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Michaela Paukner:

Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Podcast, brought to you by the UltraMate lineup by the Andersons. I'm Michaela Paukner, managing editor at No-Till Farmer.

In today's episode of the podcast, no-tillers from around the US discuss their outlook on autonomy and agriculture, and the most valuable precision technologies in use on their farms. Let's get started with a conversation with executive editor Kim Schmidt, Bucyrus, Kansas no-tiller Nick Guetterman, and Ohio State University ag engineer John Fulton. You'll hear them speak in that order.

Kim Schmidt:

One thing that I was going to ask that we didn't get to in there was where you put yourself on the adoption curve for some of this technology advancement when it comes to autonomy and some of the more robotic-type applications that are starting to emerge. Where do you see that on your own operation?

Nick Guetterman:

I would think the first thing we would look at when you think of autonomy is something like a drone. Might be the first thing we would adopt, though I think for us they're limited from one aspect, from fungicide applications. They don't have, my opinion for our farm, enough water to carry the fungicide or insecticide into the canopy like a ground rig that we currently use does, where we're using 20 gallon of water to penetrate the canopy, especially non-GMO corn, to get insecticide down on the silk. Then I see them limited for as far as applying cover crops on carrying capacity, not that they couldn't get better and improve.

I think that'd be the first thing we'd adopt, more so over than, maybe, an autonomous tractor or something like that, because our field shape and size is so odd. We have a lot of small and irregular-shaped fields, a lot of terraces that we don't do tillage. That would be the first thing I'd put an autonomous tractor on doing. Autonomous tractor on a planter or a drill is ... Maybe a drill drilling wheat or beans, potentially. I'm not ready to put it on a corn planter.

John Fulton:

Yeah. I agree with that.

Kim Schmidt:

Too much that could go wrong?

John Fulton:

That is the important pass, right? That sets the ground for the rest of the season. It's just too important, I think. Can't mess it up.

Nick Guetterman:

I've seen pictures, I haven't seen one in person, of a smaller, self-propelled but battery-powered autonomous planter. Is it battery powered, or has it got an engine on it?

John Fulton:

There's a couple different ones.

Nick Guetterman:

Like a four-row, or-

John Fulton:

Yeah.

Nick Guetterman:

That's got my eye, more so. Not trying to put autonomy on the current machine, but maybe making a machine around autonomy. Lighter weight. I think compaction is probably near and dear to me. Just, having heavy things out on the field is hard on the soil. I'm a soil health person.

If we could get out there a little earlier with a lighter weight autonomous machine, I think that there's something to that. Maybe it could be potentially cheaper than a big lot of iron. You obviously have to have a lot more of them, but if they don't have a motor, and fuel tank, and all that, then maybe that could save on some cost to allow for more machines.

Kim Schmidt:

What are you guys seeing in, just, the research you're doing in [inaudible 00:03:52] and things like that?

John Fulton:

To add on to Nick, we've got a lot of growers ... They're not doing thousands of acres of cover crops, but 40 to, 200, maybe, 400 acres. They need a tool that delivers cover crops the latter part of the season, gets them seeded in the timeframe that we need to get growth prior to, especially, frost these days.

That drones have become an option for them to use to get cover crops out, where they didn't even really have a tool. They would have to get with someone commercially that either was a plane or a high clearance machine, and that just wasn't working. We just didn't have the custom application opportunities for those growers.

This has, all of a sudden, become an option, which I think is great. Again, it's maybe not for someone like what Nick's operating. But I do think what I suggest, if we came back to Nick in four or five years, he'll probably say, "We figured out how drones have complemented our other pieces." Especially if I got irregular-shaped fields, could a drone do some things in those fields more efficiently than a ground machine can do?

I think there will be gains there, but we got to get to the point where they're robust enough. We're getting there, and you have confidence that it can perform in that manner and complement the suite of machines that you're running out there.

The other thing I think I would add on the autonomy side is ... Again, I keep talking to Nick alluding to it. When you're in the harvest operation, it's a busy time of year. It's logistics, in my opinion, because I've got harvesters, I've got grain carts, I've got semis or wagons running. Typically, growers will have another operation that they want to complete during that period, whether it's sowing wheat, whether it's maybe tillage. I know some of our growers in the state of Ohio, because of labor challenges and just not having enough people, "I can't do all that concurrently and sustain it."

