March 26, 2025 • 35 mins
Shawn Kasprick shares his journey from farm kid to precision agriculture pioneer with Simplot Grower Solutions, detailing how early developments in the field shaped the technology farmers use today.
In the episode, Sarah and Jodi sit down with Shawn and discuss
- Shawn's background growing up on a farm in Walsh County North Dakota
- Shawn's educational background, which includes dual bachelor's degrees in Crop and Weed Sciences and Soil Science from NDSU and a master's in Agronomy from Iowa State University
- Starting a precision ag program with Simplot when handed a laptop and told "good luck"
- The evolution of grid sampling to zone management in North Dakota
- Pioneering deep soil sampling for sugar beet production
- Programming to overcome data integration challenges and the importance of understanding what data you're looking at
- The emphasis that good precision ag always starts with solid agronomic principle
- Why multiple data layers create better maps for management decisions
Join us in the next full episode of Ag Geek Speak as we continue our conversation with Shawn where we explore the practical field applications of precision agriculture and his thoughts on future innovations.
GK Technology, Inc.
https://gktechinc.com/
Simplot Grower Solutions
https://simplotgrowersolutions.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sarah (00:00):
And now it's time for Ag Geek Speak with GK Technology's,
Sarah and Jodi friends, and Ican't wait to get in the fields
again.
No, I can't wait to get in thefields again.
Welcome back to Ag Geek Speak.
(00:33):
We are so excited for thisepisode.
We have a very special guest,Shawn Kasprick.
Hailing from the northeastcorner of North Dakota, he works
for Simplot Grower Solutions.
He's had a number of differentroles within that company over
the years, but we're going tohave a great conversation about
(00:56):
his career and things that he'sdone with Precision Agriculture.
A lot of people know Shawn froma lot of different places, but
I don't know if people alwaysrealize what an impact Shawn has
had to precision agriculture inour area and actually, quite
frankly, just to precisionagriculture and a discussion.
So we're going to talk a littlebit today about some of his
(01:18):
career and some of the funthings that he's done over the
years.
So thank you for being here,Shawn.
Shawn Kasprick (01:23):
Welcome.
Thank you, and I'm glad to behere.
It was interesting to be onsome of the podcasts.
Sarah (01:30):
That's great.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself, and I'm going to throw
you under the bus a little bit,because I know that you were a
Walsh County 4-H-er back in theday.
Shawn Kasprick (01:39):
I was.
I did a lot of things withinAgs, of course, within 4-H,
being one of the group and doinga bunch of things there, so
that's kind of where it started.
You know grew up on a farm onthe eastern side, right along
the river, you know, so it wasalways something to do with farm
and it was always great to youknow, whenever you got done with
schoolwork and you just you'reon the farm, right, I mean you
(02:00):
do whatever you could and it wasfun.
Sarah (02:04):
That's a long story short .
I actually knew Shawn through4-H myself.
I was a 4-H-er back in the daytoo, in the same county.
So yeah, good times good times.
Jodi (02:19):
So you grew up on a farm and what did you go to college.
What was your story after highschool?
Shawn Kasprick (02:26):
So, of course, coming from the farm, that's
what you want to do, right?
I mean, the whole plan was togo back to the farm.
That's what I wanted to do,that's what I love, that's I'm
always an egg.
So I went into school, I wentto NDSU Crop and Weed Sciences
and while I was there, I waswhen start talking through
things.
I can actually just I think itwas two more little classes and
(02:52):
I got my soil science degree too.
So I did did both of them atthe same time because I loved
both of them, and really they go, they go hand in hand.
I mean, anything you do with agproduction and crop production,
you know, not only do you havethe fertilizer side of things,
you have the crop care, and soit all went hand in hand.
Sarah (03:09):
I didn't realize that you were that close to having a
soil science degree.
That's.
That is pretty, pretty fun.
But when you think about themajor components of agronomy,
right it.
It does start with the soil andthe planning for the fertility.
And hey, is the soil right foractually putting a tillage tool
through it so we can make a seedbed here.
And then you move into thewhole crop management thing,
(03:31):
which really does come down tocrop and weed.
Shawn Kasprick (03:34):
Right, and you know, when you start looking at
all the classes that you'resupposed to take and you talk
with your advisor, these are theones, and there's always those
optional you can do this or this.
Okay, well, I kind of like this, this is what I want to do.
And then after a while, theysaid, well, you should go talk
to this advisor over here too.
That's what I did, and ended upbeing able to get a degree
(03:55):
within the soils department.
Sarah (03:57):
So that was fun.
That is very fun, justcollecting degrees, you know.
So that's great.
So you graduated from NDSU witha bachelor's in crop and weed
science and soil science, andsoil science.
So you're a double major.
Yeah, that's very fun.
Shawn Kasprick (04:14):
And then.
So then I went from there, wentto Simplot and to continue with
the career, with the educationside of things.
That year let's see it was twoyears after I started within
Simplot, Iowa State had theirstarted their online degree,
their distance education degree,and so I went and applied on
that and did my, got my master'sin agronomy from Iowa State.
Sarah (04:39):
I did not know that you had your master's degree in
agronomy either.
This is, I feel like I'm reallygetting to know you here, Shawn
.
I feel that I assumed you hadyour master's degree in agronomy
either.
This is, I feel like I'm reallygetting to know you here, Shawn
.
Jodi (04:46):
I feel that I assumed you had a master's, but no, that's
really cool.
I mean that was.
Can I ask, like, what year theystarted doing that, Cause they
I still have friends now thatare doing that in 2025.
Shawn Kasprick (05:01):
Yeah, it was 99 when they started it, I think in
98, they started it for you hadto be in Iowa and I was like,
okay, I don't know how I caughtword of it or how I ended up
finding out about it.
But then I did my applicationand sent it off to them and I
had to get a couple of myprofessors from NDSU to give me
(05:23):
a letter of recommendation tosend off to them.
I had to get a couple of myprofessors from NDSU to, you
know, give me a letter ofrecommendation to send off to
them.
And so I got that done and Iwas one I think I was one of the
first classes allowed outsideof the Iowa state that they
brought in, so that was kind offun to go through that, so
you're actually one of the firstout-of-staters in that one too.
Jodi (05:45):
Yes, that's pretty neat, that's really neat.
So what was that like?
So, like a, I've got twoquestions here.
What motivated you to go backand get your master's?
Like, what part were youlooking for with that master's?
And then b, what about yourclass?
Like, okay, so 1999, what was adistance education?
Shawn Kasprick (06:00):
like, like you didn't have zoom right, so like
how did?
Jodi (06:03):
you do like an online master's back then.
Shawn Kasprick (06:05):
So what we ended up doing is, you know, I had to
go there for orientation, so Ihad to be on campus for
orientation.
Um, throughout the whole timecycle, it was okay, here are the
classes that are available.
How much do you want to take on?
You know, and at the time I,you know, there was no kids, um,
I was, it was just me, my wifeand we were just doing the
things that we needed to do, andso it was whatever I wanted to
(06:28):
take on.
So I took on, I think, twoclasses, maybe three classes at
a time, and I'd come home fromwork, eat, eat, supper, and sit
there and open my book, read mybook, do my quizzes online,
whatever I needed to do.
Professors, everything waseither email or we would have
the forums and the blogs onlinethat we would have to
communicate back and forth and,like all of this, we had to
(06:50):
communicate so many times and itwas really about getting how
many times that we wouldinteract with our professors or
the other students.
We'd all have to give our inputon a specific topic, and then it
was just kind of a forum goingback and forth All of the tests
that I all have to give ourinput on a specific topic and
then it was just kind of a forumgoing back and forth All of the
tests that I would have to takefor one class or another.
I went to the high school andthey got them proctored within
(07:12):
the high school.
One of the teachers at highschool just said yeah, if all
you need is me to sit in andsign off on your tests, that you
took them pretty much you knowand you have to send them in, I
can't turn around and send themin for them.
So yeah, they agreed to thatand got it all done.
Sarah (07:31):
That's pretty neat.
I had no idea that there was anonline distance thing happening
at that time.
Jodi (07:37):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I mean, it sounds like it'svery heavy, you know, written
communication based.
Shawn Kasprick (07:43):
Yes.
Jodi (07:45):
Which probably you know.
You got to solidify yourthoughts and write it out and
make sure that you understandthe concept by writing that out.
