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Ag Tech—Getting From A To Z

Benedict T. Palen, Jr. provides agricultural consulting services to farms in the US and overseas. He is a fifth generation farmer with a deep background in many phases of the business. Contact him at benpalen@yahoo.com<br>

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Ag Tech—Getting From A To Z

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  1. Ag Tech—Getting From A To Z

  2. Ag Tech – Getting From Ato ZBenedict T. PalenJr, One of my consulting clients is a large irrigated farm located in the Middle East.  A strategic goal of the client is putting into place the latest ag tech tools, and utilizing precision farming.   They had the perception that ag tech could be a leap from A to Z, but as I studied the situation, I realized that they had failed to establish a sound foundation for moving forward.    In other words, we had to go back to the basics.

  3. Ag Tech – Getting From Ato ZBenedict T. PalenJr, • One of my first tasks was to sign up for satellite imagery of the fields for this season. This produced information that exceeded even my expectations as to its value, and the client viewed this step as “revolutionary,” which it was for them. • That imagery was used to spot issues with uneven water application on many of the center pivots, and areas of some fields where pests were an issue.  We have also used the imagery as another check on the adequacy of the irrigation because the thrice a month images feature a NDVI index, which shows crop improvement, or decline, over time.

  4. Ag Tech – Getting From Ato ZBenedict T. PalenJr, A second, and equally important step, was to take soil samples on many of the fields.  Bearing in mind that the information generated would not be at any level of zone detail (an ultimate goal of the ag tech program), we took four samples for each center pivot, consisting of the top twelve inches as one zone, and the second twelve inches as the other.  The samples were sent to a US lab that I have used for 30 years, and the results were generally as follows:

  5. Ag Tech – Getting From Ato ZBenedict T. PalenJr, • The farm was over fertilizing, by 40-50% in some cases, on many fields • Some fields were matched with the wrong crop choice because they had high salt content in the soil, which was not compatible with crops such as potatoes

  6. For a cost of about $75 per sample, we were able to save the clients thousands of dollars per field.  And all of that was accomplished with a low tech tool that they had overlooked in their quest to use the latest high tech approaches. The lesson learned here is that the basics must be tended to first before going too far down the ag tech road.  Ag tech is a tool, not a replacement for sound agronomic and business judgement.

  7. Ag Tech – Getting From Ato ZBenedict T. PalenJr, Contact him at :-- benpalen@yahoo.com

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