
(31:19):
I am definitely on the slavelabor side of like computer work
right now, though, which is fun.
Are you doing a?
lot of mapping yet right nowyeah, we're still like we're
just plugging in fertilizer plan, plugging in soil results,
plugging in like okay, this iswhat we need for this farm.
We're like this is how muchlike and that's the part
aboutronomy Like you are beingdepended on for so much
information because you're likeyou have to get it down to the
(31:40):
dime of like this is how muchyour spring is going to cost you
.
It's very tight.
Yeah, it's like I did notrealize that aspect of this Like
that's what my eyeballs areopening up right now about.
I'm like everyone's in a pickleright now, like especially this
(32:04):
spring, after everything that'shappened and everything.
So that's a lot of the marginsare definitely tight going into
this year.
Yeah, it's pinching and thenit's pinching more, so that's
been crazy to witness the lastcouple weeks.
I'm like oh boy, so glad I'mnot the boss man.
I am okay with being slavelabor.
If I can make someone else'slife easier, I'm good.
Sarah (32:25):
It's a lot of fun doing that job.
It's a hard job but it is funtrying to be a resource as
farmers are making those toughdecisions.
Yeah, sure, well, this has beena super fun conversation, very
interesting good yep, sesh yep,absolutely very glad to uh have
you on.
(32:45):
It's great to hear about yourexperiences, as you're learning
um precision agriculture, um andapplying your gis experiences
um into the real world.
It's going to be fun to watchyou as you go forward learning
the agronomy world as a wholeinto the real world.
It's going to be fun to watchyou as you go forward learning
the agronomy world as a wholeinto the growing season.
So it's a lot of fun.
Jodi (33:01):
Yeah, thank you guys for having me.
Thank you so much for your timeand I'm so excited to see your
agronomy videos this year.
Emma (33:07):
I'm excited.
It's a lot of pressure Speakingof where can folks find you?
Jodi (33:11):
If they want to follow you along on social media, where
should they find you?
Emma (33:14):
So it's ag with Emma everywhere A G, not E G G.
Sarah (33:19):
Ag with Emma spelled out.
Emma (33:21):
So A G with Emma, but I'm on Tik TOK If it doesn't.
I'm on Tik TOK If it getsbanned or not.
Um, I'm on X and YouTube andFacebook and Instagram.
Facebook is kind of mystepchild that I don't pay
attention to, but it's there.
I kind of that.
I don't pay attention to, butit's there.
My Instagram just cross postson Facebook, perfect.
Jodi (33:41):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, guys, for having meRemember.
With GK Technology, we have amap and an app for that.
We'll see you next time.
No, I can't wait to get in thefields again.
And now it's time for a Geek Speak with GK Technologies,
sarah and Jody, friends and Ican't wait to get in the fields
again no, I can't wait to get inthe fields again all right,
(00:30):
we're back here with part two ofour episode with ag, with Emma,
no eggs ag with Emma, egg withEmma same um.
But we're super excited to haveEmma on the podcast today, and
last time we talked a little bitabout Emma's background, how
(00:52):
she got into the world of socialmedia, influencing in
agriculture, so please go backand check that first part of
this conversation out.
But what we're going to dotoday we're going to talk to
Emma a little bit about what shedoes with precision agriculture
, how she uses ADMS and, ofcourse, gk Field Mapper too, and
(01:13):
talk about what she's learnedso far.
Sarah (01:15):
I think one of the things that's really important to
bring up is that, emma, you havea little bit of a GIS
background, don't you?
Yes, okay, can you tell us alittle bit about that?
Emma (01:29):
Yeah, so when I was going to school at College of Southern
Idaho I mentioned that brieflyin the last episode, but we had
some really great courses andreally great professors that saw
the value in having thosecourses at the college.
So I took some GIS classes andthen I actually took a precision
agriculture class specificallyand at the time I didn't even it
didn't grasp in my brain likethey were talking about honestly
, like they were talking aboutGDUs, they were talking about
DVI and I was like, okay, butwhat do you use that for?
Sarah (01:51):
you know, I was like that's nice next, you know.
Emma (01:54):
And then I started working with Kyle and I was like, oh my
gosh, it was like unlocking alittle box in my brain.
I was like everything just myprofessors from school, like I
told you you'd use that one day.
So I never got my certificateof GIS but there was like I
studied it for a semester.
I took like one or two classesthat just let us sit in the
(02:16):
computer lab and make littlemaps and do stuff like that.