That's so fascinating.
Sarah (07:53):
Okay, if it's all right, I want to kind of pause on the
education conversation here withthe intention of circling our
conversation back around to this.
I'd like to ask you how thingswent in your career to kind of
where you got to today, and thenask you a question after that
how your education at thebeginning really helped you
(08:16):
accomplish whatever you wantedto in your career, or how that
all works.
So how's that for a fullyloaded baggage question?
Shawn Kasprick (08:23):
Wow, let's just dive right in.
Sarah (08:24):
Let's just dive right in.
Let's just dive right in.
I'm kind of famous for that.
But yeah, why don't you tell usa little bit about your career
and the things that you didwithin Simplot?
Because you were kind of one ofthe first people really working
with precision agriculture andkind of one of the people that
really drove Simplot's precisionagriculture program.
Shawn Kasprick (08:44):
Yeah.
So it was an interesting startto it all because I was brought
on board within Simplot thefirst year more or less, as a
crop advisor trainee I wassupposed to be trained in.
I was going to be one of thesalesmen and I think that first
year of doing it I lovedcomputers.
I always dealt with computersall the time anyway.
And about that same timeSimplot was looking for getting
(09:08):
into Precision Ag.
And what do they do?
And they're like oh, you likecomputers.
Here's a computer You're goingto do Precision Ag.
Sarah (09:14):
Good luck.
Shawn Kasprick (09:15):
Okay, where do we start, and so it really kind
of started that way.
I mean, it was pretty much.
You know, throw us a laptop,you start Precision Ag here's
our kind of group and the peoplethat we currently have involved
and start off.
Sarah (09:29):
So, for frame of reference, approximately what
year are we talking here?
Shawn Kasprick (09:32):
97.
Sarah (09:33):
97.
Okay, so GPSs are barely ontractors at this point in time.
Shawn Kasprick (09:39):
Yeah, so GPS was on some of the equipment.
It was all you had to pay thesubscription fee to get that
unlock code to in order to beable to have some reasonable
accuracy, and it isn't theaccuracy that we have today at
sub, you know, sub meter or subcentimeter accuracy it was yeah
well, you're within three feetor three meters of it, you'll be
(10:00):
good For fertility, probablyit's just fine.
But when you're dealing withanything smaller than that,
there was absolutely no way wecould do it.
Sarah (10:08):
And I think it's important for the audience to
note that you know you spentmost of your career in Northeast
North Dakota.
Shawn Kasprick (10:14):
Yes.
Sarah (10:14):
And most of the crops up there are sugar beets, potatoes.
You know there's a lot of highvalue row crops where that
accuracy on the GPS does matterAbsolutely it does.
Shawn Kasprick (10:25):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, taking all of thatin.
You know, everything that wewere doing at the time was, you
know, just building fertilizermaps and recommendations.
So I think late 90s, the mid tolate 90s, everything was
looking at grid sampling, right,everything was grid sampling.
And you know, I think a fewthings just started off with.
(10:48):
You know, let's look at zones,let's look at, you know,
satellite imagery, you know, andlook what we can do.
You know here's areas of highergrowth and lower growth and
everything in between, and let'smake zones off of that.
I mean, looking at the maps, itmakes some sense and let's
start that way.
So that's kind of what we mean.
Looking at the maps, it makessome sense and let's start that
way.
So that's kind of what we werelooking at and trying to bring
(11:09):
that, all that in from onecomputer system to another and
have everything talk properly.
You know, became and became abig, big issue because you know
not everything.
You know our system is our ownand nobody wants to talk outside
to that system because that'sdifferent.
You know, and they're like,really, this is the system I've
got, what is your data set onthe backside, and so it's
(11:31):
understanding how the data talksto each other, and that's what
it is.
Sarah (11:36):
I always think it's interesting and I always equate
it back to hydraulic hookups.
You know we've got the wholeworld and then we had John Deere
hookups and I don't think a lotof people in today's world
realize what an issue gettingdata to talk across platforms is
.
It's really nice when we've gotstandardized hydraulic hookups.
It's really nice when all thedata talks.
(11:56):
The farmer really does benefitfrom that.
I can honestly say I believethat farmers appreciate that a
lot.
Shawn Kasprick (12:06):
Yeah, and I dealt with those adapters for
the hydraulic hookups.
We had some of thosechangeovers, so I get exactly
what you're talking about.
Sarah (12:11):
It's a good metaphor, isn't?
Shawn Kasprick (12:13):
it, absolutely it is.
Jodi (12:15):
And I have to plug in ADMS at this moment, because that's
one of the things we reallypride ourselves on is that, okay
, we can bring in a lot of data,you know, as long as it's not a
proprietary thing that's lockedto us.
But for the most part, we canread so much of that data and
also export it in a way thatwill get to where you need to go
.
I mean that's so important tous in long term.
(12:35):
I mean we've been around for along time and we plan to be here
so that, no matter what, youcan have that data and use it,
no matter how Precision Agprogresses and changes over time
.
Shawn Kasprick (12:46):
And everybody had to get there at some point
is you have to understand thebackground of data and how it
actually handles and how ittalks.
I mean, we see our displaystoday and we see our displays on
any of the computers and you'relike, oh, that's a pretty
picture, but unless youunderstand the data in the
background and how it actuallywhat it took to get from point A
to point B, you can never movethat on to the next level unless
(13:08):
you start to understand that,and I had to go through that and
that growing pain myself.
So it's just something you dealwith, you know.
Sarah (13:16):
And so, to just put things in a frame of reference
here, at this time when you'reworking, just trying to figure
out what to do with thiscomputer that Simplot gave you
and how to get data to talk,you're really in the process of
developing what Simplot uses fortheir precision agriculture
software platform.
Shawn Kasprick (13:33):
Is that correct?
Sarah (13:34):
Yes, so you pretty much are responsible for developing
that.
Shawn Kasprick (13:37):
Yeah, so within our groups we had some groups
talking with each other.
You know, some of the groupsdealt with the Ag Leaders, SMS
software and some of that stuffgoing on.
We had, you know us where wewere dealing with the soil tech
and what soil tech had to bringat the time.
And even within our own groupinternally we were dealing with
(13:58):
ArcView for all of our GIS stuffon the backside and that's kind
of where, well, we're alreadyin ArcView and this is what
we're going to do, and so that'skind of what.
We just kind of transitionourselves into arc view and
that's what we were running inon the backside.
Sarah (14:11):
Okay, yeah, and along this time you must have had some
pretty big conversations withDarren, because he was
programming software at the sametime, or at least I know that
you guys have had conversationsalong the way.
Shawn Kasprick (14:23):
Yes, we've had conversations along the way and
you know, at the time in hisprevious life, in the previous
career that he had, there was alot of discussions back then and
it really at that time itdidn't fit what I was looking
for, what I wanted to do.
You know, although we were kindof all tracking the same
direction, it was just not themindset that I had and what I
(14:45):
wanted to do and where I wantedto go was not exactly the same
thing.
Sarah (14:49):
So it was we had conversations and had the
opportunity to learn from eachother and get ideas, and that
you know I think that'ssomething that's really
important to remember is in thelate 90s.
There's a lot of pioneers ofprecision agriculture out there
that were really working hard totry to develop systems that
worked well for handling lots ofdifferent data, and there's a
(15:13):
lot of people that had a lot ofdifferent ideas, and it's always
so neat to me how we had thesegreat collaborations.
We can have different ideas and, quite frankly, the precision
agriculture industry that wehave today stands on the legs of
those conversations andcollaborations.
We've got differentopportunities out there to work
with different things and itreally has made precision
(15:36):
agriculture feasible in today'sworld to actually be something
that works for farmers, forapplicators at the field level.
Shawn Kasprick (15:44):
Yes, yes, and I mean it was.
You know when everything wascoming out, this little
geography.
You know whether it be when westarted at four or 4.4 acre
grids or two and a half acregrids that they're kind of been
moving to and moved to.
(16:05):
Or you take a look at the zonemap and you assume everything
within that same zone is all thesame within the soil samples in
the soil test, soil samples inthe soil test, you know you get.
You either take an absolutewithin the grid that that small
little grid represents that partof the field, or you move it to
a larger scale and it just mademore sense to me, not only
economically.
(16:25):
But this area is all the same.
Why do I want to divide,subdivide it any farther?
You know, that's kind of whereI was looking at it.
