May 5, 2022 • 23 mins
OSU Professor John P. Fulton joins host Dave Orr to discuss how farms and agriculture businesses are reinventing their workflows due to supply chain challenges and available technology, eliminating operational costs and manual labor.
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Topcon talks,
agriculture I'm Dave Moore, theregional sales manager for
Canada, and the proud host oftop gun talks today.
We're talking about a topic thathas certainly become close to
all of us on the agricultureindustry and that's the changing
input costs and how it'schanging our workflow.
And to help speak to this topicis our longtime friend, John
(00:34):
Fulton from Ohio stateuniversity.
Welcome to the podcast, John.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Thanks, and, uh, pleasure to be here and, uh,
look forward to this discussiontoday.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So, John, as I mentioned, uh, you work with
Ohio state, uh, as a professorin their food, egg and
bioengineering, uh, department.
You wanna just kind of maybeexplain to the, our listeners a
little bit more on, on what youdo on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, so Ohio state is what we call land grant
institution.
So I actually, um, teach, uh,specifically a precision ag
class.
That's relative to some of thethings we do with Topcon and
bringing in some of thetechnology and videos that you
guys create, uh, and bring thoseexperiences, allow our students
to have experiences with thetechnology.
(01:17):
And some of the information youguys share also conduct research
primarily in, uh, in the area ofmachinery automation and just
precision ag, uh, in particularto management of inputs at the
farm level.
And then I also do in majorityof my, my job responsibilities
is what we call extension orgoing out and, uh, doing
(01:38):
education, uh, not only farmers,but work with a lot of retailers
and service providers, uh,globally not only educating
themselves or educating theirpersonnel, but also working with
their programs that revolvearound precision ag services.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Well, it's interesting.
So these extension programs thatwhere you get out and kind of
maybe work with people thataren't necessarily enrolled in
Ohio state, um, what would besome of the topics that you
would maybe work with these guyson or, or help ensure that the
knowledge is being passed alongto these producers or, or
agriculture, um, employees alike,
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Uh, in recent years, a lot of the topics revolve
around data, farm data andcollection of that and turning
that into, uh, we'll save the,say value back to the members or
customer base that those folksare serving.
And then, you know, I spend timeon, you know, like I mentioned,
automation is one of the areasthat we work on a lot here at
(02:37):
Ohio state.
And so what does farms, what do,uh, consultants retailers need
to have in place to supportadoption of automation?
Uh, today we think still a lotabout driving the machinery and
automating processes on themachinery, but, uh, recently,
you know, that's evolved in assome of the robotic options, uh,
that have been commercializedand, and whether it's farmers or
(03:00):
retailers thinking about theadoption of those.
So how, how not only be adopted,but, uh, think about logistics
and other support mechanismsaround the adoption of that
technology into the farmstead orin the case of retailers into
their processes, deliveringinputs and, and other services
back to, uh, to farmers.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So I guess you really actually are kind of hitting on
a topic that, you know, thispodcast has explored over a few
episodes.
Uh, more recently is thatprecision agriculture, isn't
just simply auto steer anymore.
Um, you know, you still go to afarm show and if you're working
a booth, you'll quite often hearabout, you know, Topcon
specifically or, or any of ourcompetitors being referred to as
(03:41):
the auto steer group.
Right.
But when you actually look at asuite of products in this
industry, precision agricultureis a lot more than probably the,
the original auto steer,correct?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Correct.
And it's, it's moved beyond,right, right.
We we've thought about what youguys offer and you guys offer a
suite of technologies that canbe embedded in the machines
today, including software tohelp support data collection
analytics around data as well.
And, and to your point abouttechnology, as you're aware of
(04:14):
it's, it's become very embeddedinto the machinery today.
If I purchase sort of lease, um,machine, typically we're
thinking about a tractor, uh,our Cedars or planters,
sprayers, and even harvesterstoday, you know, we're not
adding technology on the, thetechnology's there and available
for, we'll say the operator orfarm manager to take advantage
(04:37):
of.
It's like, you know, we we'dcall it air conditioning in cars
today.
I mean, we buy a car, it comeswith, a radio and an air
conditioner today, right.
If not something a little bitmore advanced, so times have
changed, uh, today we're, we'retalking about even further
automation making, uh, embeddingartificial intelligence and
making changes on the, go tothose machines.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah.
And probably over your career.
Um, within this realm, you'veprobably seen the, you know, the
movement from guys going andlooking at a, a tractor based
off of horsepower or the abilityof a, you know, horsepower on
the PTO shat, or any of that tomaybe what more it can do for
the total solution of the farmand how it can drive success and
(05:20):
, and change workflows truly.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah.
And, and, and for those folks,you know, farmers specifically
that have adopted precision agtechnology is they think about
upgrading new machines thatthat's part of that equation
today of having those optionsavailable.
So it fits right in clips rightinto what they're doing as far
as not only managing their farm,but collecting a data
(05:43):
necessarily to, to bringinformation back, to make
decisions and, and to makeadjustments to the farm
operation.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right.
