Technology has been instrumental in fine-tuning fertilizer applications on Jerry Seuntjens’ farm. The corn and soybean grower, from the western Iowa community of Kingsley, has been using fertility prescriptions for about 20 years. “I’m seeing incredible results with fertilizer placed at the right rate and location,” he says. “I can optimize every acre that I have by using this kind of technology.”
Creating the script
Manual scripting allows farmers to identify field variability, create management zones, select products, and assign rates on each field to create fertility scripts, says Andy Folta, U.S. product marketing manager for Climate FieldView.
A newer FieldView feature this year is the ability to create zones from existing map layers. For example, Folta says, field health imagery can estimate pre-harvest yields from yield samples on specified health map areas. Those estimates can be extrapolated to form a yield estimate, as well as potential nutrient removal from which to create a prescription.
“You have full latitude to choose the number of zones,” Folta says, including merging and splitting them, and adding test strips and blocks to any part of the field. FieldView creates a script to assign fertilizer product rates in each zone, he says.
An agronomist or trusted adviser working with a farmer could create multiple recommendations from which the farmer could choose, notes Folta. “One might be higher inputs, one might be lower cost, etc.,” he says.
This year FieldView is introducing Drive 2.0, which can transfer prescriptions live in the cab. The newly created prescription “syncs down to my iPad,” Folta describes, “so instead of having to pull a flash drive off, I can just push the prescription straight into their equipment of choice to execute that recommendation.”
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Executing the script
Precision Planting now offers its Clarity system to provide greater detail in fertilizer applications, says product support specialist Matt Locklear. Clarity sensors can track fertilizer application uniformity row by row, which allows real-time flagging of full and partial blockages from fertilizer clumps, rocks, and other debris. “As I’m applying granular fertilizer, I want to know if it’s consistent,” Locklear says. “Farmers are putting a lot of dollars in fertility into these rows and want to make sure it’s done evenly.”
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Final analysis
Planning fertility scripts and applying them are the first steps, but end-of-season analysis is key to learning and making decisions that will impact the bottom line, Folta reminds. “Scripting lays the foundation, but then we have to learn from what we did,” he says.
Seuntjens acknowledges that not only is he raising his top yields. “But what’s making everything better,” he says, “is my bottoms are higher. My goal is placing the right seed in the right location, with the right population, and the right fertilizer, at the right rate to optimize every acre.”