Jodi (16:33):
And with that too, right, Like nitrogen is such an
important part for us in NorthDakota.
So doing grid samples acrossbig fields just is hard to do
every single year, Whereas witha zone you can take less samples
and still get that nitratenumber every single year.
That's hard to.
How do you do grid sampling to24 inches every year when you
(16:55):
got to get that nitrate numberRight?
It's just not feasible.
Shawn Kasprick (16:59):
Well, and if you look at where it started from,
you know, back in the kind ofthe high states in the Corn Belt
where they were doing a lotmore of the grid samples, they
don't have the field sizes thatwe do necessarily.
I mean they do have some largefields, but theirs was cut up a
little bit differently.
They have some rollingtopography that we don't
necessarily have, at least herein the Valley, you know, and at
first when they were looking atit, it was all on pH and lime.
(17:22):
You know they were doing a lotof variable rate, lime and those
applications which, on a gridsample.
That makes sense.
You know, when we start gettinginto things that we're doing
here, it just didn't quite fitthe same way.
Sarah (17:37):
And so you know the direction that we went with
zones makes more sense.
And you also have to rememberthat, especially in the area,
the geography, specifically inthe Red River Valley area of
North Dakota, we have a lot ofsugar beets and we're actually
soil sampling down to four feetfor those because we need to
know that nitrogen number tokeep the quality of the sugar
beets.
So imagine doing grid samplingdown to four feet.
(17:59):
Ufta meta says the Norwegian.
Shawn Kasprick (18:03):
And we were doing that.
Sarah (18:05):
You know when we first started there were still people.
Shawn Kasprick (18:07):
That's their mindset is okay, I'm doing grid
samples because that's avariable rate to me or to in
their what they were looking atand they were pulling samples to
.
You know, the zero to ourstandard, zero to six, six to 24
, 24 to 48 inch samples andwe're going there.
And you know, some of that alsoended up developing into what
Franzen had dealt with with forour sugar beets is taking that
(18:30):
nitrogen credit and he was doinga lot of work up there.
He was actually looking at howdeep is our nitrogen go, because
we're having to deal with that.
Do you ever remember that wewere dealing with six foot
samples?
Sarah (18:40):
No, I do not.
Oh my gosh, that would beterrible.
Yeah, I want to see the probesfor that.
Shawn Kasprick (18:49):
So there was, and, of course, all the problems
that you have when you startgoing too deep and you don't
have the probe or thetelescoping probe.
You have to if dirt falls inwhile that that hole is screwed
and you have to go to anotherone you know, so so they were
doing that for a few samples.
They were doing it.
It was a lot of it.
It was just more research andjust starting to develop it into
the field, and we're kind ofplaying around with that and at
(19:11):
the end of the day, it was likeyou know what, we don't care, it
was just too much work.
Sarah (19:17):
It was just a lot of things going on and you can
glean what's going on with thedeep nitrogen from those
four-footers.
Shawn Kasprick (19:26):
You really can Gosh.
Sarah (19:28):
Those four-footers are enough work, oh my gosh.
Shawn Kasprick (19:31):
Well, and if you think about it when we're
dealing with you know what dosugar beets do?
Well, Scavenge they go downsuper deep and scavenge all of
that nitrogen and that we'reworried about and bring it right
up to the top for us.
So fine, we'll deal with that,and that's how we ended up kind
of continuing on with that isthat deep nitrogen discussion.
We can see it in the sugar beettops and the sugar beet leaves
(19:54):
and go from there.
Jodi (19:55):
I remember John Lee talking about that at AgVise.
It's like after the nitrogenrecommendations were updated,
there was a couple years wherethere were still some issues
with that really deep nitrogen,but after the updated guidelines
and years of where the nitrogenrates weren't so heavy, finally
we got to levels where thenitrogen was normalized and we
(20:15):
could rely on that four footdepth and we didn't have to
worry about any of that reallyreally deep nitrogen.
Shawn Kasprick (20:20):
Right, you know and I know one of our customers
we were doing was doing a soilpit.
Every year he was doing a soilpit.
Just some of it was for his ownamusement and his own knowledge
of what he wanted to do.
But the university NDSU hadsome test plots up there for
some other things and otherreasons and they would kind of
take advantage and go up thereand say, oh, here's a soil pit,
(20:42):
let's go look at it.
And you climb down into thatsoil pit and I think it was I
can't remember if it was only asix-foot or if it was an
eight-foot soil pit that he haddug out, climbed down the ladder
and it was up against sugarbeet.
So you see the profile of thesugar beet down there.
And I think at at four to sixit was during the drought in in
06.
Sarah (21:01):
Oh, so I bet they went really deep then.
Shawn Kasprick (21:03):
At six foot, it was still a pencil thick, jeez.
That's amazing so all of thatnitrate is being pulled up and
anything else, and so there'ssome other stories of what else
can is down that deep profiletoo.
Everything, anything thatleeches, herbicides included,
(21:23):
can be pulled up and um and showup as a as an issue in the crop
.
Sarah (21:25):
So, yes, that can always be very fun.
Yes, let's see what the leaveslook like.
Jodi (21:32):
It sounds like you've seen some things.
Shawn Kasprick (21:34):
Well, there's that, and then you try and
diagnose what happened here andyou're like I have no idea.
I mean what this looks like.
It hasn't been applied in 10years.
Sarah (22:03):
Well, yeah, that's how you kind of figure that are
really changing with soiltexture and organic matter and
pH.
We're getting the rightactivity in the right place, but
we're getting not too muchactivity in the wrong place.
Shawn Kasprick (22:17):
Right, exactly.
And you look at some of thoseand I know we had that
conversation, jodi, the otherday but you look at some of
those soil, or the soil appliedherbicides.
You look at the labels on themand, like the dual label On
there, it says a low, medium andhigh soil text, or a low,
medium and high organic matter.
This is what.
These are the rates that youshould apply.
(22:38):
Well, it just screams variablerate.
Sarah (22:41):
Absolutely it does Absolutely.
Jodi (22:44):
Yes, and I think, like in the world of weeds, right, like
weed control in general has justbeen so effective that it's
like, oh, we don't really haveto pay attention to that.
But now, as we are dealing withherbicide-resistant weeds, I
mean it's okay.
Now we're looking at thoselabels and thinking how do I
maximize this so that I'mgetting the absolute optimum
control with the tools that Istill have in my toolbox?
Sarah (23:05):
Without killing the crop and other places where I got to
back that rate off.
Shawn Kasprick (23:09):
Right, yeah, absolutely.
Sarah (23:12):
So okay, so you got this computer.
You're working on developinghow data is going between
platforms.
You're creating the platformthat Simplot is using.
You were pretty much in Arc atthat point in time trying to
make everything go.
Are you guys still using Arc?
Do you have your own platformnow?
How is that going?
Shawn Kasprick (23:31):
Yeah, so we're all still working within Arc.
That is the background enginethat runs everything that we're
doing, everything that westarted with, and, of course,
once you start in within Arc,it's its own coding platform,
and they've now moved to Pythoncoding and so that made it a
whole lot easier.
So, in the background, not onlydid I do all this stuff for
(23:53):
school, but I also learned howto program and things on the
backside.
Sarah (23:57):
Because you were bored and you needed something else to
do.
Shawn Kasprick (23:59):
Right, yes, that's absolutely it, jeepers
creepers.
Sarah (24:04):
Okay, so you learned how to code, so you're a computer
coder now.
Shawn Kasprick (24:07):
That's amazing, and like I said you know I love
computers and I've always knowncomputers, so it wasn't that big
of a deal.
It was just like, okay, I gotto figure this out and we'll go.
Sarah (24:21):
When you were starting out.
Tell us a little bit about thefield applicability of it and
some of the experiences that youhad early on getting it to
actually work.
Shawn Kasprick (24:31):
So everything that I've always done always
comes from a place, of course,from my background is soils and
agronomy, and so everything thatI've dealt with all the time
always starts with agronomy.
And when we first started intothis and everybody had these,
their software and proprietary,they're like, oh no, ours is
special, ours is this.
You know, you can't, nobodyelse can do this.
(24:56):
I'm like it's, it's agronomy,it's agriculture.
It's not like we're holdingsecret codes for the nuclear,
any nuclear things going on.
Come on now.
Sarah (25:01):
It's a lamb's quarter in the field.