And of course, we're, you know,in these couple of instances,
we're specifically talking abouta grain farmer or a row crop
farmer, but I think it's alsoapplicable to livestock
industries, um, you know,poultry, dairy and beef
operations, all alike.
Uh, they've also seen a largeuptake in robotics or what could
be defined as precisionagriculture.
That's certainly changing theirworkflows also.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
Is case in point number one, wehave specialty crop producers
here in the state of Ohio thathave adopted some of those
robotics because of laborshortages or, or challenges
there.
And then we look at our, um,dairy producers and the high
level of adoption roboticmilkers today.
And so to your point, that's,those are two prime examples
(06:31):
that, you know, it's here, itcontinues to evolve and, and you
continue to see different typesof adoption in these, uh,
different aspects of the foodchain taken advantage of
automation.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah.
And you mentioned somethingthat's obviously becoming more
prevalent, probably maybe on thelarger producing farms, but, uh,
labor shortages, you know,they're very real how, how they
became created is, you know,everybody's got a different
story on each farm as to why thelabor shortage has affected
them.
But precision agriculture hasobviously become a very suitable
and timely response to laborshortages.
(07:06):
Is it driving some more adoptionof precision agriculture
practices on farms?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Um, you know, kind of some of our feedback on that,
not necessarily from surveys,but, but working with some
groups definitely have adopted,uh, we have more farmers asking
questions and showing interest.
And so when I say showinginterest, we've had some say
field days where things like theautonomous tractor, that's
(07:33):
pulling the grain cart to someof the automatic turning options
that are provided throughcompanies like yourselves, where
it's just not auto guidance, ifset up properly, you know, we
still have a person in the cab,but essentially the, the field
operation is managed totally bythe technology, right.
And that includes not only whyit's operating, but it's
actually turned into machineautomatically to.
(07:55):
And so we, we see a lot moreinterest in that as we have
demonstrations and field days,uh, for that by farmers.
And, and a lot of that is notonly becoming more efficient,
right.
That's always a, a bigterminology we've used for many
years, but continues to, to be,uh, something that farmers work
at.
But the fact that there'slimited, uh, labor to support
(08:16):
some of the nominal fieldoperations, why operations
continue to get bigger.
And so the farmers and, and someof their prime employees still
have to get everything done.
So either shortages, they'relooking at ways to be able to
get the field operations donevery timely and efficiently out
there.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And something that's interesting to me that one of
our, our colleagues mentioned tome one time was that every
single farm in America or northAmerica cause Canada is included
in this, whether they have anyform of precision agriculture on
the farm or not, um, they'realways looking to what the next
step is.
So a late adapter is maybelooking to getting into guidance
or auto steering, and thatcustomer that has full RTK
(08:57):
system and maybe variable rateapplication might be looking
into yield data, collecting itor whatever.
What is the driving force forall of these individuals, no
matter what stage of, uh,adoption you're at of precision
a to continue to look toprecision your agricul and
always want the next level.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Dave, that's a really good question.
Number one, I, I guess I wouldalter your comment a little bit
there because some growers, youknow, will come and say, well, I
haven't adopted precision a, butyet they're carrying a
smartphone and do a, quite a bitof business on a smartphone and
have their preferred apps to dobusiness.
And a lot of those arecommercial apps right.
Provided through and they may bepaying for.
(09:39):
And so maybe how you defineprecision ag.
We use the term digital a quitea bit these days because the
whole data, data analytics,advancements being made and
artificial intelligence.
But I guess whether it's apps tothe technologies that a company
like yours provides, right?
The variable rates sectioncontrol, it's improving the
(09:59):
operations, maintaining marginsand profitability.
That's always first andforemost.
And so as I look at it, theoption, you know, can I do more
with less?
And so I'll just take right.
Guidance enables me to, to maybedo some other things why I'm not
only focused on that fieldoperation.
It enables me because themachine's driving itself and
(10:20):
maintaining its performance.
I, I might be able to do somebusiness on my phone while I'm
in the machine.
And so I think it's enabling meto do more with less maintaining
margins is definitely at theforefront.
And without a doubt, when we goback and, and this has been a
little bit on our research, thatthe quality of life has
improved.
And so, um, and maybe you havesome similar experiences where,
(10:42):
you know, you'd work 15 hours aday and the, the 15 hours was
driving a machine and beingresponsible for that machine for
the total time that it wasoperating.
And that, that can, you know,wear you out.
And if not physically wear you,you're at a little bit, but
today, you know, I can still putin 15 hours, but I can probably
do it more efficiently and, anddo other things during the day
(11:04):
beyond just driving the machinebecause that's taken care of
with the technology.
And so, uh, that quality of lifetoday, though, I think what
we're seeing is, as we look at,uh, the data play, and there's a
lot of examples here in northAmerica is making sure that
we're making informed inputdecisions and you know, what
practices work or don't work,but within my operation to
(11:26):
maintain my margins, right?
I mean, it boils down toprofitability, but we look at
some of the, the challengestoday with high input prices and
they continue to rise.