I do think, as whether we got OEMs coming to market here pretty quick, that there'll be some options, and in certain conditions ... It may not be those small fields, but conditions where autonomous tractor can be performing an operation while the harvest operation is where you got your manpower. Our growers ... It's dependent. They talk about sowing wheat, they talk about having an autonomous tractor to do some tillage while they're harvesting. Then the other thing that they see is potentially automating the grain cart, if they can build that in and bring efficiencies, if it doesn't slow things up. Those are some real decisions.

I think the big thing that the growers that I get concerned about is ... Do they have the tractors that are ... We talked back in the day, "Was your tractor guidance ready?" Remember those days?

Nick Guetterman:

Mm-hmm.

John Fulton:

Now that's not a thing. But, is your tractor autonomous ready?

Nick Guetterman:

You bet.

John Fulton:

All of a sudden, do you have the machine that can ... If an OEM or a third party can turn it on, do you have the wiring harness and the components there without a huge investment to make it work?

That's what we've been trying to educate our growers on, is, as you think forward, if you're thinking that you might jump to that in the next three years, as you trade even for older model tractors, is that model tractor, for example, going to be autonomous ready if it turned on today or in that three years?

Kim Schmidt:

What are the main concerns either of you have as technology moves that way towards autonomy and things like that? What could prevent you from embracing it?

Nick Guetterman:

Costs. Maybe not autonomy. I got a real fear of, when we talk about the see and spray technology, of it not saving the farmer any money, it's something the farmer just has to adopt to control his weeds. I see all that benefit of that technology winding up in shareholders' hands in Wall Street instead of benefiting the farmer or the local community.

This is where I didn't touch on that on the panel, I wanted to, was, what do we as farmers and everyone that was in the audience that was short line equipment manufacturers ... What can we develop mechanically to control weeds with cultural practices that doesn't require sea and spray technology? Whether it be rolling down a cover crop with a roller crimper that doesn't require herbicides, things ... What can we do to make ourselves more profitable to solve our problems that we don't have to pay the guy to figure out for us?

John Fulton:

Cost is always on top of mind for any grower, right? That's first. But if you take that off, I really think connectivity is going to be a challenge, and it continues. I know we're spending quite a bit of money here in the US to bring real broadband to all these communities, but it isn't 100% coverage. I would say that it just can't be connectivity, but it's going to have to have the bandwidth, right? It's got to be 4G LTE or 5G scenario to run some of this technology.

You take Nick. It's not one machine, it's going to be three machines out there. Is the bandwidth there that, if I did and feel like I want to invest in and adopt it, is the bandwidth there? I think that's a hurdle that we are very much challenged with, to give the opportunities to growers to choose what is ...

I'll tell you, in the last two years, Ohio farmers are behind the eight-ball. There's technology out there that in some cases could provide value to the farm, and they can't adopt because of the ...

Kim Schmidt:

Structure?

John Fulton:

Yeah. We are really good about talking about download speeds because we want to watch things like Netflix, and Prime, and things like that. That's all download speeds. But in order to make a lot of this autonomy work, you got to have the upload speed.

We talk about symmetry, meaning that I might need 50 down, 50 up in order for that technology to work, or 100 by 100, or 100 by 50 download, upload type scenarios. Those are real, and so we got to make sure that ... I think, for the American farmers cross this nation to be competitive in the future, we've got to ensure that that's there for them to be able to adopt the technology.

Europe's doing it, and they're ahead. For my farmers not to be able to adopt some of these technology, that's a concern on my part. Again, I'm not advocating for it, but if Nick wants to try it or wants to and he can't, I feel like that's putting him behind the eight-ball.

Nick Guetterman:

You're saying, really, fiber doesn't ... It's got to be cell phone coverage?

John Fulton:

Fiber's going to be a key element, but fiber's not going to be trenched all-

Nick Guetterman:

The ... Right.

John Fulton:

But it's going to be this-

Nick Guetterman:

You can put a router at the end of your field hooked up to your fiber, but that's not efficient. It's got to be a tower that you're hooking up to somewhere.

John Fulton:

You get into the combination of fiber and private, like 4G, 5G networks, to get your coverage that you need.

Kim Schmidt:

Anything, questions you have on ... Maybe questions for John on what to be preparing for related to the technology, and data usage, and stuff like that?

Nick Guetterman:

Questions or challenges? It's a good ... See if John can answer that one.