Shawn Kasprick (25:05):
Right, yeah, and this is.
This is sand, silt and clay.
We're not an organic matter.
We're not dealing with a wholelot, you know.
So it's it's agronomy on thebackside.
That's all it is.
That's how we start with it andwhat makes sense when we start
looking at it.
Yes, the satellite imagery madesense.
This area was, you know, high,medium and low for a within the
this within the reflection ofthe of the satellite imagery.
(25:25):
But now you start making.
If that's all the zones thatyou're doing, and you start
making there, you have to alsoanswer to the customers.
You answer to the growers okay,what?
Well, why is that area green?
Okay, or why is this area poorgrowing?
So you start having, you have tostart looking at the background
and we were doing a lot ofthings, starting with topography
mapping.
Right, I mean, topographymapping started really big.
(25:47):
We were running up and down thefields with RTK level
instrumentation versus LiDARthat we have now, or where the
customers can pull that data offon their own RTK systems.
We had to do that ourselves atthe time.
So we were pulling all this inand we could see that within the
elevation mapping and sometimesthat elevation mapping matched
exactly what we were dealingwith with the satellite imagery.
(26:08):
So it was really good.
You start looking at some of theold I mean the old books of on
the soils books and on the backside they had old satellite
imagery.
I mean, besides the soils data,they had old aerial imagery
that you started looking at andsome of those old aerials
started pulling up.
You could see old farmsteadsthat used to be in there that
(26:30):
are no longer there.
Okay, and I know you startlooking at that.
You're like, oh well, thatexplains why this area is so
much different.
There used to be an old yard inthere.
You start talking to thecustomer and he's like you know
what?
I don't remember that, but hisdad does.
Sarah (26:44):
Yep.
Shawn Kasprick (26:44):
And like, like you know what I don't remember
that, but his dad does and like,oh, okay, so you start looking
at these things and now you know, you start adding all of that,
all of that together, and that'syou start pulling in multiple
layers into there.
And that's where we're dealingwith it Always pulling in
multiple layers, looking at morethan one layer, cause if you
only deal with one layer, canyou explain everything that's
going on with those zones orwithin that satellite imagery or
(27:05):
yield map or whatever, based onone layer?
Sarah (27:08):
So that's an interesting component to think about and
actually something where yoursystem is quite similar to ADMS,
because, again, I would saythat's an exact.
We have that conversation allthe time.
How do you go and pick out thatone image that describes your
field all the time?
Does that image actually exist?
Shawn Kasprick (27:31):
No.
Sarah (27:31):
No, it always has to be a combination of multiple layers
and even there, once you havethat in and you might be
describing that area, you stillmight need to do a little bit of
modification within thatpicture so that you really get
what you want.
Shawn Kasprick (27:47):
Right.
But you look at the time wheneverybody, when we were first
starting with this, a lot of ourcompetitors out there, a lot of
people that were doingdifferent things, were just
looking at that one satelliteimagery and saying, OK, this is
how we're going to zone yourfield.
Ok, that's great.
So that was the last time ithad sugar beets, which happened
to be you know, because it hadchanged hands or whatever.
It was five years ago.
(28:08):
So the field this coming yearis exactly the same as it was
five years ago?
Probably not.
There may be some similarities,but there's a lot of things
that have changed since then.
Sarah (28:18):
Absolutely, and what I think is so interesting about
that is there's a lot ofcompanies today especially new
companies trying to enterprecision agriculture that do
just that.
They find that one image andthey say this is going to be the
image that's going to be yourzones forever and we've come so
far in precision agriculture.
I mean, it didn't work backthen at the beginning.
(28:39):
Why would it work today?
Shawn Kasprick (28:41):
No, and that's just it.
They want to find that onething and just yep, this works.
The easy button, the easybutton, absolutely.
Jodi (28:48):
When you think about it, it's agriculture.
We're working with a naturalsystem.
It's complex, so when you thinkabout it, it just makes sense
that there's more than onevariable going on.
That's explaining why our cropsare looking like they are Right
.
So how do you bring in thosemultiple layers to help you get
to a somewhat predictive mapthat you can fertilize off of or
make decisions and makemanagement choices off of, and
(29:11):
select and not select and applyand not apply in areas?
Shawn Kasprick (29:14):
Right, and that was one of the nice things when
we were dealing with ARC.
Arc has done that in the past.
The whole background for ARC isall of the full-blown GIS.
Of the full-blown GIS.
Our little agricultural portionthat we wanted to play around
with was just this little teeny,tiny scope of what ArcView can
do as a total.
And so they're like, yeah, wecan pull in that data set.
Not a big deal.
This is what we do, and sopulling in imagery for Arc was
(29:36):
not a big deal.
Pulling in other data sets forArc, they've done it on the
backside for other applications,so it wasn't that big of a deal
.
We just had to make it work forwhat we need to do in ag.
So you start pulling inmultiple layers and you got to
be careful because you pull intoo many data layers and it gets
way too complex.
So you got how do you simplifyit?
(29:56):
So it really comes down to whatlayer or a couple of layers.
It will explain everything thatI need for this field to
continue and move on.
Sarah (30:08):
But that brings in the human portion of it right, where
an agronomist is looking atthese pictures of the field with
their background and knowledgein crop production and soils,
and they're able to look atimages and be like, yes, this is
a layer that should be included, no, this is not a layer that
should be included.
And then you could put ittogether into something that
(30:29):
makes sense.
Shawn Kasprick (30:30):
Yeah, absolutely , and that really becomes more
of an art form, right?
I mean, all three of us couldsit down with the same data sets
, pulling all of the information, and our zones would come out.
I would suspect pretty close,but the exact line of where I
divided it and you divided itand you divided it are all just
a little bit different, andthat's fine, that's you know.
(30:51):
Even when you're making theapplication, that machine does
not stop dead on that line andtransition from this rate to
this rate.
There has to be that zone whereit ramps up or ramps down, and
so there's that little bit of avariance within that line.
Sarah (31:07):
That works.
But that is so true and we dothat all the time here where you
know, we might have differentways of making it happen, but
we're going to get to prettydarn similar results, but
there's always more than one wayto skin a cat.
The other thing that I think isso interesting in this
(31:27):
conversation so Shawn deals in acompletely different software
package, obviously, that hedeveloped, and we here at GK
Technology deal with ADMS, butwe have that GIS background that
you know.
They're both GIS-basedsoftwares, which is very
interesting, and some of thestuff within the softwares might
(31:47):
be different, but it's got thatGIS background and so you know
when you're working withprecision agriculture, I just
think it's really important forpeople to understand the value
of understanding basics of GISso that you know how to actually
operate some of the things.
That's not something that'snecessarily an agronomic
education component, but it's socritical to precision
agriculture.
Shawn Kasprick (32:07):
Right, yeah, absolutely it is.
Sarah (32:10):
We've talked a lot about your early career and how you
were working on developingsoftware.
Next time we'll visit with youa little bit more about what
you're doing with precisionagriculture, maybe a little bit
about the in in the fieldpracticality of making
everything work and some futureideas.
But at the beginning of thispodcast you talked about your
(32:33):
education and you know how youreally pursued that.
So can you tell me how has youreducation prepared you or
enhanced your career, and whatsorts?
I mean you did most of youreducation at the very beginning
of your career, so how has thatreally impacted who you are
today?
Shawn Kasprick (32:51):
Well, you start looking at everything that you
do within schooling.
I mean, that is actually thepreparation for everything that
you need, that you want to learn, and that's how.
And so everything that I dowithin my precision ag, within
my career, that's my groundingright, that's my ground for
looking at every applicationthat's out there, because
(33:13):
there's all kinds of new tools,new concepts, new products that
come out there, and this is thelatest and greatest.
But let's look at thebackground.
Let's ground ourselves to okay,how does that application or
how does that product actuallywork in the ground?
And so, whether it be aprecision egg, invariable rate,
a new product that comes out, anew idea, new concept, new
(33:35):
satellite imagery that they'vegot the latest and greatest
let's all bring it back to okay.
Does it have applicability inthe field level?
What is it going to do for usmoving forward, and does it
actually give me any informationthat I need to make a better
decision than what I had before?
Sarah (33:54):
Does it actually work from a practical standpoint?
Shawn Kasprick (33:56):
Yes.
Sarah (33:58):
That's great.
