Reading Time: 7 minutes Over the years, few field operations have caused growers more head scratching. Seeding is the critical first step in getting a good crop, and there are many variables in play. Is the seedbed right? Are the fertilizer and seed separation acceptable? Is the seed placed evenly? Is it being sown at the right depth? As […] Read more
High-tech seeding
New equipment options promise growers more and better control over this critical field operation
Manage your farm fleet
The trucking industry is adopting technology to ramp up its strategic fleet management. Is it time for farmers to get on board too?
Reading Time: 6 minutes It’s standard now for truck companies to use GPS and sensors to track operations and vehicle maintenance from a central office. Driver performance gets recorded, efficiency gets analyzed and truck costs get scrutinized, not to mention all the stats that need to get pulled together for government paperwork in the transportation sector. On the farm, […] Read more
Big data in Canadian agriculture? Not yet
Precision agriculture proponents are convinced that the technology will pay off, but that data collection needs to be standardized and not require farmers’ time during the busy seasons
Reading Time: 6 minutes Watching over the fencerow to see how the neighbour is growing that nice crop is a long tradition in farming. Are we heading into an era where you can look over the digital fencerow to look at the neighbour’s data on nutrient placement, seeding rates, variety selection and combine speed? Increasingly each piece of equipment […] Read more
Getting rich from your farm data
Data protection isn’t just for geeks. If you farm, you’ve got a pile of real dollars at stake. Here’s how
Reading Time: 8 minutes Farmers do all they can to protect their crops and livestock from pests, diseases and weather. We insure our buildings and equipment. We adopt marketing strategies to protect against price declines. But if you ask what we do to protect our farm data, you’ll usually get met with a blank stare. That’s not good. Information […] Read more
Lessons learned from the last crop
It pays to do some ‘regressive analysis’ to see if some practice or treatment helped a crop excel even under adverse conditions
Reading Time: 3 minutes Yield results aren’t necessarily the end of the story, says a longtime western Canadian agrologist who recommends farmers get more scientific about how they use those yield numbers as a reference point for examining the past season, and for planning the next year. Increasingly, data analysis will drive crop production, says Rob Saik, who founded […] Read more
VIDEO: Driverless tractors and open-source software
Reimer Robotics takes first prize in Manitoba Ag Days Inventors' Showcase
Reading Time: < 1 minute Matthew Reimer was as surprised as anyone when he was awarded first prize for his driverless tractor system at Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon on Jan. 20, but his invention is worthy of the title. The Inventors’ Showcase winner, and president of Reimer Robotics, has built a system to move tractors – driverless no less, with […] Read more
Gigs of data at work on the farm
Data Analysis: Rigorous analysis of numbers from the field helps this farm achieve its business objective
Reading Time: 8 minutes When Josh Fankhauser isn’t in the shop fine tuning some equipment, he’s often at his office computer, wading through gigabytes of crop production data and analyzing numbers. Like a lot of farmers, Fankhauser is happy with a wrench in his hand, and in a world where the ethos is “throw it out, buy new,” he […] Read more
Are farmers suffering from too much information?
With today’s big data, it sure would help to have those provincial crop advisers back on the team
Reading Time: 7 minutes While agriculture in Canada has been evolving in the past 10 to 15 years, there has also been a curious evolution in the quantity and the quality of information available to farmers. In the late 1990s, at least in Ontario, the governing Conservative Party began scaling back on what was referred to as “bricks and […] Read more
Digital pursuits in the world of agricultural technology
The list of tools to collect, manage and transfer farm data is growing. Here’s a look at some of the recent additions
Reading Time: 4 minutes Lehmann If your focus is on gathering more data rather than managing it, drone technology may be for you, and a new contender has recently stepped up with a high-tech offering. France’s Lehmann Aviation made a move to break into the North American data-gathering market this spring with the launch of what it calls “an […] Read more
Wade Barnes’ new playbook
Guide Insight: What can farmers adapt from Wade Barnes’ trail-blazing success at Farmers Edge?
Reading Time: 7 minutes In an agriculture that is struggling to figure out what its future will look like, Wade Barnes may at least know how to get there. And, as his example seems to promise, knowing ‘how’ may put you on the path to knowing ‘who,’ which in farming is the question that will eventually answer all the […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
