Technology Enables Farmers To Be More Proactive

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

On the road to a productive and profitable crop, farmers have to face a number of challenges. Few are more relentless than weed pressure. Dr. Greg Stewart of Geco Strategic Weed Management says their technology can help farmers take preventative measures to reduce weed pressure and the need to weedy spots that get out of hand.

Stewart… “But if we think about what the problem is, really what you're trying to do is to control that weed population so that you have a clean field in the short term and you're not accidentally creating a problem in the long term, like a development of resistance that is a disaster in two years time, right? So you've got now multiple ways of measuring that field. You know, whether that's satellite or through the optical spot sprayer camera, you're getting a lot of information there. And then you've got multiple ways of controlling it, right? And so that would be, you know, your residuals in the fall, your residuals in the spring, your seeding rate, your cover crop. And the question is going to be about, you know, how are we coordinating all of these things, right, multivariable control problem. And I'm saying the sensing and the actuation to try to get that stuff coordinated so that you are making the most effective and optimal use of your crop protection budget. And I can see things stepping towards that right in a way that every step along the way, it's just like evolution. It's got to be going to be better than the last one. Right. And sort of lay the groundwork for, you know, what's coming next.”

Again that’s Geco Strategic Weed Management founder and CEO, Dr. Greg Stewart.