So I can't remember how similarthat software was to GK's like
mapping stuff.
But I know that I have aneasier time clicking around and
like drawing maps and boundariesand understanding the gist of
it because of that like lockedup little memory cube I had
sitting in there and and it isinteresting because, uh, you
(02:37):
know well, both Jodi and I willwork with different customers
and clients, helping them learnhow to run our software.
Sarah (02:44):
We do this in a lot of different ways.
One of the things we do iswe'll do team viewer sessions
with them online so they can bein their office.
We'll be in our office, but wecan see what's going on on their
screen.
We can actually take over themouse and move around and do
clicks.
And so I know, emma, you and Iworked a little bit online and I
was very surprised.
Yeah, I had to show you where acouple of buttons were, but you
(03:07):
kind of knew the concepts andyou really picked up on things
quite fast.
So I thought that was that wasreally fun.
Um, and I was like, hmm, you've, you've got a bat, you've,
you've got a little backgroundhere.
Emma (03:18):
So that's how I kind of found out about it, but it seems
like it really fit in well andhelped you out a lot yeah, and
the fun part about where we didthe team viewer thing was Kyle
showed me one way to do it andthen you showed me a completely
different way, and I love that,because there's so many
different ways to do the exactsame thing and we're all out
here like doing it the way thatit works for your brain.
I think that's the coolest partabout the mapping stuff is,
(03:40):
everyone has their own thing andit works for different brain
types.
Sarah (03:45):
It is a science and an art to make zones, and you can
make zones from all differentkinds of data, and that's that's
great.
But you have to find that waythat works for you.
And yeah, it's very true,there's a lot of times when
people don't make zones exactlythe same way.
Even within our own company,here at GK, we can find
different ways of doing things,absolutely.
Jodi (04:04):
And things are all kind of the same in terms of when we're
making a boundary it's acombination of points and lines
that form a polygon, right?
So, like having those conceptsand knowing that, okay, when I'm
drawing a boundary, what mygoal here is making a polygon,
even though you might not thinkof those as like being your
terms, like once you kind ofwrap your head around that, it's
just like okay, now I'm gonnamake a cut out of this polygon.
(04:29):
So that means I need to makeseparate polygons, make sure
they're all connected.
Like the point is is, once youkind of get that base concept of
like what are these things andwhat am I making, it helps, just
helps you to create and thinkabout things.
Or like make the things you'retrying to make in your head, on
the computer and then in thefield, yeah so it's been really
(04:50):
fun to use the software for that.
Sarah (04:52):
So what sorts of mapping things have you been doing with
Kyle so far?
Emma (04:56):
so when I started with Kyle, I think he had me start
like bare minimum on justdownloading images to make some
zones.
Like I was just looking atimages making sure there was't
clouds and making sure it wasthe right time frame, um, and I
didn't really grasp like the why.
Because Kyle gives things to mein little bites.
You know he's like, okay,here's this new.
I think he's learning that I'ma better like big picture
(05:18):
learner but like also smallbites are good.
Um, but I started with justdownloading like a bunch of
images for certain fields thathe hadn't mapped out yet, though
he we needed to get done beforesampling was over.
And then I started there was acouple of fields that he needed
boundaries drawn for, and thenhe had a couple of times, like,
after I downloaded all theimages, he had me merge them
(05:39):
together.
Like it's been very bite, size,manageable pieces, to the point
that we had a farmer that wejust started working with, the
farmer that I have actuallyworked with for the last year
and a half or whatever and I waslike, hey, I know you need some
fields, man.
And so, like Kyle's goal, likewe talked about this, he was
like, well, it'd be good for youto start from like bare minimum
(06:02):
or not bare like ground zero onfields that you've been on.
So it just helped anyways thatthe farmer needed soil samples.
So I got to like build thosemaps from the ground up and then
we went soil sampled them andthey were such complex fields
like they had tree rows they hadtree rows from 20 years ago
that you could still see on theimagery that we had to like
(06:23):
pencil out and then you had tomake like three different maps
to soil sample and pulled zonesoff.
It was insane like the amountof work that it wasn't just a
draw a square, go do the zonesand then you know pull 20
samples of zone.
It was like I think we pulledit had to be like 400 samples
because you guys ended up with alot of like, not 400 mod.
Sarah (06:45):
Yeah, mod areas in those fields from that and so you made
them all yourself right, yeahand these were fields that you
had actually um done harvestingon yep, yeah, so they were the
third.
