Field Variability and Precision Agriculture

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Modern precision agriculture tools are designed to account for changing field conditions to get the most out of every acre of a field. But how much variability is there in the average field of crops? Agronomist Tyler Kessler says in his experience, there’s more than people realize.

Kessler… “It's more than I think the average person would expect. I've been doing this now since 2015, so nearly 10 years. And every field I look at it, I get excited because it's unlocking something that we don't know just looking at it from the field edge or in the field. Variability can mean different things and something that's very topographic driven, you're going to have hills and valleys and side slopes that might be very consistent in soil type. You can have very level, I guess, elevation that might only change a few feet within a mile, but you could have drastically different soil types and soil properties within that. So for example, salinity or soic soils more of a factor than topography. So it's really important having both of those pieces of information and then treating it differently.”

Tyler owns Kessler Ag Ventures in Canada.