And so all this data to somedegree, if there was a year to
really dig into it and, and lookat things like, well, what am I
gonna do my, with my, myphosphor and potassium programs
(11:48):
this year?
Well, the data should have been,you know, if you had been
collecting the data, uh, youcould have really taken a close
look.
And if not had some years ofanalysis put into play to direct
you to, you know, eitherprioritize what fields get
applied to, Hey, you know, maybethis year I didn't need it.
I, I really don't need to investthat.
(12:09):
I need to really focus over hereon seed.
I need to focus on if I'm, ifnitrogen for, for our corn
producers, uh, and we producersin our area.
I, I think there's really thelogic there to have that data,
to, to inform those, those harddecisions, right?
Those nontraditional decisionsof, Hey, I'm not gonna do that
(12:29):
this year as a cost savingmeasure because of the high
input prices.
Uh, precision ag to me reallywas a, provided an advantage to
growers that have been able tocollect both the yield data, but
more importantly, beencollecting additional data along
the way to be able to look atand make sound decisions in
their operation, consideringwhat we're facing.
(12:50):
Uh, this coming year
Speaker 3 (12:55):
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ag electronics needs, let agexpress help your operation be
more efficient with your timeand help save you money on input
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Speaker 1 (13:23):
And to today, we're joined by John Fulton from Ohio
state.
Um, John, you brought up, youknow, input costs, driving a lot
of decisions on the farm,whether it's to what crop to put
into your crop cycle this year,um, maybe input cautious in
general because of seeds or, orfertilizer or diesel, or even
basic prices.
You know, so far down the lineof just the price of the iron
(13:45):
that you're looking to purchaseto be able to complete those
operations.
I, I think we all know fromworld events that are going on,
which driving some of thesesituations.
Um, but how, how is that trulyaffecting the farms at least
this high input costs?
Do you think we'll adopt moreworkflow changes to the common
day farm or the large scalefarms because of these input
(14:07):
costs rising so much?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I think the, the direct answer to that is most
certainly you're gonna see more,more adoption in this time.
Uh, just simply because again iswhether it's efficiency that
we're trying to gain toinformation, to drive, uh, sound
decision making at the farm, theadages, the more data I have,
(14:33):
the better decisions I should,should make.
You know, we're, we're gonnahave some, some differences
there of, and maybe not make the, the right decision.
But I think that in general,it's, it's definitely building
to that as, especially as we,um, visit with a lot of our
retailers and service providerson this topic.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
And so do you think, um, this is gonna drive some
long term solutions, um, wherenew practices will be
implemented on farms in any ofthose areas that we've
discussed?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
You know, I wanna use to bring into the fold is not
only, you know, this, this ideathat input costs are high and,
and fuel or gas prices, dieselfuel prices are high.
I know in our state, in, inregion, we're really, uh, being
put under a microscope forenvironmental reasons as well.
(15:22):
And so that's part of our, ourchallenge here too, is that the
public, uh, whether theyscrutinize farming to demand
transparency on how we'regrowing crops.
If we look at some of thesustainability type efforts that
are out there to report in, I, Ithink both on the environmental
sustainability now, even carbontype markets that are evolving
(15:45):
here, you know, the requirementunderneath that is data and, and
data around practices.
And so back to your point aboutnew practices, I think we
continue to see things like, uh,precision soil sampling continue
to grow, uh, not only toevaluate, uh, spatially, uh,
soil fertility, and ultimatelymaybe consider things like
(16:08):
variate fertilizer applications,but it also gives us insight of
where we should be putting ourinvestments as a farmer
perspective.
But when we look atsustainability and environmental
reporting needs, it also givesus data to report into those
channels that we're doing theright thing.
We'll say at the right time,when we look at some of the four
R promotions that go on here,uh, in our neck of the woods.
(16:29):
And so it serves multiplepurposes, not only to, to, for
the insights for the grower tomake decisions around practices
and input decisions, but it alsowill, I think provide, uh, input
to some of the sustainability,environmental, and conservation
and, uh, carbon markets thatwe're seeing play out here, at
(16:50):
least in our area.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
So do you think any of these, you know, potential
solutions that could come up and, you know, let's look at
fertilizer for instance, there's, um, definitely an increase in,
in the cost of fertilizer rightnow, and a, a re not a
replacement, but an alternativeto fertilizer is manure.
Um, would we ever see anoffshoot of the grain industry
looking for more nutrients putinto the ground being manure and
(17:16):
then a cattle company, or alivestock operation deciding to
up their increase because theycan sell their manure and make
profitability from that?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, we've already seen that actually here in the
state of Ohio and just here inthe, the, you know,
transportation to manure, to thefarms beyond just, you know, the
neighbor or within a countyoutside the county or what we
call counties.
And, and beyond that, farmersare willing to pay some, some
money and it gives them a, adefinitely an alternative to
(17:46):
inorganic fertilizers.
Um, we've even seen a turn towhere we're applying manure in
season and advantage that givesDave.
And so we're looking at, in, ina showcase advantages of the
side dress manure and cornspecifically.