It's really fun to hear Peoplehave different reasons for
pursuing the education pathwaysthat they do, and so it's really
fun to glean that information.
And I think for some of ouryounger listeners it's always
great to have that informationin the back of their minds as
they're going through theircareer and making decisions.
So I appreciate that.
(34:19):
That was a great firstconversation here with Shawn.
We've got so much more to talkabout.
We are going to have anadditional episode next time
with Shawn from Simplot.
We appreciate that, and withthat at GK Technology we have a
map and an app for that.
(34:40):
I can't wait to get in thefields again.
No, I can't wait to get in thefields again.
No, I can't wait to get in thefields again.
And now it's time for Ag Geek Speak with GK Technology's,
Sarah and Jodi friends, and Ican't wait to get in the fields
again.
No, I can't wait to get in thefields again.
Welcome back to Ag Geek Speak.
(00:33):
We are so excited for thisepisode.
We have a very special guest,Shawn Kasprick.
Hailing from the northeastcorner of North Dakota, he works
for Simplot Grower Solutions.
He's had a number of differentroles within that company over
the years, but we're going tohave a great conversation about
(00:56):
his career and things that he'sdone with Precision Agriculture.
A lot of people know Shawn froma lot of different places, but
I don't know if people alwaysrealize what an impact Shawn has
had to precision agriculture inour area and actually, quite
frankly, just to precisionagriculture and a discussion.
So we're going to talk a littlebit today about some of his
(01:18):
career and some of the funthings that he's done over the
years.
So thank you for being here,Shawn.
Shawn Kasprick (01:23):
Welcome.
Thank you, and I'm glad to behere.
It was interesting to be onsome of the podcasts.
Sarah (01:30):
That's great.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself, and I'm going to throw
you under the bus a little bit,because I know that you were a
Walsh County 4-H-er back in theday.
Shawn Kasprick (01:39):
I was.
I did a lot of things withinAgs, of course, within 4-H,
being one of the group and doinga bunch of things there, so
that's kind of where it started.
You know grew up on a farm onthe eastern side, right along
the river, you know, so it wasalways something to do with farm
and it was always great to youknow, whenever you got done with
schoolwork and you just you'reon the farm, right, I mean you
(02:00):
do whatever you could and it wasfun.
Sarah (02:04):
That's a long story short .
I actually knew Shawn through4-H myself.
I was a 4-H-er back in the daytoo, in the same county.
So yeah, good times good times.
Jodi (02:19):
So you grew up on a farm and what did you go to college.
What was your story after highschool?
Shawn Kasprick (02:26):
So, of course, coming from the farm, that's
what you want to do, right?
I mean, the whole plan was togo back to the farm.
That's what I wanted to do,that's what I love, that's I'm
always an egg.
So I went into school, I wentto NDSU Crop and Weed Sciences
and while I was there, I waswhen start talking through
things.
I can actually just I think itwas two more little classes and
(02:52):
I got my soil science degree too.
So I did did both of them atthe same time because I loved
both of them, and really they go, they go hand in hand.
I mean, anything you do with agproduction and crop production,
you know, not only do you havethe fertilizer side of things,
you have the crop care, and soit all went hand in hand.
Sarah (03:09):
I didn't realize that you were that close to having a
soil science degree.
That's.
That is pretty, pretty fun.
But when you think about themajor components of agronomy,
right it.
It does start with the soil andthe planning for the fertility.
And hey, is the soil right foractually putting a tillage tool
through it so we can make a seedbed here.
And then you move into thewhole crop management thing,
(03:31):
which really does come down tocrop and weed.
Shawn Kasprick (03:34):
Right, and you know, when you start looking at
all the classes that you'resupposed to take and you talk
with your advisor, these are theones, and there's always those
optional you can do this or this.
Okay, well, I kind of like this, this is what I want to do.
And then after a while, theysaid, well, you should go talk
to this advisor over here too.
That's what I did, and ended upbeing able to get a degree
(03:55):
within the soils department.
Sarah (03:57):
So that was fun.
That is very fun, justcollecting degrees, you know.
So that's great.
So you graduated from NDSU witha bachelor's in crop and weed
science and soil science, andsoil science.
So you're a double major.
Yeah, that's very fun.
Shawn Kasprick (04:14):
And then.
So then I went from there, wentto Simplot and to continue with
the career, with the educationside of things.
That year let's see it was twoyears after I started within
Simplot, Iowa State had theirstarted their online degree,
their distance education degree,and so I went and applied on
that and did my, got my master'sin agronomy from Iowa State.
Sarah (04:39):
I did not know that you had your master's degree in
agronomy either.
This is, I feel like I'm reallygetting to know you here, Shawn
.
I feel that I assumed you hadyour master's degree in agronomy
either.
This is, I feel like I'm reallygetting to know you here, Shawn
.
Jodi (04:46):
I feel that I assumed you had a master's, but no, that's
really cool.
I mean that was.
Can I ask, like, what year theystarted doing that, Cause they
I still have friends now thatare doing that in 2025.
Shawn Kasprick (05:01):
Yeah, it was 99 when they started it, I think in
98, they started it for you hadto be in Iowa and I was like,
okay, I don't know how I caughtword of it or how I ended up
finding out about it.
But then I did my applicationand sent it off to them and I
had to get a couple of myprofessors from NDSU to give me
(05:23):
a letter of recommendation tosend off to them.
I had to get a couple of myprofessors from NDSU to, you
know, give me a letter ofrecommendation to send off to
them.
And so I got that done and Iwas one I think I was one of the
first classes allowed outsideof the Iowa state that they
brought in, so that was kind offun to go through that, so
you're actually one of the firstout-of-staters in that one too.
Jodi (05:45):
Yes, that's pretty neat, that's really neat.
So what was that like?
So, like a, I've got twoquestions here.
What motivated you to go backand get your master's?
Like, what part were youlooking for with that master's?
And then b, what about yourclass?
Like, okay, so 1999, what was adistance education?
Shawn Kasprick (06:00):
like, like you didn't have zoom right, so like
how did?
Jodi (06:03):
you do like an online master's back then.
Shawn Kasprick (06:05):
So what we ended up doing is, you know, I had to
go there for orientation, so Ihad to be on campus for
orientation.
Um, throughout the whole timecycle, it was okay, here are the
classes that are available.
How much do you want to take on?
You know, and at the time I,you know, there was no kids, um,
I was, it was just me, my wifeand we were just doing the
things that we needed to do, andso it was whatever I wanted to
(06:28):
take on.
So I took on, I think, twoclasses, maybe three classes at
a time, and I'd come home fromwork, eat, eat, supper, and sit
there and open my book, read mybook, do my quizzes online,
whatever I needed to do.
Professors, everything waseither email or we would have
the forums and the blogs onlinethat we would have to
communicate back and forth and,like all of this, we had to
(06:50):
communicate so many times and itwas really about getting how
many times that we wouldinteract with our professors or
the other students.
We'd all have to give our inputon a specific topic, and then it
was just kind of a forum goingback and forth All of the tests
that I all have to give ourinput on a specific topic and
then it was just kind of a forumgoing back and forth All of the
tests that I would have to takefor one class or another.
I went to the high school andthey got them proctored within
(07:12):
the high school.
One of the teachers at highschool just said yeah, if all
you need is me to sit in andsign off on your tests, that you
took them pretty much you knowand you have to send them in, I
can't turn around and send themin for them.
So yeah, they agreed to thatand got it all done.
Sarah (07:31):
That's pretty neat.
I had no idea that there was anonline distance thing happening
at that time.
Jodi (07:37):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I mean, it sounds like it'svery heavy, you know, written
communication based.
Shawn Kasprick (07:43):
Yes.
Jodi (07:45):
Which probably you know.
You got to solidify yourthoughts and write it out and
make sure that you understandthe concept by writing that out.
That's so fascinating.
Sarah (07:53):
Okay, if it's all right, I want to kind of pause on the
education conversation here withthe intention of circling our
conversation back around to this.
I'd like to ask you how thingswent in your career to kind of
where you got to today, and thenask you a question after that
how your education at thebeginning really helped you
(08:16):
accomplish whatever you wantedto in your career, or how that
all works.
So how's that for a fullyloaded baggage question?
Shawn Kasprick (08:23):
Wow, let's just dive right in.
Sarah (08:24):
Let's just dive right in.
Let's just dive right in.
I'm kind of famous for that.
