An early adopter of precision farming
Farm and Ranch August 18, 2009 You could say Colfax, Washington farmer John Aeschliman was into precision farming before precision farming was cool. Or at least before precision technology was readily available off the shelf. Aeschliman: “We kind of rigged up some I packs and got some software and kind of got going on that, it has got to be seven or eight years ago when we got started. Maybe as long as ten. Of course now we have the modern stuff.” Part of Aeschliman’s precision farming is the use of auto-boom for spraying. Aeschliman: “And of course the auto-boom turns it on and off. When the piece is small it shuts booms off so you are only spraying what the width of the strip is. So your savings can be, well it depends. You might have as high as a 20 or 30% overrun on your spraying and we probably have it down to less than five, probably 3%. So that right there will pay for the technology. We also have the auto-boom on our drill, which shuts fertilizer on and off. We don‘t have it on the seed yet, but the savings on the fertilizer will pay for the system in what you save by not doubling up on everything.” The use of GPA mapping allows for prescriptions for fertilizer application. Aeschliman believes every farmer will be using precision technology within the next ten years because of the cost savings it produces. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