Emma (06:56):
Like their productivity is varying so much in those fields
because there's just a lot ofstuff going on, so they had tree
rows that have been ripped outin the last like year tree rows
that had been ripped out fiveyears ago.
So we had to make separatefields.
And then there was a chunk ofthe field in the middle that was
an alfalfa field, so we had tomake that a separate field then
(07:17):
there was a section on the otherside that's always been wet, so
we had to take that out and,like it was always in hay or
something like that, so I had toavoid that area.
And then there's the tops ofthe sand hills that are
completely different from otherred zones, so we had to, like,
leave that stuff out, and it wasjust really crazy.
Sarah (07:32):
And so normally okay.
So when you're talking aboutpulling those separate places
that field out, would the farmeractually like just drive across
that area once and and plantthe whole thing going straight
through?
Is that kind of the intentiongoing forward?
So like where that old alfalfafield is, would he plant going
through that alfalfa field?
Emma (07:54):
Yeah, so now it's all one field, like they farm it as one
field.
They just recently ripped outtree rows on a place that they
had to like do the loop de lawsaround the tree rows, but they
took all of them out, so rightnow it doesn't have any hay in
it except for, like, the preventplant side that's literally
always wet.
Sarah (08:11):
They can't get in okay, so um have you had the chance to
make a prescription yet?
Emma (08:18):
oh yes, kind of it's like in the process, like we got the
results, we plugged in what cropit's going to be and then I
don't think we've made like theprescription map okay so because
the cool, cool thing about thatis um, yeah, you can totally
pull out that alfalfa field andmake sure that you get that soil
sampled separately from theother things.
Sarah (08:40):
you can even have its own zones within that little
alfalfa field and theneverything else can have its own
alfalfa field.
But once you get yourprescriptions made for each one
of those fields separately, ifyou're going to farm through
those, you just merge themtogether, exactly.
Emma (08:54):
And that's what Kyle and I were talking about.
So we just haven't got to the.
We're still working on gettingeveryone else's like fertilizer
recommendations.
So we're right now we're at thestage of taking the soil sample
results and plugging them in tomake the maps for that to get
like the average rates that thefarmers need.
So after I'm sure, likeagronomy on ice, it'll start
kicking back up into making.
(09:15):
He showed me how to make theprescription maps of like what
it looks like, to plug theprescription into gk and then
plug it into a tractor like youshow me how you have to like,
break it down, like and D,pixelate it basically to like
get the certain amount of pixelsper equipment.
Um, but we just haven't like Ihaven't sat down and done it yet
.
Sarah (09:34):
So it hasn't really clicked yeah.
Once you do it, it'll fall intoplace.
Jodi (09:39):
And so thinking back to like okay, you've got this big
area, this big field, andthere's a lot of different
things going on in it.
What was it was?
It?
Was it nice having that mapthat had all those mod areas
when you were sampling?
We didn't necessarily like ma.
Emma (09:54):
So when we made the sample map I just boundaried out the
mod areas because there wasn't aton of them, but it was just
like we had when we started.
I was like this is going to besuch a mess.
So I started naming all of thelast like where I wanted it to
be like final boss image.
Like this is the final boss,but inside.
So there's one field and thenwe had three sections within
(10:15):
that field.
So we sampled one section, thehay section, and then the north
section where the tree rows were.
So I think the 400 400 sampleswas probably accurate because
there's three zones.
Within all of those there's 20to 30 and we pulled like
astronomical amounts because ofall the stuff that was happening
.
And then in the south fieldthere was a hay section and then
(10:38):
there's the main section, andthen we pulled off tree rows
that had been there like 20years ago and that's when we got
those like crazy phosphorusresults.
That was insane.
So like between all that, Ithink it probably was close to
like 300 or 400 samples.
We pulled that day Cause it wasfive fields.
Sarah (10:52):
Is this the first time that this farmer has done
precision soil sampling?
Emma (10:56):
Yes, so he used to do composites and then we took the
composite sample resultscompared to the zone sample
results and found like kind ofwhere they got skewed, and I
loved that.
Jodi (11:07):
I was like have you had a chance to sit down with the
grower and talk through those?
Emma (11:11):
yeah, so we talked about, and we actually saved soil from
all the samples, so we have atube full of like top soil
subsoil yeah, so they're allsitting in the office because I
wanted to be able to see it.
I'm like here's what this soiltest looked like and here's what
the soil looks like and all itreally shows is like difference
in organic matter basically.