But yeah, why don't you tell usa little bit about your career
and the things that you didwithin Simplot?
Because you were kind of one ofthe first people really working
with precision agriculture andkind of one of the people that
really drove Simplot's precisionagriculture program.
Shawn Kasprick (08:44):
Yeah.
So it was an interesting startto it all because I was brought
on board within Simplot thefirst year more or less, as a
crop advisor trainee I wassupposed to be trained in.
I was going to be one of thesalesmen and I think that first
year of doing it I lovedcomputers.
I always dealt with computersall the time anyway.
And about that same timeSimplot was looking for getting
(09:08):
into Precision Ag.
And what do they do?
And they're like oh, you likecomputers.
Here's a computer You're goingto do Precision Ag.
Sarah (09:14):
Good luck.
Shawn Kasprick (09:15):
Okay, where do we start, and so it really kind
of started that way.
I mean, it was pretty much.
You know, throw us a laptop,you start Precision Ag here's
our kind of group and the peoplethat we currently have involved
and start off.
Sarah (09:29):
So, for frame of reference, approximately what
year are we talking here?
Shawn Kasprick (09:32):
97.
Sarah (09:33):
97.
Okay, so GPSs are barely ontractors at this point in time.
Shawn Kasprick (09:39):
Yeah, so GPS was on some of the equipment.
It was all you had to pay thesubscription fee to get that
unlock code to in order to beable to have some reasonable
accuracy, and it isn't theaccuracy that we have today at
sub, you know, sub meter or subcentimeter accuracy it was yeah
well, you're within three feetor three meters of it, you'll be
(10:00):
good For fertility, probablyit's just fine.
But when you're dealing withanything smaller than that,
there was absolutely no way wecould do it.
Sarah (10:08):
And I think it's important for the audience to
note that you know you spentmost of your career in Northeast
North Dakota.
Shawn Kasprick (10:14):
Yes.
Sarah (10:14):
And most of the crops up there are sugar beets, potatoes.
You know there's a lot of highvalue row crops where that
accuracy on the GPS does matterAbsolutely it does.
Shawn Kasprick (10:25):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, taking all of thatin.
You know, everything that wewere doing at the time was, you
know, just building fertilizermaps and recommendations.
So I think late 90s, the mid tolate 90s, everything was
looking at grid sampling, right,everything was grid sampling.
And you know, I think a fewthings just started off with.
(10:48):
You know, let's look at zones,let's look at, you know,
satellite imagery, you know, andlook what we can do.
You know here's areas of highergrowth and lower growth and
everything in between, and let'smake zones off of that.
I mean, looking at the maps, itmakes some sense and let's
start that way.
So that's kind of what we mean.
Looking at the maps, it makessome sense and let's start that
way.
So that's kind of what we werelooking at and trying to bring
(11:09):
that, all that in from onecomputer system to another and
have everything talk properly.
You know, became and became abig, big issue because you know
not everything.
You know our system is our ownand nobody wants to talk outside
to that system because that'sdifferent.
You know, and they're like,really, this is the system I've
got, what is your data set onthe backside, and so it's
(11:31):
understanding how the data talksto each other, and that's what
it is.
Sarah (11:36):
I always think it's interesting and I always equate
it back to hydraulic hookups.
You know we've got the wholeworld and then we had John Deere
hookups and I don't think a lotof people in today's world
realize what an issue gettingdata to talk across platforms is
.
It's really nice when we've gotstandardized hydraulic hookups.
It's really nice when all thedata talks.
(11:56):
The farmer really does benefitfrom that.
I can honestly say I believethat farmers appreciate that a
lot.
Shawn Kasprick (12:06):
Yeah, and I dealt with those adapters for
the hydraulic hookups.
We had some of thosechangeovers, so I get exactly
what you're talking about.
Sarah (12:11):
It's a good metaphor, isn't?
Shawn Kasprick (12:13):
it, absolutely it is.
Jodi (12:15):
And I have to plug in ADMS at this moment, because that's
one of the things we reallypride ourselves on is that, okay
, we can bring in a lot of data,you know, as long as it's not a
proprietary thing that's lockedto us.
But for the most part, we canread so much of that data and
also export it in a way thatwill get to where you need to go
.
I mean that's so important tous in long term.
(12:35):
I mean we've been around for along time and we plan to be here
so that, no matter what, youcan have that data and use it,
no matter how Precision Agprogresses and changes over time
.
Shawn Kasprick (12:46):
And everybody had to get there at some point
is you have to understand thebackground of data and how it
actually handles and how ittalks.
I mean, we see our displaystoday and we see our displays on
any of the computers and you'relike, oh, that's a pretty
picture, but unless youunderstand the data in the
background and how it actuallywhat it took to get from point A
to point B, you can never movethat on to the next level unless
(13:08):
you start to understand that,and I had to go through that and
that growing pain myself.
So it's just something you dealwith, you know.
Sarah (13:16):
And so, to just put things in a frame of reference
here, at this time when you'reworking, just trying to figure
out what to do with thiscomputer that Simplot gave you
and how to get data to talk,you're really in the process of
developing what Simplot uses fortheir precision agriculture
software platform.
Shawn Kasprick (13:33):
Is that correct?
Sarah (13:34):
Yes, so you pretty much are responsible for developing
that.
Shawn Kasprick (13:37):
Yeah, so within our groups we had some groups
talking with each other.
You know, some of the groupsdealt with the Ag Leaders, SMS
software and some of that stuffgoing on.
We had, you know us where wewere dealing with the soil tech
and what soil tech had to bringat the time.
And even within our own groupinternally we were dealing with
(13:58):
ArcView for all of our GIS stuffon the backside and that's kind
of where, well, we're alreadyin ArcView and this is what
we're going to do, and so that'skind of what.
We just kind of transitionourselves into arc view and
that's what we were running inon the backside.
Sarah (14:11):
Okay, yeah, and along this time you must have had some
pretty big conversations withDarren, because he was
programming software at the sametime, or at least I know that
you guys have had conversationsalong the way.
Shawn Kasprick (14:23):
Yes, we've had conversations along the way and
you know, at the time in hisprevious life, in the previous
career that he had, there was alot of discussions back then and
it really at that time itdidn't fit what I was looking
for, what I wanted to do.
You know, although we were kindof all tracking the same
direction, it was just not themindset that I had and what I
(14:45):
wanted to do and where I wantedto go was not exactly the same
thing.
Sarah (14:49):
So it was we had conversations and had the
opportunity to learn from eachother and get ideas, and that
you know I think that'ssomething that's really
important to remember is in thelate 90s.
There's a lot of pioneers ofprecision agriculture out there
that were really working hard totry to develop systems that
worked well for handling lots ofdifferent data, and there's a
(15:13):
lot of people that had a lot ofdifferent ideas, and it's always
so neat to me how we had thesegreat collaborations.
We can have different ideas and, quite frankly, the precision
agriculture industry that wehave today stands on the legs of
those conversations andcollaborations.
We've got differentopportunities out there to work
with different things and itreally has made precision
(15:36):
agriculture feasible in today'sworld to actually be something
that works for farmers, forapplicators at the field level.
Shawn Kasprick (15:44):
Yes, yes, and I mean it was.
You know when everything wascoming out, this little
geography.
You know whether it be when westarted at four or 4.4 acre
grids or two and a half acregrids that they're kind of been
moving to and moved to.
(16:05):
Or you take a look at the zonemap and you assume everything
within that same zone is all thesame within the soil samples in
the soil test, soil samples inthe soil test, you know you get.
You either take an absolutewithin the grid that that small
little grid represents that partof the field, or you move it to
a larger scale and it just mademore sense to me, not only
economically.
(16:25):
But this area is all the same.
Why do I want to divide,subdivide it any farther?
You know, that's kind of whereI was looking at it.
Jodi (16:33):
And with that too, right, Like nitrogen is such an
important part for us in NorthDakota.
So doing grid samples acrossbig fields just is hard to do
every single year, Whereas witha zone you can take less samples
and still get that nitratenumber every single year.
That's hard to.
How do you do grid sampling to24 inches every year when you
(16:55):
got to get that nitrate numberRight?
It's just not feasible.
Shawn Kasprick (16:59):
Well, and if you look at where it started from,
you know, back in the kind ofthe high states in the Corn Belt
where they were doing a lotmore of the grid samples, they
don't have the field sizes thatwe do necessarily.