So rather than using an organicsource growers are using, you
(18:06):
know, liquid from swine dairy,uh, and some cattle operations
taking that and, and using it asa sidedress product versus maybe
a UAN, um, you know, 28 or 32,what we normally would have.
So I think we're, we've seensome of that transition that the
growers are willing to, toeither sell and, you know,
(18:28):
farmers willing to pay fortransportation to move some of
that, uh, not extreme distances.
You know, we're not moving itoutta state or anything, but
definitely getting it over tothe next county and, and seeing
it move further than we have inthe past.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
And I guess as the demand for that material goes
up, the only way to get thatmaterial is by increasing your
livestock heard.
And if it's going to helpsupplement an income as a dairy
or as a swine operation, I guessit could potentially be an
offshoot that helps grow thoseherds and, and has an economic
offshoot within the agricultureindustry.
Correct?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah.
I don't know that I would see alot of our livestock producers
growing herds, but it does give'em an opportunity to, to
increase their herd size if themarket is right and, and they
want to do that.
I don't know if they're possiblygonna grow specifically to sell
more manure, but we definitelyhave seen, you know, more
facilities going up.
And, um, and then with those notonly having nutrient what we
(19:26):
call nutrient management planswith the opportunity to move
that manure as a, as afertilizer source, and then not
something we're just trying toget rid of
Speaker 1 (19:35):
What would be, you know, over your career.
Um, I know we've worked for acouple of different
institutions, but what would beone of the most intriguing
products brought to theagricultural industry that you
saw change workflow and how itaffected it, whether it was
guidance or variable rating orany of those things, what, like,
in your time, what was the mostimpressive thing that you felt
was changed agriculturalindustry while you've been in
(19:57):
the, in the industry?
And there's been lots.
I know, probably right.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Well, I mean, you know, at the onset, definitely
guidance was, was prettyintriguing and, and now you look
, seems like every machine soldhas guidance embedded into it.
And so that's definitely had aninfluence, uh, across, you know,
not only north America, but aswe look at Europe, the number of
guidance systems or autoguidance systems, you know, in
(20:22):
terms of actual workflows andwhere we are today, you know, I
look at is ver rate.
And I wanna kind of note that, Ithink about the workflow today
of going from, we'll say asample to creating a, a
prescription to having that atthe machine to execute whether
(20:43):
that's a planting to fertilizerapplication prescription.
I tell you that the software inconjunction with the variable
rate capabilities is pretty,pretty amazing today.
Uh, in my mind, Dave, I mean, itused to take us hours, if not
days, it felt like to, to gothrough that process.
(21:03):
And today, and just as a, anumber, it may be 24 plus steps
to get that done, to go from asample all the way through the
softwares and uploading,downloading, and thumb drives
and making a recommendation andrevising that recommendation and
getting to the machine andputting it in the display and
(21:23):
then actually hitting the onbutton.
And it actually does something,you know, today we're doing that
in, uh, probably steps that areless than what we count on both
hands today.
And so not only is it thesoftware, but the technology and
the telematics and wireless, youknow, over 90% of the north
American retailers providedisservices to enable that
(21:44):
today.
And so to me, that's been a,it's been taking us while, but
it sets us up for futureopportunities, especially when
we think about automation,because ultimately we're gonna
have to have prescriptions inplay to tell those robots what
to do out in the field.
And so we've really built acapacity to enable ver rate, but
specifically to do prescriptionsand, and do that pretty
(22:07):
efficiently today.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Right.
And, and, you know, to build onthat just variable rate itself.
I know within Topcon productsuite, we can variable rate
things from broad acre seatingdown to, you know, row cropping
down to wet manure, dry manure,dry fertilizer broadcasting, so
variable rating.
And of course the sprayer.
So variable rating, isn't justone or two applications anymore.
(22:30):
It's just about time.
You are putting something ontoyour soil.
There's a capability to makesure that your workflow and your
input costs and all of thosethings together are, uh, kind of
regulated by the most efficientway of variable rating.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well, and I look at, you know, going to the question
around manure, I mean, you guyshave a, an IR sensor today
that's available to measure theconcentrations of that manure
totally N PK.
And those are steps.
Not only to understand whatyou're doing out in the field,
right, as feedback, but reallyare steps towards automation
where I can actually adjustequipment in this case, tractor
(23:04):
speed or whatever on thatapplication equipment to, to
make sure we're applying what'srecommended out there on the
field.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Absolutely.
John, thank you very much foryour time.
I know you're probably a verybusy man this time of the year,
and I, I can't tell you how muchappreciated this conversation.
I know our listeners willcertainly have probably found it
very enlightening and, andinformational.
And I thank you very much onceagain, for taking some time
outta your day to join us on topcontact talks, agriculture.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Thanks for having me, Dave,
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Thank you once again for joining us on Topcon talks,
agriculture for today'sinteresting information about
input costs and changing theworkflow with John Bolton from
Ohio state.
Don't forget to follow us on anyof your favorite social media
outlets, such as Facebook,Twitter, or Instagram.
And please listen to ourpodcast.
Anytime it's Spotify, applepodcast, Google podcast, or
wherever you get your favoritepodcast from take care and look
(23:53):
forward to chatting with younext time.