(11:31):
But it's even cool to see thatbecause the tree row organic
matter was so much higher andyou can see like it's just a
dark brown tube, you know.
But the other tubes where youpulled sand or you pulled like
whatever, was completelydifferent.
So it was so fun to here you go.
Sarah (11:52):
Did you show the farmer the different soils?
Emma (11:54):
Yeah, he loved it.
He was like, oh yeah, this isso fun Cause it used to be my
old boss.
Like he loves learning aboutthat kind of stuff and he knows
that it's all different on thatfarm, like that field especially
so, and he's always had aproblem with it.
Jodi (12:07):
So you mean it's amazing, right, Like you, you put in a
lot of time.
Um it was literally so much.
Emma (12:12):
It was like a week straight of just work for that.
Like, and it was two fields,yeah, yeah, so it was just crazy
.
Jodi (12:20):
But the beautiful thing is like OK, you've got that map
made now and you pull thoseinitial samples Now you have
that map to go forward in thefuture.
You keep using it again andfine tuning that, that soil
fertility plan that you've got.
Emma (12:34):
Yeah, and Kyle mentioned that we're just trying to get
those samples to all lookrelatively similar and then we
can combine them.
So until they look better,until we like apply what needs
to be applied at the differentrates and get it all to match
again, like we'll probably justkeep sampling.
Jodi (12:48):
Yeah because you can mine that.
You can mine that phosphorus inthose old tree rows for a long
time.
Yeah, no, kidding, rightcompared to the rest of the
field but we just did that aslike a test.
Emma (12:58):
It was just to see, like, what do the tree rows actually
look like?
Because kyle wanted it for likein, like research and like
educational purposes to be likeharry, this is why you map
around the tree rows and fencerows, you know, like this is why
this is literally because weonly pulled from the green zone
of the tree rows and thencompared it to the green zone of
the main field, and it was justcrazy yeah, and just to take a
(13:19):
second to think about that.
Jodi (13:20):
Um, so when I first started working at gk, I like
you know you think about it, youknow not to like sample in
weird spots of the field, um,but I never really thought about
it.
You know why you'd mod that outand send it out to the soil
samplers.
But, yeah, think about it.
Okay, so you've had a true rowsince 1930 and it maybe it was
(13:41):
taken out in 2003 or something.
So like 70 years and so overthat time you have all this top
soil that's blowing into thesetrue rows, and these true rows
with all the brome grass is justsitting there is going to
collect all that top soil.
And where's the phosphorus andpotassium and other non-mobile
nutrients?
Those are in the topsoil.
And so these, these places thatused to catch this soil right,
(14:04):
super high organic matter, superhigh phosphorus levels.
So you know, if you're using acomposite or even if you're
pulling samples for zone maps,it's really important to stay
out of those to make surethey're not skewing.
Your average soil test resultis in those areas.
God, that's great info.
Emma (14:20):
And I didn't even know the tree rows were there to the
extent that they were, until Iwas using the NDVI and I went
way back because I was justcurious and I went to like 1990
or something just to see and theimages weren't like top knot,
you know, because it's just likesatellite.
Stuff from back then is not asadvanced as it was today yeah,
but you could even just likeseeing that difference of like
(14:40):
what it looked like back then,what it looks like now, like,
and I just needed a clearer lineof where the tree rows were
actually at.
So it helped me out a lot.
But it was crazy, like when Istarted seeing those little
lines through the fields.
I'm like no, like there's noway, because even you can see it
in the seat, like the drillswill go across and you can see
it.
When the crop comes up, you cansee the line and I'm like you'd
(15:02):
never know that, though it'snot like that distinctive line,
you can see it from anywhereelse.
Jodi (15:05):
So and that's you know.
It's so funny talking aboutwhat kind of images to look at
when you're making zone mapstogether.
Like it might sound weird tolike look at the drg, which
typically will have you knowinfo on water movement, and like
maybe old tree rows or houses,but like those are absolutely
something to take a look atbecause they might contain some
(15:26):
of those old tree rows, some ofthose old like houses, farm
sites, just where some of thatweird stuff might be in fields.
Sarah (15:33):
Yeah, Did you remember the actual numbers from the soil
test phosphorus levels thatwere in the tree row versus some
of the others.
I think it was like 16.
16 parts per million on anOlsen test in the tree row.
Emma (15:47):
It had to have been like 16, 17.
Sarah (15:49):
And what was out in the field.
Emma (15:50):
The others owned it had to be below, I think below 10.
It had to have been.