I mean they do have some largefields, but theirs was cut up a
little bit differently.
They have some rollingtopography that we don't
necessarily have, at least herein the Valley, you know, and at
first when they were looking atit, it was all on pH and lime.
(17:22):
You know they were doing a lotof variable rate, lime and those
applications which, on a gridsample.
That makes sense.
You know, when we start gettinginto things that we're doing
here, it just didn't quite fitthe same way.
Sarah (17:37):
And so you know the direction that we went with
zones makes more sense.
And you also have to rememberthat, especially in the area,
the geography, specifically inthe Red River Valley area of
North Dakota, we have a lot ofsugar beets and we're actually
soil sampling down to four feetfor those because we need to
know that nitrogen number tokeep the quality of the sugar
beets.
So imagine doing grid samplingdown to four feet.
(17:59):
Ufta meta says the Norwegian.
Shawn Kasprick (18:03):
And we were doing that.
Sarah (18:05):
You know when we first started there were still people.
Shawn Kasprick (18:07):
That's their mindset is okay, I'm doing grid
samples because that's avariable rate to me or to in
their what they were looking atand they were pulling samples to
.
You know, the zero to ourstandard, zero to six, six to 24
, 24 to 48 inch samples andwe're going there.
And you know, some of that alsoended up developing into what
Franzen had dealt with with forour sugar beets is taking that
(18:30):
nitrogen credit and he was doinga lot of work up there.
He was actually looking at howdeep is our nitrogen go, because
we're having to deal with that.
Do you ever remember that wewere dealing with six foot
samples?
Sarah (18:40):
No, I do not.
Oh my gosh, that would beterrible.
Yeah, I want to see the probesfor that.
Shawn Kasprick (18:49):
So there was, and, of course, all the problems
that you have when you startgoing too deep and you don't
have the probe or thetelescoping probe.
You have to if dirt falls inwhile that that hole is screwed
and you have to go to anotherone you know, so so they were
doing that for a few samples.
They were doing it.
It was a lot of it.
It was just more research andjust starting to develop it into
the field, and we're kind ofplaying around with that and at
(19:11):
the end of the day, it was likeyou know what, we don't care, it
was just too much work.
Sarah (19:17):
It was just a lot of things going on and you can
glean what's going on with thedeep nitrogen from those
four-footers.
Shawn Kasprick (19:26):
You really can Gosh.
Sarah (19:28):
Those four-footers are enough work, oh my gosh.
Shawn Kasprick (19:31):
Well, and if you think about it when we're
dealing with you know what dosugar beets do?
Well, Scavenge they go downsuper deep and scavenge all of
that nitrogen and that we'reworried about and bring it right
up to the top for us.
So fine, we'll deal with that,and that's how we ended up kind
of continuing on with that isthat deep nitrogen discussion.
We can see it in the sugar beettops and the sugar beet leaves
(19:54):
and go from there.
Jodi (19:55):
I remember John Lee talking about that at AgVise.
It's like after the nitrogenrecommendations were updated,
there was a couple years wherethere were still some issues
with that really deep nitrogen,but after the updated guidelines
and years of where the nitrogenrates weren't so heavy, finally
we got to levels where thenitrogen was normalized and we
(20:15):
could rely on that four footdepth and we didn't have to
worry about any of that reallyreally deep nitrogen.
Shawn Kasprick (20:20):
Right, you know and I know one of our customers
we were doing was doing a soilpit.
Every year he was doing a soilpit.
Just some of it was for his ownamusement and his own knowledge
of what he wanted to do.
But the university NDSU hadsome test plots up there for
some other things and otherreasons and they would kind of
take advantage and go up thereand say, oh, here's a soil pit,
(20:42):
let's go look at it.
And you climb down into thatsoil pit and I think it was I
can't remember if it was only asix-foot or if it was an
eight-foot soil pit that he haddug out, climbed down the ladder
and it was up against sugarbeet.
So you see the profile of thesugar beet down there.
And I think at at four to sixit was during the drought in in
06.
Sarah (21:01):
Oh, so I bet they went really deep then.
Shawn Kasprick (21:03):
At six foot, it was still a pencil thick, jeez.
That's amazing so all of thatnitrate is being pulled up and
anything else, and so there'ssome other stories of what else
can is down that deep profiletoo.
Everything, anything thatleeches, herbicides included,
(21:23):
can be pulled up and um and showup as a as an issue in the crop
.
Sarah (21:25):
So, yes, that can always be very fun.
Yes, let's see what the leaveslook like.
Jodi (21:32):
It sounds like you've seen some things.
Shawn Kasprick (21:34):
Well, there's that, and then you try and
diagnose what happened here andyou're like I have no idea.
I mean what this looks like.
It hasn't been applied in 10years.
Sarah (22:03):
Well, yeah, that's how you kind of figure that are
really changing with soiltexture and organic matter and
pH.
We're getting the rightactivity in the right place, but
we're getting not too muchactivity in the wrong place.
Shawn Kasprick (22:17):
Right, exactly.
And you look at some of thoseand I know we had that
conversation, jodi, the otherday but you look at some of
those soil, or the soil appliedherbicides.
You look at the labels on themand, like the dual label On
there, it says a low, medium andhigh soil text, or a low,
medium and high organic matter.
This is what.
These are the rates that youshould apply.
(22:38):
Well, it just screams variablerate.
Sarah (22:41):
Absolutely it does Absolutely.
Jodi (22:44):
Yes, and I think, like in the world of weeds, right, like
weed control in general has justbeen so effective that it's
like, oh, we don't really haveto pay attention to that.
But now, as we are dealing withherbicide-resistant weeds, I
mean it's okay.
Now we're looking at thoselabels and thinking how do I
maximize this so that I'mgetting the absolute optimum
control with the tools that Istill have in my toolbox?
Sarah (23:05):
Without killing the crop and other places where I got to
back that rate off.
Shawn Kasprick (23:09):
Right, yeah, absolutely.
Sarah (23:12):
So okay, so you got this computer.
You're working on developinghow data is going between
platforms.
You're creating the platformthat Simplot is using.
You were pretty much in Arc atthat point in time trying to
make everything go.
Are you guys still using Arc?
Do you have your own platformnow?
How is that going?
Shawn Kasprick (23:31):
Yeah, so we're all still working within Arc.
That is the background enginethat runs everything that we're
doing, everything that westarted with, and, of course,
once you start in within Arc,it's its own coding platform,
and they've now moved to Pythoncoding and so that made it a
whole lot easier.
So, in the background, not onlydid I do all this stuff for
(23:53):
school, but I also learned howto program and things on the
backside.
Sarah (23:57):
Because you were bored and you needed something else to
do.
Shawn Kasprick (23:59):
Right, yes, that's absolutely it, jeepers
creepers.
Sarah (24:04):
Okay, so you learned how to code, so you're a computer
coder now.
Shawn Kasprick (24:07):
That's amazing, and like I said you know I love
computers and I've always knowncomputers, so it wasn't that big
of a deal.
It was just like, okay, I gotto figure this out and we'll go.
Sarah (24:21):
When you were starting out.
Tell us a little bit about thefield applicability of it and
some of the experiences that youhad early on getting it to
actually work.
Shawn Kasprick (24:31):
So everything that I've always done always
comes from a place, of course,from my background is soils and
agronomy, and so everything thatI've dealt with all the time
always starts with agronomy.
And when we first started intothis and everybody had these,
their software and proprietary,they're like, oh no, ours is
special, ours is this.
You know, you can't, nobodyelse can do this.
(24:56):
I'm like it's, it's agronomy,it's agriculture.
It's not like we're holdingsecret codes for the nuclear,
any nuclear things going on.
Come on now.
Sarah (25:01):
It's a lamb's quarter in the field.
Shawn Kasprick (25:05):
Right, yeah, and this is.
This is sand, silt and clay.
We're not an organic matter.
We're not dealing with a wholelot, you know.
So it's it's agronomy on thebackside.
That's all it is.
That's how we start with it andwhat makes sense when we start
looking at it.
Yes, the satellite imagery madesense.
This area was, you know, high,medium and low for a within the
this within the reflection ofthe of the satellite imagery.
(25:25):
But now you start making.
If that's all the zones thatyou're doing, and you start
making there, you have to alsoanswer to the customers.
You answer to the growers okay,what?
Well, why is that area green?
