The move increases the company’s capacity to assist growers with advanced agricultural technology solutions at its locations in Alliston, Exeter, and Norwich, Ont., Charlottetown, P.E.I., and Grand Falls, N.B.

“This is a key step forward in our mission to be the premier specialized agricultural equipment distributor in the world,” said Dave Vander Zaag, president of HJV Equipment. “By investing in experienced people and proven technology, we’re helping growers improve efficiency and maximize results.”

The expansion involves adding new precision agriculture team members, Alfredo Rodriguez in Ontario, and Will MacNeill and Nathan Smallman in Prince Edward Island, enhancing HJV’s ability to provide customers with integrated hardware, software guidance, and responsive service.

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“We need less feed intake, less manure, less emissions, because that is where the complaints are,” said Daniel Berckmans. “That means we must be more efficient in the core equation.”

That “core equation” is his way of adding up animal feed needs: base metabolism plus activity, plus thermal or environmental regulation, plus mental state, plus the production of meat, milk or eggs.

Berckmans is a biosystems researcher out of KU Leuven university in Belgium and the University of Tennessee. He was among the speakers at a July 10 forum on precision livestock farming at the University of Manitoba.

Energy used by the base metabolism — basic functions of life like keeping organs running — can be calculated through heart rate. Berckmans said there are at least six companies working on a commercially feasible way to measure that, and technology for horses is likely to debut this year.

Animal activity can be tracked through things like aggression monitoring. Berckmans cited his previous work on a seven-year project, which found that aggression in pigs could be detected by measuring the distance between the camera and the pig’s back, “because they jump up,” he said.

Research has also been done on the energy horses expend when frustrated versus when calm. Berckmans pointed to data outlining energy expended while a horse was running in a ring alongside energy expended by brain activity at the same time. The horse was shown a bucket of food. When the horse realized it wasn’t going to get the food, it became frustrated and began to expend more mental energy.

Infection and disease can also cut production and profit. Sensors can help localize infection in a barn, compartment or room, potentially reducing disease spread and antibiotic use. Berckmans noted technology that monitors and analyzes the sound of coughs in a facility.

“Precision livestock farming gives us the data,” he said.

It can then be used to measure how far an operation is from desired outputs and to design prediction-based controllers.

“That’s what we do for decades in airplanes, in making mechanical systems, electronic systems,” Berckmans said.

While there’s been lots of research into agricultural use of precision technology, very little has been implemented, he said.

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It all depends on the farm operation, the equipment and the willingness of the producer to make everything work.

That was the overriding message from a panel discussion on farm digital strategy at the Ontario Agricultural Conference last month at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown Campus. Three growers provided insights on the technologies they use, along with brief explanations about their choices.

This is a summary of their presentations.

Sam Snobelen, Ripley

In southern Bruce and northern Huron counties, Snobelen’s operation primarily comprises family-owned land where they grow IP soybeans for export, traited soybeans for seed production, grain corn for all uses, and winter wheat with a few acres of winter barley. They also grow hay for a purebred Charolais cow-calf operation.

“Basically, all of our seeding, application, tillage and harvesting equipment is wirelessly data-capable, so I have maps of every application, every pass through every field, every year, if everything works right,” said Snobelen.

“We do a lot of variable rate, a lot of trials between varieties and fertility, so there were about 110 different trials that have to be analyzed from 2023.”

Many of his trials blended variable-rate planting and fungicide applications with overhead imagery to indicate crop health, injury and impact on yield.

Snobelen displayed a slide of the results from one fungicide trial, which first showed the application pattern, then a normalized difference vegetation index image indicating the location of white mould in the field, and ultimately the effect on yield.

“It was one of the neatest yield maps I’ve had,” said Snobelen. “You didn’t need to calculate the difference. You knew that there was some sort of benefit there and was showing about a four bushel increase on that fungicide.”

He’s also tried growing variable-rate wheat as a means of avoiding lush growth. Using either an app on his phone or his as-applied map, he gauged the progress of two populations in a field –one with 1.9 million seeds per acre on poorer zones and another with 1.1 million in higher-producing zones.