Sarah (15:56):
That sounds about right.
I mean, if I had to guess.
I was just trying to look upreally quick if I could find,
because I have a friend of minethat actually did some studies
on this.
She was taking a look at snert.
You know the snow that getscontaminated with dirt from
erosion in the ditch and it'salways super rich in phosphorus.
(16:21):
It was just so interesting.
Jodi (16:24):
So we did that at Agvize a couple years ago, going into
2021, when we had a really openwinter and we could take all the
snert and we could test it.
But the hard part was like it'snot a zero to six inch sample
yeah, so like what is?
Yeah, yeah, some wet dust yeah,wet dust that has a lot of, you
know, non-mobile nutrients init which is super interesting,
(16:47):
because you don't think aboutthe snow being like hey, yo,
you're a high phosphorus yeah Idon't look at snur and be like I
put that at so much phosphorus.
Sarah (16:56):
I look at it and I'm like that's gonna be all over my
pickup people don't ever look atthat the soil blowing though in
the air, and think about itthat way, either they're just
like, oh there goes the top soiland it is.
It's really sad from thatperspective.
But man, that's a lot of moneyin phosphorus blowing away, holy
hannah, start mining that off.
Emma (17:13):
The snow plows man.
Sarah (17:18):
It's crazy.
So what was your favorite partof making that zone map?
Emma (17:27):
When I made all the maps, like I was so exhausted I had
brain frog, so bad, it was justlike I lost track of where I was
at so many times, cause it wasjust so much putting together
and I was kind of new to it.
But the day that we went out andsampled and I saw the red zones
, before I was in the red zonesand then I was sampling them and
making the connection about,like what the yield was like
(17:48):
during harvest the last year,cause like I just helped harvest
those fields, and like seeing,like oh, last year, because like
I just helped harvest thosefields and like seeing, like, oh
, there's so much pigeon grassin this red zone and you can
like see the pigeon grass seedin the soil, sample, like there
was so much, it was disgusting.
And then you see the resultsfrom that and I'm like, and then
Kyle explains why it's allthere.
(18:09):
Like it was just we had thistalk, I think, in the group, and
you'd said a lot about it.
I can't remember like whatexactly we're talking about, but
it was just, we had this talk,I think, in the group, and you'd
said a lot about it.
I can't remember like whatexactly we're talking about, but
it was some kind of thatnutrient, the nutrient tie-up
that leads to all of the likepigeon grass stuff, because it
was super high yes yeah, yes,yes, okay, yep yeah so the pH in
(18:29):
those spots was like four and ahalf oh my gosh, that's really
low, and then we go from talkingabout low ph to talking about
like variable rate spreading onthose spots, and that's when you
get into the grid samplingdebacle and you don't you know
you know like no thanks, but um,yeah, so it's just really cool
to see like the domino effectwhen you had your zone map and
(18:53):
you were out soil sampling youcould actually like, because
you've run a combine overthat ground right well, I was in
the grain cart but I alwaysknow what the guys were like and
you can.
We have the yield map fromharvest and it looks like the
zone map.
And that's the craziest part tome, because people tweet and be
like the zone map, like zonesampling is such an old,
outdated technique.
And I'm like brother, look atthe zone map, look at the yield
(19:14):
map and then tell me that againwith a straight face, please.
It just makes sense right.
Like and I get that you knowthere's the human aspect of it,
but the part you know we werejust talking about this like it
makes you an agronomist when youtake your human brain and
interpret the data and go aboutin your field and go soil sample
(19:34):
and make conclusions and likethat's why you'd make the maps.
Sarah (19:40):
It's not just outdated technology, like maybe your
brain's outdated brother I don'tknow well, sorry, and it's
interesting just to bring tolife like what that yield map
actually looks like, yeah, andwhy it does.
And so I.
This podcast today is supposedto be about you, but I'm going
to share with you.
It is so much fun when you makea map for a farmer and you know
(20:04):
that you nailed that mapbecause you can just see it
light up in their face.
Emma (20:09):
You just know when you nailed it Because they know all
their problem spots and theyknow it before you're making
that map and they know whatthey're going to look at when
you present that map to them andthey know what they're going to
pick apart and they knowthey're good areas.
Sarah (20:20):
They know where they're getting those really super high
yielding areas.
So it's it's really fun to seethat come to life on a map.
And then it's really fun to seewhen you're soil sampling, to
see all the differences in theactual soils that you, you
handle yeah, well, like in thebuckets, especially like when
I'm in the pickup, it's justcrazy.