Okay, or why is this area poorgrowing?
So you start having, you have tostart looking at the background
and we were doing a lot ofthings, starting with topography
mapping.
Right, I mean, topographymapping started really big.
(25:47):
We were running up and down thefields with RTK level
instrumentation versus LiDARthat we have now, or where the
customers can pull that data offon their own RTK systems.
We had to do that ourselves atthe time.
So we were pulling all this inand we could see that within the
elevation mapping and sometimesthat elevation mapping matched
exactly what we were dealingwith with the satellite imagery.
(26:08):
So it was really good.
You start looking at some of theold I mean the old books of on
the soils books and on the backside they had old satellite
imagery.
I mean, besides the soils data,they had old aerial imagery
that you started looking at andsome of those old aerials
started pulling up.
You could see old farmsteadsthat used to be in there that
(26:30):
are no longer there.
Okay, and I know you startlooking at that.
You're like, oh well, thatexplains why this area is so
much different.
There used to be an old yard inthere.
You start talking to thecustomer and he's like you know
what?
I don't remember that, but hisdad does.
Sarah (26:44):
Yep.
Shawn Kasprick (26:44):
And like, like you know what I don't remember
that, but his dad does and like,oh, okay, so you start looking
at these things and now you know, you start adding all of that,
all of that together, and that'syou start pulling in multiple
layers into there.
And that's where we're dealingwith it Always pulling in
multiple layers, looking at morethan one layer, cause if you
only deal with one layer, canyou explain everything that's
going on with those zones orwithin that satellite imagery or
(27:05):
yield map or whatever, based onone layer?
Sarah (27:08):
So that's an interesting component to think about and
actually something where yoursystem is quite similar to ADMS,
because, again, I would saythat's an exact.
We have that conversation allthe time.
How do you go and pick out thatone image that describes your
field all the time?
Does that image actually exist?
Shawn Kasprick (27:31):
No.
Sarah (27:31):
No, it always has to be a combination of multiple layers
and even there, once you havethat in and you might be
describing that area, you stillmight need to do a little bit of
modification within thatpicture so that you really get
what you want.
Shawn Kasprick (27:47):
Right.
But you look at the time wheneverybody, when we were first
starting with this, a lot of ourcompetitors out there, a lot of
people that were doingdifferent things, were just
looking at that one satelliteimagery and saying, OK, this is
how we're going to zone yourfield.
Ok, that's great.
So that was the last time ithad sugar beets, which happened
to be you know, because it hadchanged hands or whatever.
It was five years ago.
(28:08):
So the field this coming yearis exactly the same as it was
five years ago?
Probably not.
There may be some similarities,but there's a lot of things
that have changed since then.
Sarah (28:18):
Absolutely, and what I think is so interesting about
that is there's a lot ofcompanies today especially new
companies trying to enterprecision agriculture that do
just that.
They find that one image andthey say this is going to be the
image that's going to be yourzones forever and we've come so
far in precision agriculture.
I mean, it didn't work backthen at the beginning.
(28:39):
Why would it work today?
Shawn Kasprick (28:41):
No, and that's just it.
They want to find that onething and just yep, this works.
The easy button, the easybutton, absolutely.
Jodi (28:48):
When you think about it, it's agriculture.
We're working with a naturalsystem.
It's complex, so when you thinkabout it, it just makes sense
that there's more than onevariable going on.
That's explaining why our cropsare looking like they are Right
.
So how do you bring in thosemultiple layers to help you get
to a somewhat predictive mapthat you can fertilize off of or
make decisions and makemanagement choices off of, and
(29:11):
select and not select and applyand not apply in areas?
Shawn Kasprick (29:14):
Right, and that was one of the nice things when
we were dealing with ARC.
Arc has done that in the past.
The whole background for ARC isall of the full-blown GIS.
Of the full-blown GIS.
Our little agricultural portionthat we wanted to play around
with was just this little teeny,tiny scope of what ArcView can
do as a total.
And so they're like, yeah, wecan pull in that data set.
Not a big deal.
This is what we do, and sopulling in imagery for Arc was
(29:36):
not a big deal.
Pulling in other data sets forArc, they've done it on the
backside for other applications,so it wasn't that big of a deal
.
We just had to make it work forwhat we need to do in ag.
So you start pulling inmultiple layers and you got to
be careful because you pull intoo many data layers and it gets
way too complex.
So you got how do you simplifyit?
(29:56):
So it really comes down to whatlayer or a couple of layers.
It will explain everything thatI need for this field to
continue and move on.
Sarah (30:08):
But that brings in the human portion of it right, where
an agronomist is looking atthese pictures of the field with
their background and knowledgein crop production and soils,
and they're able to look atimages and be like, yes, this is
a layer that should be included, no, this is not a layer that
should be included.
And then you could put ittogether into something that
(30:29):
makes sense.
Shawn Kasprick (30:30):
Yeah, absolutely , and that really becomes more
of an art form, right?
I mean, all three of us couldsit down with the same data sets
, pulling all of the information, and our zones would come out.
I would suspect pretty close,but the exact line of where I
divided it and you divided itand you divided it are all just
a little bit different, andthat's fine, that's you know.
(30:51):
Even when you're making theapplication, that machine does
not stop dead on that line andtransition from this rate to
this rate.
There has to be that zone whereit ramps up or ramps down, and
so there's that little bit of avariance within that line.
Sarah (31:07):
That works.
But that is so true and we dothat all the time here where you
know, we might have differentways of making it happen, but
we're going to get to prettydarn similar results, but
there's always more than one wayto skin a cat.
The other thing that I think isso interesting in this
(31:27):
conversation so Shawn deals in acompletely different software
package, obviously, that hedeveloped, and we here at GK
Technology deal with ADMS, butwe have that GIS background that
you know.
They're both GIS-basedsoftwares, which is very
interesting, and some of thestuff within the softwares might
(31:47):
be different, but it's got thatGIS background and so you know
when you're working withprecision agriculture, I just
think it's really important forpeople to understand the value
of understanding basics of GISso that you know how to actually
operate some of the things.
That's not something that'snecessarily an agronomic
education component, but it's socritical to precision
agriculture.
Shawn Kasprick (32:07):
Right, yeah, absolutely it is.
Sarah (32:10):
We've talked a lot about your early career and how you
were working on developingsoftware.
Next time we'll visit with youa little bit more about what
you're doing with precisionagriculture, maybe a little bit
about the in in the fieldpracticality of making
everything work and some futureideas.
But at the beginning of thispodcast you talked about your
(32:33):
education and you know how youreally pursued that.
So can you tell me how has youreducation prepared you or
enhanced your career, and whatsorts?
I mean you did most of youreducation at the very beginning
of your career, so how has thatreally impacted who you are
today?
Shawn Kasprick (32:51):
Well, you start looking at everything that you
do within schooling.
I mean, that is actually thepreparation for everything that
you need, that you want to learn, and that's how.
And so everything that I dowithin my precision ag, within
my career, that's my groundingright, that's my ground for
looking at every applicationthat's out there, because
(33:13):
there's all kinds of new tools,new concepts, new products that
come out there, and this is thelatest and greatest.
But let's look at thebackground.
Let's ground ourselves to okay,how does that application or
how does that product actuallywork in the ground?
And so, whether it be aprecision egg, invariable rate,
a new product that comes out, anew idea, new concept, new
(33:35):
satellite imagery that they'vegot the latest and greatest
let's all bring it back to okay.
Does it have applicability inthe field level?
What is it going to do for usmoving forward, and does it
actually give me any informationthat I need to make a better
decision than what I had before?
Sarah (33:54):
Does it actually work from a practical standpoint?
Shawn Kasprick (33:56):
Yes.
Sarah (33:58):
That's great.
It's really fun to hear Peoplehave different reasons for
pursuing the education pathwaysthat they do, and so it's really
fun to glean that information.
And I think for some of ouryounger listeners it's always
great to have that informationin the back of their minds as
they're going through theircareer and making decisions.
So I appreciate that.
(34:19):
That was a great firstconversation here with Shawn.
We've got so much more to talkabout.
We are going to have anadditional episode next time
with Shawn from Simplot.
We appreciate that, and withthat at GK Technology we have a
map and an app for that.
(34:40):
I can't wait to get in thefields again.
No, I can't wait to get in thefields again.
No, I can't wait to get in thefields again.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.