John Fulton:

I don't know if I've got an answer, but I will say we've come a long ways. We talked about some of the challenges today, but I also look back 10 years ago and then even 20 years ago about some of the, just, connectivity challenges, and being able to do what we were trying to do back then. We've overcome a lot to get to the point we are today.

My point in that is, going back to Nick, he can today buy whatever color tractor and connect it to a planter or some of these implements of a different color, and things are working today. That didn't happen 10, 20 years ago. In particular with the ISO and the CANbus push, that we've made a lot, but I still think we'd continue to be able to connect and put the information in front of the farmers that they need in order to improve the efficiencies. In terms of making this, we're talking about the USDA, doesn't come out. Nick, you brought up a great point up.

Today, I know ... I've seen it. We know what planting progress is in real time. There's technology in Ohio that I know what the planting progress is for a county. That isn't published, but my point is, does that help in all this?

If I can get information in Nick's hands about markets, about his cost, about what's happening in the operation as you connect all these things up, that's going to be more value for him to think through, "I've got it planned out. I might have a three-year plan here, but in real time I can begin to understand, am I maintaining my plan? Am I verifying what I've done? But I can also be more fluid in making adjustments to maybe save some dollars or make dollars in certain ways as we come along."

We're not to that, in my opinion, but we can be. Again, I'll highlight that connectivity's going to be a real key to enable all that.

Nick Guetterman:

You bet. I'd say a question, challenge that I have ... We've seen the onset of traits in the last five years of ... We've had Xtend, Enlist. Then Enlist's come along with Liberty, and XtendFlex has been obviously ... Glufosinate's an option. Talk of all three of them being ... Dicamba, 2,4-D, glufosinate all are going to be in the same soybean.

I got weeds resistant to all of them. It's going to take new chemistry. I'm afraid it's going to cost $100 an acre. That's my biggest concern and question.

It goes back to I've saying. I've said it two or three times this morning. When that happens, it's going to go to shareholders on Wall Street, and it's going to take money out of our rural community. But, at the same time, it's technology that's needed to feed the world.

I think there's room for technology to be put into cover crops, genetics to help them perform better. We're working with old cultivars that haven't been worked with, bred too much for what we're using them for. We're just taking B&S cover crops, and selling them and placing them all over the country.

Think of things that ... My goal on my farm or my goal for agriculture is to culturally and biologically control weeds, not with chemicals. I think that's the best thing for our soil and for our farmers' pocketbooks. Some advancements in cover crops could help with that, whether it be through different traits or finding different cultivars.

I think there are some places that are working on that. One of the places I've toured in the last few months is the Donald Danforth Center in St. Louis. They're working with finding different DNA and working with ... But we think of ... The Big Ag is not working on that. The Cortevas, the Syngentas, the Bayers ... I think they're still hunting for 300-bushel corn or 400-bushel corn, or trying to advance the ... and putting traits in it. But that's where they make their money, is traits.

That might be coming to the end if the traits aren't effective. If you can't, for what the weeds ... for what they're resistant to for what ... Those herbicides don't kill the weeds, for what those traits were used for, then they're no longer of value. That's one of the biggest questions and challenges I see for our future and for profitability, for sure.

John Fulton:

What about resilience of plants? Because I got to believe you're like us. Springs are just a flip of the coin. We've lost 10 working days in April on average, 10 working days in October, so we're crunched even more.

My question is going to your comments about this year, but what about just having plants that can be resilient to all these different weather patterns that couldn't ... Whether it's later planted, gets dry for three weeks, four weeks, it might even be June, it could be July next year, could be August, like what normally is. What about plants being able to be a little more resilient to that?

Nick Guetterman:

You bet. Weather's always been ... I don't want to say it's climate change, because I don't know that climate's changing. It's always been a challenge. I think we're more aware of it than we used to be.

We've planted a lot of corn in June. We grow some specialty corn that is low in seedling vigor. Planting in April, and getting a bunch of rain on it and sitting in the mud ... It don't work out very well. It gets a lot of seedling diseases, and it can damp off.

One of the ways we've come by that is wait for a good planting forecast where it looks like it's going to be warm and drier, and it can come out the ground pretty fast. It's led to us planting quite a bit of corn in June.

It's been successful for us. It's taken some extra management. It's non-GMO, so the bugs' populations are higher, especially earworms and fall armyworm pressure. When the corn is pollinating, it gets in the ear. We've had to spray more for that.