Emma (20:38):
And then you mix it all up and you can still see the
difference in the buckets, butthen when we put them in the
tubes, it all it.
It looks the same, kind of likeyou can tell the difference
between the top soil and the subsoil.
But like I just feel like inthe buckets it's just such a
reaffirming little hey, you didyour job right, you know.
So that's the cool part.
Jodi (20:57):
I'm so excited for you to start scouting next spring, like
when you, when you think aboutlike crop scouting a lot of
college students will scout fromlike May and maybe those soil
tests at the end of the year.
But I feel like how you'veapproached this and maybe it's
all by accident, that's, that'stotally fine, but like you're
kind of taking it from the frontend of like, okay, you've
harvested, um, and you've seenthe yield maps of these fields,
(21:20):
you've been around them.
Now you've gone out, you'vemade the map, so you're kind of
looking at the whole field froma, yeah, 100 foot perspective
and you've soil sampled, you'veseen the results.
You're gonna go fertilize andnow you going to go look in
scout and see, okay, oh yeah,this spot looks a little bit
different and I remember this isa different zone, right?
Emma (21:40):
Like.
Jodi (21:40):
I'm so curious what you're going to find in terms of like
weed issues and like make thoseconnections between.
Is there some sort of like,other underlying thing or
activity that took place on thispiece of ground that might
explain why I'm seeing somethingdifferent here than over there?
Emma (21:55):
I'm literally so excited, so like after I wasn't even
supposed to stay on for a wholeyear, um, like I was genuinely
just supposed to help Kyle's oilsampling and when he called me
on the phone the first time,he's like yeah, I could help you
get some connections to likesome other people in the area,
if the agronomy is something youwant to do.
And then we were talking aboutit.
He's like do you want to just,you know work here?
And I'm like, okay, becauseit's like the dot connecting is
(22:19):
so cool.
And I just and the fact thatit's not a sales position, like
I genuinely feel like I'mgetting such a better
educational standpoint from thisthan just like trying to sell
product, because trying to sellstuff like I'm a air quote
influencer and when I have totry to sell stuff to people I
just choke.
Sarah (22:36):
Like but you're, you're really going to be selling
quote-unquote information.
Yeah, and it is so much fun tolearn, yeah, out in the field
and you have a great teacher.
So when you get to be out inthat field and you get to learn
all the ins and the outs and youdo get to see it come together,
oh, it is so rewarding I'm soexcited.
(22:58):
It's a lot of work, it's a dope.
Gonna be hard work, but yeah,and and I don't think you get
the chance to have as close of arelationship with farmers as as
you do when you work with themin this consulting capacity
exactly you get to know, youknow what, what's important to
them, how they think, how theymake decisions and what they
really need on their farmingoperation.
(23:20):
And it's just, it's a veryspecial job.
Yeah, I'm very excited, so yeah,what were some of the
challenges that you really facedwhen you were making your map?
Emma (23:33):
So, with it being, I guess the process of it was like what
should I do?
First, because you have thisbig field that's farmed as one
right now, like they have beenfarming it as one for two years.
So you're like, okay, well, Ineed to make a big boundary.
But then you make a bigboundary and you can't really
use it, like you have no use forit.
So you have to go in and belike, okay, when did the field
(23:56):
change?
You know like, what were the,what was the year?
And then you have to go andcollect all of the data.
And the way that I collecteddata was like I wanted to get
one chunk done at a time becauseI wanted to be able to be
thorough and like, look at it,and there was a couple times
that I could download the wholefield.
But I was like I can't reallymake a zone map for the hay
field at the same time making azone map for this field, because
it was also really nice,because the field was so big.
(24:16):
If there was a cloud in thissection, I was like, well, I'm
downloading for this sectionanyway.
So that was it, I think, justthe process and there are so
many files.
Kyle looked at it and he's likeyou gotta clean this thing up.
Sarah (24:30):
I was like I'm very aware , but I know.
Emma (24:33):
I know where everything is .
Let me tell you, it's like amessy room.
I know.
My hairbrush is like twocentimeters away from the pencil
.
Jodi (24:44):
It is so funny Like I I know I look back at like the
maps that I made before workingat DK, like I knew where
everything was, but like thedata structure and organization
was, it was janky.
Emma (24:54):
Well, yes, janky, to say the least.
I'm a janky organizer and I willgive things weird names, like
the other day we started namingthings graveyard because I was
already making maps and the maps.
