Precision Ag a Must

 “PineCreek Precision carries the best precision farming equipment available. We don't just stand by the products we sell, we put them to the test every year on our company farm. The actual use of the products that we sell gives us a better depth of experience allowing PineCreek Precision to bring more to the table than other dealers.”

 Those words, spoken by Robert Blair, shouldn’t be interpreted as marketing bluster. The owner of Pine Creek Precision walks the walk before he talks the talk and conceptualizes, invents, develops, performs field trials and improves every one of his high tech agricultural products. Specifically, Precision agriculture is the concept of doing the right thing, in the right place, in the right way, at the right time. It requires using new technologies, like global positioning devices, aerial photos taken by drones, not dissimilar to those being flown in military intelligence operations, and information management software to assess and understand gathered farm data.

 Blair, who farms 1500 acres of wheat, peas, lentils, garbanzos, alfalfa and cows and teaches the precision ag lab at the University of Idaho says he gets a 10-percent increase in productivity just from the timing of an application and that the proper placement can keep crops from drying up. In his words, we’re spending less and producing more.  Listen to how he operates: “Variable rate nitrogen and then being able to control your drills your planter with precision ag, auto savings by auto-steer and guidance, auto-boom on a sprayer.”

 Sounds like today’s farmers auto, or make that ought to, get up with the times and learn about all the technology available to improve ag efficiency