Two Tools Every Agronomist Should Own

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

Agronomists play a critical role in advising many farming operations. Bayer Crop Science technical agronomist Todd Vagts says there are two essential tools every good agronomist should be showing up to a field with in 2021: a shovel to dig into the soil, and a drone to fly over head.

Vagts… “Oftentimes within the agronomy industry, you know, we joke if you have agronomists come out to the field without a shovel, and I mean that's not a true agronomist. They have a shovel in hand, whenever you walk into a field. In my perspective, having a drone or a UAV of some sort is just about becoming that type of tool as well. You know, we oftentimes we look at eye level what's going on, we often need to dig roots to see what's going on below the soil, but now we have a third perspective. We need to get up on a bird's eye view of looking down onto this so that you can really start to see patterns and be able to look at an entire field rather than just a micro part of the field at any time that you're walking.”

Vagts says advances in drone technology are making the tool indispensable to the modern agronomist.

Vagts… “In a sense it's becoming an easier and easier sell, I guess, to the companies, you know, the, the people that are paying the bills to buy all these things that it really is a necessity within the industry.”

One of the drone softwares Todd uses is Sentera to perform activities like stand and tassel counts.