We had to redo the maps becausewe had a different fertilizer
needs and everything like that.
So I was like, well, I can'tremember if Kyle said it or if I
(25:15):
said it, it was just like, well, it's going in the graveyard
and I had to make a graveyardfile in every single field and I
was like, oh well, graveyard,final boss.
Sarah (25:24):
We need to get this girl a fiery trash can of death shirt
.
Emma (25:28):
I used that icon the other day.
Kyle and I were looking atsomething with data points and
he's like we're going to bringthese to the fiery trash can of
death.
Sarah (25:43):
I points and he's like we're gonna bring these to the
fiery trash can.
I was like that's not real andhe's like it's right there.
There's no way.
Oh yeah, I thought it was sofunny for the listeners.
If you want to delete vectordata and gk technology, we have
a fiery trash can of death andonce you hit that, that data is
gone don't ever let me get myhands on what to name things at
bk, because it will be the fierytrash can of death.
Emma (26:02):
It's where the bad data goes yeah, but that was the
hardest part is, I think, yeah,just making it organized and
being new to it, because I can,I can grasp it, but just knowing
where everything goes and howeverything lines out and like oh
yeah, you have to download inthat specific folder because
that's where it's going to endup and you don't want to have to
sit there and sift through allof it.
(26:23):
So Kyle showed me a lot of liketips and tricks on how to keep
stuff organized and like, ohyeah, when you're making soil
sample, like test result maps,like copy the boundary, drop it
in your zone result folder like,keep it all square so it's not
all over the place.
Jodi (26:41):
It is good advice.
Yeah, it is super handy to havea more experienced hand just to
walk through, like, like youmentioned too, like this field
that you're working with, it'sgot multiple years it's a
monster it is a monster.
That's a really hard field tostart on, like so having
somebody there to help walkthrough, like okay, let's think
about it this way.
Or like let's work on these inpieces, like just having that is
very helpful.
Emma (27:00):
Exactly, it feels like a long process and I think the
next time I get a field likethat it'll just be like boom,
boom, boom, Cause I call mystride with it.
But you'll, you'll know once you, once you walk in there you'll
be able to be like okay, what ifI think about it this way and
how do I divide it up?
And it always improves.
(27:20):
Yeah, that's the exciting part.
It's like it's always room forimprovement in the industry that
we're in, like in the agronomic, like there's room for
improvement and everything.
But I really like beingsomewhere where improvement is
necessary and encouraged, Iguess and there's never two
things the same either.
Jodi (27:33):
Right like there's, there's never perfection,
because none of us can predictwhat the weather's going to be
like, and that it's literallylike a high risk.
Emma (27:40):
Like everyone talks about how farming is so high.
Like I feel like the agronomyside of it is just as high in
risk there.
Like you're putting everythingyou know on the line, not
knowing what's going to happenAt the expense of someone else.
Like that's insane to me.
Jodi (27:58):
Now, when you put it that that way.
Emma (27:59):
That's kind of what it is like.
Farmers put it all on like atthe expense of themselves.
Sure, like the people that theywork with, but like when you're
an agronomist and you haveadvice, and like I'm not at that
point yet, like I'm not anadvice, like I'm not there, but
like watching the decisions that, like Kyle has to make for the
farmer, I'm like good luck butit's very, it's a very special
(28:20):
rewarding when it goes right,but like when it goes wrong, it
goes wrong it most the time,though, it doesn't go wrong,
yeah there's enough proven dataand events to be like this isn't
gonna go wrong, but in the offchance, I would say that's
terrifying to me but like ithappens, like it happens to
(28:40):
everybody, um, everybody thatworks in that, that line of
making guidelines andrecommendations for things like
you can't be perfect, no, youcan't be perfect and like
sometimes there's like withlabels, right, sometimes you
don't read the back page andthere's one little clause or
that says, hey, you don't havethat much rain, or you miss that
, that, yeah, that rainthreshold by like three inches.
Jodi (29:02):
Then you probably might have crop response.
Like it's just, there's so manythings, there's so many factors
and it's impossible to knoweverything.
Yeah, exactly, and if anybodyis telling you that they're out
there crop consulting and notmaking mistakes, they are
they're lying.
Sarah (29:17):
Well, if anybody's out there um crap consulting, saying
that they're not learningsomething new every day, that's
probably a better way to put it.
Emma (29:25):
You probably have a closed minded consultant.
Sarah (29:27):
Yeah, Um, that's the one of the best parts about the
whole thing is just being ableto constantly learn.