But we've had great success growing corn later, because on our farm in East Central Kansas, we get 38 inches of rain. A lot of that comes in May and June. If we look at some data and start compiling it, we lose more yield sometimes from too wet than too dry. We've actually, "Okay. It's wet. We know we're going to lose a bunch of yield. Let's wait for that to pass and plant later." It's actually been successful for us to some degree. Almost we've realized that we're losing more yield from too wet than too dry at times. It takes some resilient plants to do that.

One of the other challenge we've had with, too, is I had planted a hairy vetch cover crop last year and half the field winter killed. Was that because of the ... Don't know what variety it was. It was variety not stated. Was the variety I had no good, or is it just ... Those are the kinds of things ... We got to maybe start applying some of this technology we've applied to our corn and soybeans to some of these cover crops if we're going to make them more successful and they're going to get adopted widespread.

John Fulton:

If you backed up time 20 years, what would your dad had said? You were going to plant corn in June. What would he have said 20 years ago?

Nick Guetterman:

"Better plant milo."

John Fulton:

Exactly. My point in that is we have made progress, because a few years ago in Ohio, we planted ... To your point, through genetic and resilience, we could grow 200 bushel corn even planted in June. I'm not saying we could do that every year, but your dad would flipped out if you had mentioned that to him 20 years-

Nick Guetterman:

He wouldn't let me. He still flips out a little bit, and scratches his head. Then he gets in the combine, and it's yield, and he scratching his head some more.

John Fulton:

My point in that-

Nick Guetterman:

He had a landlord ask about it that didn't like that we planted some corn in June. He says, "I don't like it either, but alls I can say is it's working."

John Fulton:

The beauty of that, though, right, Nick? Is, depending on how you ... It's all this technology is, to learn and improve, to enhance. Now you got more tools at your disposal to figure out what works best in your operation.

Nick Guetterman:

You bet. Definitely, we have more information. I think I said that earlier in the panel, that we have all of our data recorded in the Cloud of when things were done. We can go back now and pull up the year. "Back in 2019, we planted this field on this day, and it made this."

We kind of had that before, but you got to go find the Excel spreadsheet, probably in a file cabinet. We don't know that that day was ... There's nothing backing up, that was just what somebody wrote down on a piece of paper that got put into the computer. Was that actual? But when it's been recorded by a computer in the Cloud, it's pretty hard to argue with that, right?

Michaela Paukner:

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Next up, No-Tiller's Joe Hamilton of Muncie, Indiana and Tim Norris of no-till capital of the world Knox County, Ohio share their perspectives on technology and autonomy in agriculture. This conversation is from the 2024 Precision Farming Dealer Summit.

Noah Newman:

Joe, if you just want to tell us more about your background and your farm ...

Joe Hamilton:

Sure. I farm about 2500 acres, mostly corn and soybeans. I'm 100% no-till and have been for five years, and I'm also 100% cover crops now. I farm some non-GMO soybeans, some other specialty soybeans, non-GMO corn.

Noah Newman:

How about you, Tim? What can you tell us about Norris Grain Farms?

Tim Norris:

Basically the goal for my farm has changed a lot. Because, for the first several years that I farmed, I was always farming to play with the equipment that I was selling, and trying to learn about the tools and the services that we offered at Ag Info Tech. One, trying to prove those, and using that data to help convince other growers to adopt. Now that I sold the company, the farm is my main focus. Now I'm trying to make sure the farm is profitable.

I farm basically with myself, and then the first employee that I had hired at Ag Info Tech ... When I left, he came to the farm as well. He wanted to farm with me. We farm about 950 acres of our own corn, soybeans, wheat, and sunflowers. Then we do about 750 acres of custom planting, and harvesting, and actually spraying now for neighbors.

Noah Newman:

I'll start peppering you guys with a couple of questions here to start. Joe, just tell us about some of the cutting-edge technology you're using right now that ... It's given you that winning edge on your farm.

Joe Hamilton:

I think that the most important technology for me is variable rate applications of broadcast amendments. Because I'm no-till and I'm very interested in soil health, it takes several years for the applications to really make a change. I need to get the right product in the right place at the right time. Any over or under applications can really slow me down for several years.

Noah Newman:

How about you, Tim? Tell us about some of the technology you're using.