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Topcon talks,
agriculture I'm Dave Moore, theregional sales manager for
Canada, and the proud host oftop gun talks today.
We're talking about a topic thathas certainly become close to
all of us on the agricultureindustry and that's the changing
input costs and how it'schanging our workflow.
And to help speak to this topicis our longtime friend, John
(00:34):
Fulton from Ohio stateuniversity.
Welcome to the podcast, John.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Thanks, and, uh, pleasure to be here and, uh,
look forward to this discussiontoday.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So, John, as I mentioned, uh, you work with
Ohio state, uh, as a professorin their food, egg and
bioengineering, uh, department.
You wanna just kind of maybeexplain to the, our listeners a
little bit more on, on what youdo on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, so Ohio state is what we call land grant
institution.
So I actually, um, teach, uh,specifically a precision ag
class.
That's relative to some of thethings we do with Topcon and
bringing in some of thetechnology and videos that you
guys create, uh, and bring thoseexperiences, allow our students
to have experiences with thetechnology.
(01:17):
And some of the information youguys share also conduct research
primarily in, uh, in the area ofmachinery automation and just
precision ag, uh, in particularto management of inputs at the
farm level.
And then I also do in majorityof my, my job responsibilities
is what we call extension orgoing out and, uh, doing
(01:38):
education, uh, not only farmers,but work with a lot of retailers
and service providers, uh,globally not only educating
themselves or educating theirpersonnel, but also working with
their programs that revolvearound precision ag services.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Well, it's interesting.
So these extension programs thatwhere you get out and kind of
maybe work with people thataren't necessarily enrolled in
Ohio state, um, what would besome of the topics that you
would maybe work with these guyson or, or help ensure that the
knowledge is being passed alongto these producers or, or
agriculture, um, employees alike,
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Uh, in recent years, a lot of the topics revolve
around data, farm data andcollection of that and turning
that into, uh, we'll save the,say value back to the members or
customer base that those folksare serving.
And then, you know, I spend timeon, you know, like I mentioned,
automation is one of the areasthat we work on a lot here at
(02:37):
Ohio state.
And so what does farms, what do,uh, consultants retailers need
to have in place to supportadoption of automation?
Uh, today we think still a lotabout driving the machinery and
automating processes on themachinery, but, uh, recently,
you know, that's evolved in assome of the robotic options, uh,
that have been commercializedand, and whether it's farmers or
(03:00):
retailers thinking about theadoption of those.
So how, how not only be adopted,but, uh, think about logistics
and other support mechanismsaround the adoption of that
technology into the farmstead orin the case of retailers into
their processes, deliveringinputs and, and other services
back to, uh, to farmers.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So I guess you really actually are kind of hitting on
a topic that, you know, thispodcast has explored over a few
episodes.
Uh, more recently is thatprecision agriculture, isn't
just simply auto steer anymore.
Um, you know, you still go to afarm show and if you're working
a booth, you'll quite often hearabout, you know, Topcon
specifically or, or any of ourcompetitors being referred to as
(03:41):
the auto steer group.
Right.
But when you actually look at asuite of products in this
industry, precision agricultureis a lot more than probably the,
the original auto steer,correct?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Correct.
And it's, it's moved beyond,right, right.
We we've thought about what youguys offer and you guys offer a
suite of technologies that canbe embedded in the machines
today, including software tohelp support data collection
analytics around data as well.
And, and to your point abouttechnology, as you're aware of
(04:14):
it's, it's become very embeddedinto the machinery today.
If I purchase sort of lease, um,machine, typically we're
thinking about a tractor, uh,our Cedars or planters,
sprayers, and even harvesterstoday, you know, we're not
adding technology on the, thetechnology's there and available
for, we'll say the operator orfarm manager to take advantage
(04:37):
of.
It's like, you know, we we'dcall it air conditioning in cars
today.
I mean, we buy a car, it comeswith,
conditioner today, right.
If not something a little bitmore advanced, so times have
changed, uh, today we're, we'retalking about even further
automation making, uh, embeddingartificial intelligence and
making changes on the, go tothose machines.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah.
And probably over your career.
Um, within this realm, you'veprobably seen the, you know, the
movement from guys going andlooking at a, a tractor based
off of horsepower or the abilityof a, you know, horsepower on
the PTO shat, or any of that tomaybe what more it can do for
the total solution of the farmand how it can drive success and
(05:20):
, and change workflows truly.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah.
And, and, and for those folks,you know, farmers specifically
that have adopted precision agtechnology is they think about
upgrading new machines thatthat's part of that equation
today of having those optionsavailable.
So it fits right in clips rightinto what they're doing as far
as not only managing their farm,but collecting a data
(05:43):
necessarily to, to bringinformation back, to make
decisions and, and to makeadjustments to the farm
operation.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right.
And of course, we're, you know,in these couple of instances,
we're specifically talking abouta grain farmer or a row crop
farmer, but I think it's alsoapplicable to livestock
industries, um, you know,poultry, dairy and beef
operations, all alike.