Um always trying to do things alittle bit better, trying to
help the farmer do things alittle bit better, but it is
always very educational and it'sa lot to keep track of.
Emma (29:45):
It's a lot of brain space.
It's a nice challenge though.
Sarah (29:51):
Oh, it's super fun.
It's great.
I am so glad that you're doingthis.
I am just so excited to keepwatching you on social media to
see what's going to be happeningwith your experiences as an
agronomist with Kyle goingforward.
Emma (30:05):
I'm excited to make it like fun and yeah, not that
agronomy is old, but I haven'tseen like agronomy videos aimed
towards the younger generationof kids that are getting into it
, like that type of style ofcontent, like a lot of the
agronomists that post on theinternet post for other
agronomists.
There's not a consumer based,like consumer pointed agronomy
(30:28):
standpoint.
So that's my goal for this year.
Jodi (30:30):
So that's amazing.
It's gonna be really hard.
Emma (30:34):
I like I'm struggling with it, but we're not in season yet
either, like I'm so, like Istruggle so hard sharing the
office stuff, because I'm likethis is kind of redundant and
like people consumers don't knowabout that.
Like, yeah, that's the goalit's so.
Sarah (30:46):
It's interesting because you have to start at baseline
yeah, and while it doesn't feellike there's a lot going on
right now, because you're not-in the field, but there's so
much because, you're trying todo planning.
You're trying to make the maps,you're trying to make the
herbicide plans.
Emma (30:59):
You're going to conferences and learning and
meeting all these other peoplewith all these other ideas that
do things all totally different.
And then you're like meetingnew people that are like what do
you even do for work?
And I'm like I don't know, Ifeel like a hamster wheel right
now.
That's what I'm doing for work.
I'm just running man, I'mblowing off steam, trying to
like get everything done.
It's a lot of fun.
(31:19):
I am definitely on the slavelabor side of like computer work
right now, though, which is fun.
Are you doing a?
lot of mapping yet right nowyeah, we're still like we're
just plugging in fertilizer plan, plugging in soil results,
plugging in like okay, this iswhat we need for this farm.
We're like this is how muchlike and that's the part
aboutronomy Like you are beingdepended on for so much
information because you're likeyou have to get it down to the
(31:40):
dime of like this is how muchyour spring is going to cost you
.
It's very tight.
Yeah, it's like I did notrealize that aspect of this Like
that's what my eyeballs areopening up right now about.
I'm like everyone's in a pickleright now, like especially this
(32:04):
spring, after everything that'shappened and everything.
So that's a lot of the marginsare definitely tight going into
this year.
Yeah, it's pinching and thenit's pinching more, so that's
been crazy to witness the lastcouple weeks.
I'm like oh boy, so glad I'mnot the boss man.
I am okay with being slavelabor.
If I can make someone else'slife easier, I'm good.
Sarah (32:25):
It's a lot of fun doing that job.
It's a hard job but it is funtrying to be a resource as
farmers are making those toughdecisions.
Yeah, sure, well, this has beena super fun conversation, very
interesting good yep, sesh yep,absolutely very glad to uh have
you on.
(32:45):
It's great to hear about yourexperiences, as you're learning
um precision agriculture, um andapplying your gis experiences
um into the real world.
It's going to be fun to watchyou as you go forward learning
the agronomy world as a wholeinto the real world.
It's going to be fun to watchyou as you go forward learning
the agronomy world as a wholeinto the growing season.
So it's a lot of fun.
Jodi (33:01):
Yeah, thank you guys for having me.
Thank you so much for your timeand I'm so excited to see your
agronomy videos this year.
Emma (33:07):
I'm excited.
It's a lot of pressure Speakingof where can folks find you?
Jodi (33:11):
If they want to follow you along on social media, where
should they find you?
Emma (33:14):
So it's ag with Emma everywhere A G, not E G G.
Sarah (33:19):
Ag with Emma spelled out.
Emma (33:21):
So A G with Emma, but I'm on Tik TOK If it doesn't.
I'm on Tik TOK If it getsbanned or not.
Um, I'm on X and YouTube andFacebook and Instagram.
Facebook is kind of mystepchild that I don't pay
attention to, but it's there.
I kind of that.
I don't pay attention to, butit's there.
My Instagram just cross postson Facebook, perfect.
Jodi (33:41):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, guys, for having meRemember.
With GK Technology, we have amap and an app for that.
We'll see you next time.
No, I can't wait to get in thefields again.
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