Tim Norris:

I think the thing that's helped the most is the hydraulic downforce. One of the things, especially in no-till ... You've got to wait on no-till for the conditions to be right. Sometimes it's like 80% of the field's right there, and then there's that other 20% that's not. If you didn't have hydraulic downforce, if you went on days like that, I think it could be devastation to the crop. You're not going to get a good seed stand. I think the hydraulic downforce has really helped us with that.

Noah Newman:

When you're looking ahead to this coming year, maybe even next year, Joe, are there any kind of upgrades or certain technologies you're interested in maybe adding to your arsenal?

Joe Hamilton:

I think my biggest upgrade in the next year will be a new self-propelled sprayer. My current sprayer is 11 years old. I'm looking forward to a new display, boom height control. With non-GMO soybeans and planting green into cover crops, I usually make five passes a year with the sprayer, and so I spend a lot of time in the sprayer. I'm really looking forward to some new technology there.

Noah Newman:

How about you, Tim?

Tim Norris:

We're going to add the RightSpot from Ag Leader onto our sprayer this year. I've got an older 2006 Rogator. I'm putting more money into the electronics than what I paid for the sprayer, so that's a little nerve racking, but hopefully the sprayer's in good mechanical condition and will last.

Of that 1700 acres that we're spraying on, our average field size is about 15 acres. Our larger fields are cut in half by waterways, making that even smaller. I can't wait to see the savings that I'm going to have by not having to outline the waterways with the sprayer, let alone it's going to help me do a lot better job by keeping a constant pressure, a constant droplet size. Really helping us get the most effectiveness out of those products that we're applying, and not having them drift away or applying them in the wrong way, too large of a droplet size.

Noah Newman:

Tim, when you think about some of the pain points of when you're adopting new precision technology, or some of the barriers that might keep some other farmers that you know from adopting it, what comes to mind? Just talking about some of the potential pain points that you've experienced.

Tim Norris:

As a farmer, I've always been trained to cost. Cost comes to mind. But, if you can look at the ROI on it, a lot of these technologies have a really fast ROI.

One of the biggest pain points that I've had, though, is adopting technology maybe too early. Then, when you go to upgrade, when there's something new that comes out, that technology is not upgradable or not compatible with the next upgrade. I really like to look at companies that have a integrated upgrade path where you can always add to the system.

Noah Newman:

How about you, Joe? Have you had any challenges when you're implementing new technology, or ...

Joe Hamilton:

My biggest challenge is training operators and troubleshooting. I have several guys that are older, have never used a smartphone. I will put them in a piece of equipment, I'll be 20 minutes away, and they'll call me, having problems. It's very difficult for me to troubleshoot and solve their problems.

Kim Schmidt:

Are you guys running connected equipment on your operation?

Joe Hamilton:

I do use JDLink with John Deere Operations Center. I don't know that the service technician uses it very often. It's good for me to sit at my computer and be able to tell how close to service I am on some of my equipment, but the biggest thing is looking at the yield monitor at the end of the day on having telematics and connected equipment.

Tim Norris:

I do not use any telematics services other than Ag Leader's Agfinity, and it's really not ... I'm not considering it telematics because it only syncs when I come back to the farm and hit "Connect to the Wi-Fi." But it is nice to have that data flowing in from the machines every time they come back to the shop. We have several areas that don't have connection to the internet, so I have not really went with the connected piece yet.

Noah Newman:

Tim, what's your take on autonomy? Does it currently have a place on your farm, or do you see it having a place on your farm in the next five to ten years?

Tim Norris:

I've wanted autonomy since I first saw auto steer. I was trying to figure out ... We had put a light bar on a horse-drawn sprayer, so Amish could tell where he was spraying through the field. He was joking with me, "Can we put the EZ-Steer on so it'll pull the ropes and the reins too?"

I've always thought autonomy would be something that would be coming sooner than it has. For those of you that don't know, I spent a year with Smart Ag and a year with Raven on the AutoCart. That really excited me. That technology I could see working on my farm and helping me out a ton.

Unfortunately, I don't have it yet. I don't have a tractor new enough, and don't really know if it's totally released yet or not. Last year, we had a Fendt on the farm, and we had a group from Brazil coming up. Ag Info Tech brought this Sabanto Fendt out, and we got to mow 40 acres of pasture with it. It was really neat to see.

I'm really looking forward to it. I don't know if I'm going to be able to afford it, if you have to have a brand new tractor and the technology on top of that. But if it will retrofit to tractors that are 10, 15 years old, I could see it having a fit.