Josh Boersen, Sebringville

A third generation producer, Boersen and his family work a livestock and grain operation north of Stratford. He runs with a full line-up of digital tools that are less brand-specific, allowing him to integrate more off-brand equipment.

“We’re not particularly married to a brand. We’re looking to use the tools that work the best for us on our farm,” he said, noting Climate FieldView and AgLeader SMS are two of the systems.

“The reason I need to use AgLeader SMS is because of that broad-ranging group of equipment we use but also in certain situations with script or soil data management.”

They use HarvestProfit, which is important for Boersen because it’s cloud-based and allows him to track all farm productivity and profit scenarios on a field-by-field basis. He can also do inventory and contract management for all crops.

SoilOptics and Ontario AgMaps from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs are two other platforms he uses. The latter is a public platform that helps with barn planning or nutrient management plans. He also uses free Google Suite to share documents with others on the farm.

Boersen said they entered the digital landscape in 2016-17 when a drone image of the home farm indicated compaction might be an issue. There were, on average, three cultivator passes, sprayer passes, planter and drag-hose manure application passes per year. He realized they needed to manage better.

“You can’t really see a difference in the crop looking at it visually but it took that drone image to shock us into seeing all the impacts of every pass we had on the field. A digital tool used correctly at the right time and in the right weather conditions provided us with some really valuable insight.”

Evert Veldhuizen, Woodstock

When his parents started farming in 1996, they moved from a mixed operation to dairy. Since Veldhuizen assumed control of the farm, he’s returned to a diverse mix with swine and ducks added to the dairy component.

They also provide soil sampling, planting and custom work, operate DeKalb and Quality Seed dealerships, and sell cover crop seed.

With digital technologies, Veldhuizen said he’d always wanted just one program but today, his line-up is as diverse as the farm. Climate FieldView, John Deere Op Center, FarmQA (their scouting map), and Flowfinity (for work orders) are a few of their digital platforms.

They also use SIS –Soil Information Systems –for soil sampling, AgLeader SMS for data management and Google Sheets for crop planning.

“We use 2020 Gen II, Gen III, Vsets, DeltaForce and Smart Firmers on our planters and 2630, 4240 and 4640 screens and lots of iPads,” he said, adding it’s a challenge to ensure they’re up to date.

“All of our RTK is John Deere and Fendt, and we have implement steer on the corn planter and on our strip till. We started with a simple yield monitor and needed to do more with that data than we were, and in some ways, we needed more data to drive decisions. That’s when we hired more staff to interpret it and do something with it.”

The key goal with reading maps or developing crop plans is to increase profitability, noted Veldhuizen, echoing his fellow panelists.

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Why it matters: Despite the novelty of drone transportation and video detection technology and capabilities, they are not miniature helicopters, and encompass farm more complicated flight dynamics.

That was Dr. Jason Deveau’s overriding message during his Southwest Agricultural Conference presentation last month at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown Campus. The application technology specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) pulled no punches on the potential use of drones in spray applications.

For starters, spraying pesticides via an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone is illegal. And as Deveau explained, there are very valid reasons why.

The flight and speed dynamics at which planes and helicopters fly cause the spray to “lay-out” in a level or horizontal flow, whereas drones are constantly forcing air downward.

Walking attendees through several videos Deveau briefly explained of how sprays behave behind a helicopter or a plane, noting no crop disturbance below.

“The only thing that affects spray deposition behind a plane or a helicopter is gravity, the wind that blows it around and any forward momentum from the vehicle itself,” he said. “Drones however, always have a downward component no matter how fast they fly. They are always in hover or transitional flight, which means they’re always blowing down.”

The number of rotors, droplet size and distribution and where the droplet’s released relative to the rotor complicates the application. Fine droplet spray is susceptible to the wind effect of the rotor. If released close to the centre of the drone, droplets react like a tornado, and droplets released at the wing tip will be thrown all over the place, explained Deveau.

Part of that dynamic comes from drone design with rotors spinning at variable rates and relative speeds not fixed to one another.

“The reason a drone can stay so eerily still is because all of those rotors spin at different speeds depending on what the wind is doing,” said Deveau.

“Which means the effect of that wind, that down-wash on a droplet, changes from moment to moment, and it’s not just one of them, it could be four or two or eight (rotors).”

