Be Precise
February 13, 2012 Dr. Ed Barnes, Director, Agricultural Research at Cotton Incorporated says now is the time to make the jump to precision agriculture, if you have not already.
“With dollar cotton, one of the things I really want to stress to our producers is that now is the time to invest in the precision technologies, because you might have a little extra money in the bank and you can pay cash for it,” he says.
It’s even more important to take the leap because, “unfortunately with all this volatility, we know these good margins are not going to last forever,” says Barnes. “Some of the work we’ve done shows very clearly the importance of the precision technology will become even greater as the gap between production costs and cotton price narrows.”
A Cotton Incorporated study showed that the number one priority across the country is input cost.
“Even though we have dollar cotton, we have higher nitrogen prices too,” Barnes continues. “As inputs get even more expensive, it becomes even more important to be very precise in applications.”
In another Cotton Incorporated study with Extension cotton specialists contributing indicated that using too much nitrogen will actually show yield reductions relatively quickly. So you may be spending more and producing less. Precision applications of NPK fertilizers were one of the first of the variable rate technologies to use GPS systems and precision applicators.
“At the very basic level across the Cotton Belt, consultants offer this as a service – they’ll go out and grid sample. After they pull the samples they send them off to the testing labs,” Barnes continues. “A lot of custom applicators already have the ability to create grid maps from the samples to make variable rate applications. That’s the easiest way to do it, because you can have third parties take care of all the nuts and bolts and you get the benefits.”
But Barnes says it’s time to take it up a notch to the second level. “The next level – and we have consultants offering this service, too – is zone management,” Barnes explains. “Instead of doing everything on a grid, they use a Veris machine to indentify soil variability. Then you can start doing smart sampling. You still have to go out and pull samples, but you’re pulling them where the soil changes.
“I’m not against grid sampling, but sometimes it can be real inefficient when soil type changes. It does take a little more work because you have to interpret things,” he continues. “Once you know where your soil type changes, you don’t have to use the Veris machine every year. You don’t even have to pull samples every year once you have a feel for where things are changing.”
In-season applications of nitrogen would also be at that level.
“We’ve done a lot of work using equipment-mounted sensors to vary nitrogen rates in real time,” says Barnes. “There are three different companies producing the sensors now, so you have options and it drives competition.”
And Cotton Incorporated will attempt to document the benefits of cotton yield monitor use, because use is still low. “Right now it’s only 10% to 15% yield monitor use,” Barnes says. “How you download the data and create the maps is a little more complicated than people want to deal with right now. So we need to make it easier.”
But a step in that direction is already taking place. The Case IH 625 Module Express comes equipped with a yield monitor, and the John Deere 7760 is prewired.
“It’s not an expensive option and it’s not too hard to install,” says Barnes. “When you’re talking about a $600,000 or $700,000 picker, go ahead and spend the extra money to get the yield monitors. Even though we need to make it easier, every year you don’t have a yield map, you’re a year behind.”
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