Noah Newman:

Joe, autonomy ... Does it seem like a science fiction movie to you, or is it pretty close to having a place on your farm?

Joe Hamilton:

No, I think it is close. If Tesla can create a self-driving car that can drive down the highway with all the unknowns and variables present on the highway, why can't we make a tractor that drives itself in the field?

I would use it as a time savings. If I can spray 90 acres an hour sitting in the sprayer, I don't want to be able to spray 90 acres an hour standing by the side of the field, babysitting the autonomous sprayer. It has to be a time savings for me.

With weather events every year shortening my planning window, a lot of times I'm riding the planter one day and spraying the next. If I have 10 good days to plant and I just burn up one of those because I had to get out of the planter and get in the sprayer, that's very inefficient for me and my operation.

I think autonomy will take a place on this farm, but, just like Tim said, it's going to be cost. I don't cover 25,000 acres, I cover 2500. It has to be a cost-effective solution for me.

Tim Norris:

Joe?

Joe Hamilton:

Yeah.

Tim Norris:

It sounds like you're thinking like I am on autonomy. Are you thinking it would be something awesome for planting cover crops or doing your fall spraying while you're in the field with the combine? Because that's how I view it working.

Joe Hamilton:

Or spring spraying. When I'm in the planter, if it can be spraying in the field next to me that I just planted, that's where I see autonomy working for me.

I do use a no-till drill and I cover a lot of acres, drilling cover crops. It's a mindless job. You cover 10 acres an hour and drive 5 miles an hour through the field. If I could automate that, that would be great.

Noah Newman:

All this technology is coming so fast. I went to the FIRA conference a couple of years ago, and my head wanted to explode. How much do you rely on dealerships, these guys here, to keep you up to speed on that? Tim, do you think they could do maybe a better job of educating people, or what's the challenge there? You have a unique background in that.

Tim Norris:

I rely on the dealership and the dealership meetings, and then coming to meetings like this, and the National No-Till Conference. I also moderate a peer group of ... Let's see. There's nine precision Ag dealers, so I get a lot of information from them and get to see what's going on on different segments. That's how I stay educated.

Joe Hamilton:

As much as dealers and conferences help me, Facebook groups have been great for troubleshooting problems. Chances are, if I'm having a problem, someone else has seen it, and farmers tend to be pretty open to sharing their lessons learned. No matter if it's a dealer or a Facebook group, wherever I can get help, I'm glad to receive it.

Noah Newman:

I know there was an article, I believe it was in the Wall Street Journal, I think, about OEM shifting more to the retrofit mindset. Tim, I wanted to ask you, what's your take on that?

Tim Norris:

I definitely think that'll help increase adoption, although that's what we built our business on. It's what Precision Planting, Ag Leader, Trimble, Raven have all built their business around, retrofitting equipment.

It's neat to start to see that the mainline dealerships or mainline equipments are actually buying some of these companies, with Case purchasing Raven, and AGCO getting the majority share of Trimble and then owning Precision Planning. I think that's just going to help that adoption of retrofitting existing equipment.

Joe Hamilton:

Those tractors that I own ... They get less than 150 hours a year. A lot of times they're 10, 20, 30, 40, over 40 years old, and I've put auto steer systems and displays in them. It's important for me to be able to retrofit anything that I have. I don't want to go out and buy a $500,000 tractor to plant cover crops with, but I do want auto steer so I'm not overlapping in every round.

I think, when we talk about autonomy, and going to ... John Deere has done a great job of making very expensive tractors that are comfortable for an operator to ride in. When we shift to an autonomous mindset, a lot of the cheaper equipment that's not as operator friendly will be a great platform for an autonomous system if it can be retrofitted.

Noah Newman:

Do you have any questions for each other? I know you just met each other. Were there any immediate precision-related topics that you discussed right away, or that you both really were at the top of your list to talk with each other about?

Joe Hamilton:

For me, it was interesting to hear Tim's perspective on the subscription model. I see it. I see manufacturers wanting to sell you a receiver display and all the hardware you need to install it in your tractor. Maybe I'm getting older, but it's tough for me to swallow the $2000 or $5000-a-year cost for that system, versus buying it once for $10,000 or $15,000 and owning it forever.

Tim Norris:

One of the things I'm curious about is 2500 acres of no-till, and you're able to put cover crop on all 2500 acres. How do you accomplish that? Because, with two people, we just can't do that.