Next on his list of concerns was the plumbing of a drone. Drone size limits it’s chemical volume carrying capability to a fraction of a ground applicator resulting in lower volumes at very concentrated rates.

Ask any agrochemical expert, he said, and they’ll say chemical formulations are precise and complicated with the intent of dilution to a specific degree.

“That changes how the product moves and how it dissolves and ultimately, it changes how it reacts when it hits a plant surface,” added Deveau. “If you hyper-concentrate but put in low volume, what’s going to happen? We don’t know. Sometimes it’s good; sometimes you need a toothbrush.”

If understanding droplet size and the effect of the number of rotors on spray distribution, volumes and concentrations wasn’t complex enough, the drone weight –empty or full –also affects spray patterns.

Deveau provided video examples of fields with drone-applied sprays –using dyed water only –and the results were evident when compared to ground or even hand applications (typical in greenhouse). In one slide, the drone’s spray pattern drifted beyond an established buffer zone; perhaps the altitude was a little high, it wasn’t at optimal flight speed, or spraying at the correct pressure.

Where is it leading?

According to Deveau, the road ahead for drone technology use in chemical spray applications is long and arduous and requires more research to determine how to lower existing risks when using the devices.

Many of the efficiencies and nuances of drone technology are unknown and hard to establish. Thus far, research determined drone spray coverage is roughly five per cent versus conventional systems which are up to 10 per cent.

There are also concerns about operator exposure, drift potential, and the 10 per cent of product remaining in the air. It’s not just Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) involved but Transport Canada, as well, because many operators want to fly heavy drones in populated places, which requires an advanced pilot license, explained Deveau.

“If you’re talking about spreading fertilizer or cover crops, drones are really fantastic,” he said. “If you’re going to sneak out and spray pesticide –and I won’t lie, people are doing it –don’t do it. It’s illegal, and it’s not going to work for you. At least not consistently, and when it goes wrong, it goes wrong.”

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If you’ve ever found yourself a bit busy preparing for a turn in your field when you’ve reached the end of a row while planting or during applications, Ag Leader’s TurnPath technology may be worth a look. Its system is designed to deliver hands-free steering for equipment operators in the field. Here, Russ Morman with Ag Leader talks about how the TurnPath systems works and its ease of installation and ‘colour blind’ compatibility with machinery brands.

Ag Leader’s TurnPath won in the Equipment category in the Innovations Program at Canada Outdoor Farm Show in September 2023.

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Bayer on Oct. 30 announced integration of the two platforms, which it said will allow grain farmers in Canada and the U.S. to connect their marketing data in Combyne and the agronomic data FieldView gathers from their field equipment.

Seeded-acreage and yield data from FieldView can thus allow Combyne users to accurately track the total bushels available to market without needing to export, upload and enter data twice, Bayer said.

Once a farmer reviews the available FieldView data, using Combyne’s Import Review function, the harvested and projected-yield figures in Combyne will automatically update with the actual figures.

That in turn will make Combyne’s data on percentage sold and net marketed position more accurate, “using your real numbers off the combine instead of rough estimates,” according to Combyne’s website.

Incoming FieldView data will also allow a Combyne user to “know how much of your harvest is already committed and better manage your forward contracting.”

That means a “fuller and more accurate picture of current-year harvest totals and projections for future years to easily update crop contract and storage positions, and enable up-to-date crop marketing decisions,” Bayer said.

Combyne was released to the public in late 2021 by Ottawa Valley farmer Alain Goubau’s company Combyne Ag — previously known as the developer of the grain marketing tool FarmLead, which was sunset in 2020.

Combyne is meant to serve as a record-keeping and decision-making support tool, gathering information on grain storage balances, contracts, deliveries and settlements across multiple buyers — as well as net overall marketed positions per crop.

According to Bayer, which acquired Combyne Ag in January, the Combyne platform allows farmers to manage grain trade documents in one place for a clear view of contractual commitments, delivery status, storage positions and cash flow projections from grain sales, and thus better manage contract risk and delivery logistics.

“With accurate bushel quantities populating your marketed positions, you can better manage things like how forward contracted you are, how much of your harvest is already committed, and where things stand when it comes to your storage and deliveries,” Goubau, now CEO of Bayer’s Combyne Ag arm, said in Bayer’s Oct. 30 release.