Uh, they've also seen a largeuptake in robotics or what could
be defined as precisionagriculture.
That's certainly changing theirworkflows also.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
Is case in point number one, wehave specialty crop producers
here in the state of Ohio thathave adopted some of those
robotics because of laborshortages or, or challenges
there.
And then we look at our, um,dairy producers and the high
level of adoption roboticmilkers today.
And so to your point, that's,those are two prime examples
(06:31):
that, you know, it's here, itcontinues to evolve and, and you
continue to see different typesof adoption in these, uh,
different aspects of the foodchain taken advantage of
automation.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah.
And you mentioned somethingthat's obviously becoming more
prevalent, probably maybe on thelarger producing farms, but, uh,
labor shortages, you know,they're very real how, how they
became created is, you know,everybody's got a different
story on each farm as to why thelabor shortage has affected
them.
But precision agriculture hasobviously become a very suitable
and timely response to laborshortages.
(07:06):
Is it driving some more adoptionof precision agriculture
practices on farms?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Um, you know, kind of some of our feedback on that,
not necessarily from surveys,but, but working with some
groups definitely have adopted,uh, we have more farmers asking
questions and showing interest.
And so when I say showinginterest, we've had some say
field days where things like theautonomous tractor, that's
(07:33):
pulling the grain cart to someof the automatic turning options
that are provided throughcompanies like yourselves, where
it's just not auto guidance, ifset up properly, you know, we
still have a person in the cab,but essentially the, the field
operation is managed totally bythe technology, right.
And that includes not only whyit's operating, but it's
actually turned into machineautomatically to.
(07:55):
And so we, we see a lot moreinterest in that as we have
demonstrations and field days,uh, for that by farmers.
And, and a lot of that is notonly becoming more efficient,
right.
That's always a, a bigterminology we've used for many
years, but continues to, to be,uh, something that farmers work
at.
But the fact that there'slimited, uh, labor to support
(08:16):
some of the nominal fieldoperations, why operations
continue to get bigger.
And so the farmers and, and someof their prime employees still
have to get everything done.
So either shortages, they'relooking at ways to be able to
get the field operations donevery timely and efficiently out
there.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And something that's interesting to me that one of
our, our colleagues mentioned tome one time was that every
single farm in America or northAmerica cause Canada is included
in this, whether they have anyform of precision agriculture on
the farm or not, um, they'realways looking to what the next
step is.
So a late adapter is maybelooking to getting into guidance
or auto steering, and thatcustomer that has full RTK
(08:57):
system and maybe variable rateapplication might be looking
into yield data, collecting itor whatever.
What is the driving force forall of these individuals, no
matter what stage of, uh,adoption you're at of precision
a to continue to look toprecision your agricul and
always want the next level.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Dave, that's a really good question.
Number one, I, I guess I wouldalter your comment a little bit
there because some growers, youknow, will come and say, well, I
haven't adopted precision a, butyet they're carrying a
smartphone and do a, quite a bitof business on a smartphone and
have their preferred apps to dobusiness.
And a lot of those arecommercial apps right.
Provided through and they may bepaying for.
(09:39):
And so maybe how you defineprecision ag.
We use the term digital a quitea bit these days because the
whole data, data analytics,advancements being made and
artificial intelligence.
But I guess whether it's apps tothe technologies that a company
like yours provides, right?
The variable rates sectioncontrol, it's improving the
(09:59):
operations, maintaining marginsand profitability.
That's always first andforemost.
And so as I look at it, theoption, you know, can I do more
with less?
And so I'll just take right.
Guidance enables me to, to maybedo some other things why I'm not
only focused on that fieldoperation.
It enables me because themachine's driving itself and
(10:20):
maintaining its performance.
I, I might be able to do somebusiness on my phone while I'm
in the machine.
And so I think it's enabling meto do more with less maintaining
margins is definitely at theforefront.
And without a doubt, when we goback and, and this has been a
little bit on our research, thatthe quality of life has
improved.
And so, um, and maybe you havesome similar experiences where,
(10:42):
you know, you'd work 15 hours aday and the, the 15 hours was
driving a machine and beingresponsible for that machine for
the total time that it wasoperating.
And that, that can, you know,wear you out.
And if not physically wear you,you're at a little bit, but
today, you know, I can still putin 15 hours, but I can probably
do it more efficiently and, anddo other things during the day
(11:04):
beyond just driving the machinebecause that's taken care of
with the technology.
And so, uh, that quality of lifetoday, though, I think what
we're seeing is, as we look at,uh, the data play, and there's a
lot of examples here in northAmerica is making sure that
we're making informed inputdecisions and you know, what
practices work or don't work,but within my operation to
(11:26):
maintain my margins, right?
I mean, it boils down toprofitability, but we look at
some of the, the challengestoday with high input prices and
they continue to rise.
And so all this data to somedegree, if there was a year to
really dig into it and, and lookat things like, well, what am I
gonna do my, with my, myphosphor and potassium programs
(11:48):
this year?
Well, the data should have been,you know, if you had been
collecting the data, uh, youcould have really taken a close
look.