Joe Hamilton:

A lot of it is aerial applied. I'm in the USDA NRCS EQIP program. With that, it comes with restrictions. I have to apply cover crop in standing crop. I will hire an airplane to come in for two days and fly on cover crop.

The other part of it is I hire retired guys. I hire guys that 70 years old and used to drive a semi, and want something to do. Sometimes I'm a marriage counselor as much as a farmer. They like spending time in tractors, and I like having them. For the cover crops that we drill after harvest, they've been a great solution for me.

Tim Norris:

That's good, because my brother just quit farming and I took over his farm. I told him, "If you want something to do, you can plant my cover crops." That's what we're going to try for this fall.

Noah Newman:

Good stuff there. Are either of you planning to take advantage of possible carbon credits, and where does Precision Ag play into that?

Joe Hamilton:

It's already playing into it. I upload my cover crop planting, and I'm getting paid per acre for my soil health practices. I don't know that I agree with everything that's going on with carbon credits. Some of it's difficult for me to take advantage of because I've been doing it for too long. They want to see adoption and additive practices. But keeping track of it all with my precision equipment has been beneficial for me.

Tim Norris:

I see the data management aspect from the precision equipment being able to track everything you've done helping a ton. I am not taking advantage of the carbon credits. I don't think it's enough of an income for the risk that I feel that you might be taking with it.

I just think there could be some legal ramifications if the practices that you implement don't actually sequester the amount of carbon that they think that you're going to sequester. I'm just afraid that they could come back on you when you look at some of those legal agreements. I have not really made that step yet for the price that I would get per acre.

Noah Newman:

Do you guys use drones? I know you said aerial apply cover crops.

Joe Hamilton:

A little bit. Previously it's been a manned airplane that's flown them on. This year I did do 80 acres through a Indiana State Department of Agriculture program, and it was flown on with a drone. They brought two UAVs out and alternated back and forth.

It worked really well for me. I live close to houses. I farm close to houses. I farm close to highways. Sometimes it's tough to get the guy with the airplane to apply on those fields. If it can be cost and timing effective for me to use a autonomous or a remote-control UAV to do those fields, it would be huge for me.

Tim Norris:

I've used drones for several years. When I was at Ag Info Tech, I used them quite a bit. We struggled a lot with getting the images stitched together because it was in the beginning phases. We struggled with finding enough room to actually land the drone. We were using the AgEagle systems. They required like 1000 feet of flat area to land, and that was just hard for us to find in our area. The helicopters have been a great asset. I use those for field scouting now, but I have not used anything for aerial application.

However, one of the guys from the local co-op, that used to spray my fields before I got a Rogator, started a company of spraying with drones. I'm hoping he gets a dry system this year and we can actually do some cover crop seeding too with that to try to see how it works for us.

Noah Newman:

You see so many drones on the market, and everyone's billing theirs as the fastest and largest. Or you go to the Farm Progress Show or the Ag Equipment Expo, and you see all these different kinds of products and technologies.

I'm just curious. How do you sift through what's worth investing in or not? Does it just come down to ROI when you're looking at new products and you have all these different brands, or maybe your dealership's showing you all these different kind of products? All come down to ROI, or what?

Joe Hamilton:

I think ROI and manpower, labor that it takes to run it, as well. I have seen the systems where you have 10 drones and, while one is landing, you're changing out batteries and refilling, and they just keep working their way through. Like I said earlier, if I'm spraying 90 acres an hour now, and I buy an autonomous sprayer and I'm still only covering 90 acres an hour and I'm standing at the edge of the field, I don't know that it's a great benefit for my operation.

Tim Norris:

I think it should come down to ROI for me. I love ROI and I talk about it a lot, but the honest fact is I still have my first computer I ever bought, which is a Commodore VIC-20 that had 4K of RAM. It's sitting in a display case in my office. I was one of the first people to have auto steer when it didn't pay.

If autonomy came out and it didn't have an ROI, I'd probably buy one just because I want to be the first in the area to really utilize it. I guess it should come to ROI, but a lot of times I make those decisions just because I like the technology.

Michaela Paukner:

Thanks to Nick Guetterman, John Fulton, Joe Hamilton, and Tim Norris for today's conversation. A transcript for this episode is available at no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts.

Many thanks to the UltraMate lineup by the Andersons for helping to make this No-Till Podcast series possible. From all of us here at No-Till Farmer, I'm Michaela Paukner. Thanks for listening.