“By working with FieldView, delivered grain outcomes in Combyne can eventually be connected back to the fields they originated from and the management choices made on those fields, for better mapping of quality specs such as grade and dockage from delivered loads,” he said.

That, in turn, allows for “field-level profitability insights — mapping actual revenue from sold crops against cost of production per field.”

Climate FieldView, which came to Bayer when it bought Monsanto in 2018, was launched in the U.S. in 2015 and in Canada late the following year.

It was developed by Climate Corp., a Monsanto arm since 2013, as a single platform to unite data from each piece of precision ag equipment, for access via smartphone, tablet or desktop. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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All of the satellites used for GPS correction for farming are owned by the United States military and administered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the U.S.

Why it matters: Farmers have come to rely on GPS guidance to precision steer equipment and record accurate data and have built their planting and harvesting systems around the availability of that technology.

Many were caught by surprise when the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) satellite 135 went offline on Oct. 17.

According to an FAA website, it will be offline for testing until Nov. 6.

Farmers are recommended to try satellites 131, 132 or 133 until the more-accurate 135 is back online.

Chris Dahms, precision farming and technology solutions specialist with Robert’s Farm Equipment spent a very busy day on Oct. 17 answering phone calls and texts and they were still coming in on Oct. 18.

He says that Ontario farmers no longer had access to satellite 138 as of June 2022, but 135 works for most people in the province.

“When they took that (138) down, they didn’t replace it, they basically turned up and shifted 135 to be our new correction source satellite,” he says.

Then, 135 went down without notice.

“Basically they said they will be testing. I don’t know what the heck they would be testing. I don’t know why they wouldn’t do testing in January when people aren’t combining and planting wheat.”

Farmers need to find their satellite choice option on their monitor. It usually is either red, yellow or green. Dahms says that the 135 is now showing up yellow and on monitors with a level reading, similar to cell phone service, there are two bars of service, not the five that are usually available and more accurate.

They’ll have other satellite options and Dahms says to choose 131, 132 or 133.

Farmers across the province took to social media to express their frustration with a lack of signal.

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From farmers’ perspective, the two companies say their combined technology offering is expected to offer “seamless integration and connectivity across geographies, equipment brands and the crop life cycle.”

The structure of the deal announced Thursday will see Trimble receive $2 billion cash and a 15 per cent share in the new joint venture, for total pre-tax value of about $3 billion accrued to that company (all figures US$).

Agco, whose machinery brands include Massey Ferguson, Fendt, Challenger and Valtra, contributes its JCA Technologies business to the new j.v. and will hold the 85 per cent majority stake in the venture.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2024, pending the usual approvals and other closing conditions.

The new j.v. won’t include Trimble’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) or guidance tech, but Trimble will provide those to the new venture under a new long-term supply agreement and technology transfer and license agreement — along with an agreement making the new venture a “channel partner” of Trimble’s positioning services in the ag market.

Winnipeg-based JCA, which Agco bought last year, makes systems and software including the Vireo precision ag system, the Eagle autonomous equipment system and the Falcon and Oriole controller systems.

JCA also developed the control system supporting the Canadian-made DOT autonomous ag equipment platform, now owned by Agco’s OEM rival CNH Industrial.

Trimble and Agco said the new venture is meant to “better serve farmers with factory-fit and aftermarket applications in the mixed fleet precision agriculture market” and to be “a global leader in mixed-fleet smart farming and autonomy solutions.”

The deal “accelerates Agco’s growth ambitions around autonomy, precision spraying, connected farming, data management and sustainability,” Agco CEO Eric Hansotia said in a release.

It also “significantly enhances Agco’s technology stack with disruptive technologies that cover every aspect of the crop cycle, which ultimately helps us better serve farmers no matter what brand they use,” he said.

“We believe a joint venture with Agco, complemented by the successful mixed fleet approach that they have developed with their Precision Planting business model, can help us better serve farmers and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) together,” Trimble CEO Rob Painter said.