And if not had some years ofanalysis put into play to direct
you to, you know, eitherprioritize what fields get
applied to, Hey, you know, maybethis year I didn't need it.
I, I really don't need to investthat.
(12:09):
I need to really focus over hereon seed.
I need to focus on if I'm, ifnitrogen for, for our corn
producers, uh, and we producersin our area.
I, I think there's really thelogic there to have that data,
to, to inform those, those harddecisions, right?
Those nontraditional decisionsof, Hey, I'm not gonna do that
(12:29):
this year as a cost savingmeasure because of the high
input prices.
Uh, precision ag to me reallywas a, provided an advantage to
growers that have been able tocollect both the yield data, but
more importantly, beencollecting additional data along
the way to be able to look atand make sound decisions in
their operation, consideringwhat we're facing.
(12:50):
Uh, this coming year
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Since 1992 ag express has been a trusted advisor for
ag electronics needs, let agexpress help your operation be
more efficient with your timeand help save you money on input
costs with our precision agsolutions, call us at(515)
446-3400, or visit usonline@wwwdotaexpress.com today.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
And to today, we're joined by John Fulton from Ohio
state.
Um, John, you brought up, youknow, input costs, driving a lot
of decisions on the farm,whether it's to what crop to put
into your crop cycle this year,um, maybe input cautious in
general because of seeds or, orfertilizer or diesel, or even
basic prices.
You know, so far down the lineof just the price of the iron
(13:45):
that you're looking to purchaseto be able to complete those
operations.
I, I think we all know fromworld events that are going on,
which driving some of thesesituations.
Um, but how, how is that trulyaffecting the farms at least
this high input costs?
Do you think we'll adopt moreworkflow changes to the common
day farm or the large scalefarms because of these input
(14:07):
costs rising so much?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I think the, the direct answer to that is most
certainly you're gonna see more,more adoption in this time.
Uh, just simply because again iswhether it's efficiency that
we're trying to gain toinformation, to drive, uh, sound
decision making at the farm, theadages, the more data I have,
(14:33):
the better decisions I should,should make.
You know, we're, we're gonnahave some, some differences
there of, and maybe not make the, the right decision.
But I think that in general,it's, it's definitely building
to that as, especially as we,um, visit with a lot of our
retailers and service providerson this topic.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
And so do you think, um, this is gonna drive some
long term solutions, um, wherenew practices will be
implemented on farms in any ofthose areas that we've
discussed?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
You know, I wanna use to bring into the fold is not
only, you know, this, this ideathat input costs are high and,
and fuel or gas prices, dieselfuel prices are high.
I know in our state, in, inregion, we're really, uh, being
put under a microscope forenvironmental reasons as well.
(15:22):
And so that's part of our, ourchallenge here too, is that the
public, uh, whether theyscrutinize farming to demand
transparency on how we'regrowing crops.
If we look at some of thesustainability type efforts that
are out there to report in, I, Ithink both on the environmental
sustainability now, even carbontype markets that are evolving
(15:45):
here, you know, the requirementunderneath that is data and, and
data around practices.
And so back to your point aboutnew practices, I think we
continue to see things like, uh,precision soil sampling continue
to grow, uh, not only toevaluate, uh, spatially, uh,
soil fertility, and ultimatelymaybe consider things like
(16:08):
variate fertilizer applications,but it also gives us insight of
where we should be putting ourinvestments as a farmer
perspective.
But when we look atsustainability and environmental
reporting needs, it also givesus data to report into those
channels that we're doing theright thing.
We'll say at the right time,when we look at some of the four
R promotions that go on here,uh, in our neck of the woods.
(16:29):
And so it serves multiplepurposes, not only to, to, for
the insights for the grower tomake decisions around practices
and input decisions, but it alsowill, I think provide, uh, input
to some of the sustainability,environmental, and conservation
and, uh, carbon markets thatwe're seeing play out here, at
(16:50):
least in our area.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
So do you think any of these, you know, potential
solutions that could come up and, you know, let's look at
fertilizer for instance, there's, um, definitely an increase in,
in the cost of fertilizer rightnow, and a, a re not a
replacement, but an alternativeto fertilizer is manure.
Um, would we ever see anoffshoot of the grain industry
looking for more nutrients putinto the ground being manure and
(17:16):
then a cattle company, or alivestock operation deciding to
up their increase because theycan sell their manure and make
profitability from that?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Well, we've already seen that actually here in the
state of Ohio and just here inthe, the, you know,
transportation to manure, to thefarms beyond just, you know, the
neighbor or within a countyoutside the county or what we
call counties.
And, and beyond that, farmersare willing to pay some, some
money and it gives them a, adefinitely an alternative to
(17:46):
inorganic fertilizers.
Um, we've even seen a turn towhere we're applying manure in
season and advantage that givesDave.
And so we're looking at, in, ina showcase advantages of the
side dress manure and cornspecifically.
So rather than using an organicsource growers are using, you
(18:06):
know, liquid from swine dairy,uh, and some cattle operations
taking that and, and using it asa sidedress product versus maybe
a UAN, um, you know, 28 or 32,what we normally would have.
So I think we're, we've seensome of that transition that the
growers are willing to, toeither sell and, you know,
(18:28):
farmers willing to pay fortransportation to move some of
that, uh, not extreme distances.
You know, we're not moving itoutta state or anything, but
definitely getting it over tothe next county and, and seeing
it move further than we have inthe past.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
And I guess as the demand for that material goes
up, the only way to get thatmaterial is by increasing your
livestock heard.
And if it's going to helpsupplement an income as a dairy
or as a swine operation, I guessit could potentially be an
offshoot that helps grow thoseherds and, and has an economic
offshoot within the agricultureindustry.
Correct?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah.
I don't know that I would see alot of our livestock producers
growing herds, but it does give'em an opportunity to, to
increase their herd size if themarket is right and, and they
want to do that.
I don't know if they're possiblygonna grow specifically to sell
more manure, but we definitelyhave seen, you know, more
facilities going up.
And, um, and then with those notonly having nutrient what we
(19:26):
call nutrient management planswith the opportunity to move
that manure as a, as afertilizer source, and then not
something we're just trying toget rid of
Speaker 1 (19:35):
What would be, you know, over your career.
Um, I know we've worked for acouple of different
institutions, but what would beone of the most intriguing
products brought to theagricultural industry that you
saw change workflow and how itaffected it, whether it was
guidance or variable rating orany of those things, what, like,
in your time, what was the mostimpressive thing that you felt
was changed agriculturalindustry while you've been in
(19:57):
the, in the industry?
And there's been lots.
I know, probably right.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Well, I mean, you know, at the onset, definitely
guidance was, was prettyintriguing and, and now you look
, seems like every machine soldhas guidance embedded into it.
And so that's definitely had aninfluence, uh, across, you know,
not only north America, but aswe look at Europe, the number of
guidance systems or autoguidance systems, you know, in
(20:22):
terms of actual workflows andwhere we are today, you know, I
look at is ver rate.
And I wanna kind of note that, Ithink about the workflow today
of going from, we'll say asample to creating a, a
prescription to having that atthe machine to execute whether
(20:43):
that's a planting to fertilizerapplication prescription.
I tell you that the software inconjunction with the variable
rate capabilities is pretty,pretty amazing today.
Uh, in my mind, Dave, I mean, itused to take us hours, if not
days, it felt like to, to gothrough that process.
(21:03):
And today, and just as a, anumber, it may be 24 plus steps
to get that done, to go from asample all the way through the
softwares and uploading,downloading, and thumb drives
and making a recommendation andrevising that recommendation and
getting to the machine andputting it in the display and
(21:23):
then actually hitting the onbutton.
And it actually does something,you know, today we're doing that
in, uh, probably steps that areless than what we count on both
hands today.
And so not only is it thesoftware, but the technology and
the telematics and wireless, youknow, over 90% of the north
American retailers providedisservices to enable that
(21:44):
today.
And so to me, that's been a,it's been taking us while, but
it sets us up for futureopportunities, especially when
we think about automation,because ultimately we're gonna
have to have prescriptions inplay to tell those robots what
to do out in the field.
And so we've really built acapacity to enable ver rate, but
specifically to do prescriptionsand, and do that pretty
(22:07):
efficiently today.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Right.
And, and, you know, to build onthat just variable rate itself.
I know within Topcon productsuite, we can variable rate
things from broad acre seatingdown to, you know, row cropping
down to wet manure, dry manure,dry fertilizer broadcasting, so
variable rating.
And of course the sprayer.
So variable rating, isn't justone or two applications anymore.
(22:30):
It's just about time.
You are putting something ontoyour soil.
There's a capability to makesure that your workflow and your
input costs and all of thosethings together are, uh, kind of
regulated by the most efficientway of variable rating.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well, and I look at, you know, going to the question
around manure, I mean, you guyshave a, an IR sensor today
that's available to measure theconcentrations of that manure
totally N PK.
And those are steps.
Not only to understand whatyou're doing out in the field,
right, as feedback, but reallyare steps towards automation
where I can actually adjustequipment in this case, tractor
(23:04):
speed or whatever on thatapplication equipment to, to
make sure we're applying what'srecommended out there on the
field.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Absolutely.
John, thank you very much foryour time.
I know you're probably a verybusy man this time of the year,
and I, I can't tell you how muchappreciated this conversation.
I know our listeners willcertainly have probably found it
very enlightening and, andinformational.
And I thank you very much onceagain, for taking some time
outta your day to join us on topcontact talks, agriculture.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Thanks for having me, Dave,
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Thank you once again for joining us on Topcon talks,
agriculture for today'sinteresting information about
input costs and changing theworkflow with John Bolton from
Ohio state.
Don't forget to follow us on anyof your favorite social media
outlets, such as Facebook,Twitter, or Instagram.
And please listen to ourpodcast.
Anytime it's Spotify, applepodcast, Google podcast, or
wherever you get your favoritepodcast from take care and look
(23:53):
forward to chatting with younext time.
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