From Trimble’s perspective, the deal streamlines its asset portfolio and allows it to increase its focus on “priority growth areas” — while reducing its direct exposure to the “hardware-centric” ag market but still maintaining its “ongoing participation in a leading precision ag asset.”

The “commercial synergies” the new joint venture will get from direct access to Agco’s OEM, aftermarket, other OEM and retrofit channels — along with “modest” run-rate cost synergies — are expected to roughly double the new venture’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by year five after the deal closes, Agco said.

GSI under review

In its release Thursday announcing the new joint venture, Agco also said it has placed its “grain and protein” business segment under “strategic review.”

That business segment includes Agco’s grain handling systems brand GSI, as well as grain processing equipment brand Cimbria and three livestock housing systems brands: Cumberland, AP and Tecno.

While Agco didn’t give any examples of the options it’s considering for those businesses, it said it will “assess all strategic options to ensure the Grain and Protein customers are serviced in the best way possible, and that the business is best positioned to maximize its full potential.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“You have got to have the root purpose of why you got that technology. Either that or you talk to others to help you find that purpose,” said Regan Ferguson, who farms with her husband, Mike, near Melfort.

“I find that once you have a purpose, you’re more apt to dig into it further and become more comfortable with it because you’re finally finding the value in it.”

The Fergusons are first-year users of Bayer’s Climate FieldView, a multi-application digital agriculture platform. They discussed Fieldview and digital ag in general at a roundtable held Tuesday at Ag in Motion near Langham, Sask.

Research can take the mystery out of unfamiliar technology, said Ferguson.

“The more I looked into Climate, did research and learned about it, I found the ‘why’ and the purpose of its need on our farm and got more excited to get it in place this year.”

Climate FieldView has given her the ability to keep track of all equipment in the field, what it’s doing and whether it’s doing it right. It also provides a detailed record of the operation.

“It was reassuring to know that we had some kind of data to back us up if we ever needed it,” said Ferguson.

Bayer says Climate FieldView was designed to centralize data, visuals and reporting in a package that producers can interpret and act upon, by optimizing fertility, seeding management or other crop operations.

“We’ve got to do this because of our return on investment with chemical and fertility. We just want to put the fertilizer where it needs to be,” said Ferguson.

— Jeff Melchior reports for Alberta Farmer Express from Edmonton.

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Andrew Clayton of Agra GPS said the new receiver is the first one outside of John Deere’s products that is compatible with Deere’s GPS system.

“It supports all four satellite systems and comes with RTK, without any unlocks. It also includes a JD-Bridge which allows the CRG to enable John Deere displays to autosteer machines including Claas, Agco and CNH,” Clayton said.

Agra GPS broke into the agriculture market when John Deere stopped supporting StarFire ITC a few years ago, which left hundreds of thousands of farmers around the world with receivers that no longer worked, Clayton said.

“We basically went in, since we know John Deere’s code so well from creating the CRG (GPS receiver/bridge) over so many years. We went in and found the line of code that basically blocked them out and created a little box that you can connect to your receiver to make your ITC work again. So that kind of put us on the map worldwide with, I believe 11,000 units sold in six months,” he said.

The company still sells this product, but Clayton said its primary use was as a temporary fix for growers who were happy to use the wireless analog sensor platform connection. Agra GPS provides higher accuracy.

“It plugs right into the Deere display exactly how that SF6000 or SF3000 would plug in, and it is fully unlocked with RTK. So right out of the box, there’s no unlock fees, no subscription fees, and no licensing fees,” Clayton said.

Users will still need a correction signal for RTK guidance.

However, Clayton said Agra GPS works on industry standards by the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services to provide growers with more options.

“Whereas with John Deere you would need to get a John Deere base station and you would need to unlock that John Deere base station with RTK and pay all of these unlock fees, we run on industry standards, so any base station surveyors use would work with our device,” Clayton said.

He added that some states provided continuously operating reference station networks to receive the correction, which can be used by any receiver that outputs standard corrections.

Clayton said Agra GPS has a love-hate relationship with John Deere, because he said the John Deere sales department would like to sell more receivers.

“But John Deere Corporate actually came to us wanting us to build more bridges for them and different products because they kind of have a conflict of interest to do it (themselves),” Clayton said.

– This article was originally published at The Western Producer.

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