The reaction you get from farmers when asked about their impression of the new precision farming technology ranges from, "boy is it exciting" to, "what the hell good is it?" And when the discussions and debates wind down to the short strokes, the questions that remain unanswered always relate to agronomic issues. There is pretty good technology out there today that will give you data from which you can create a real nice looking yield map of your field with acceptable accuracy. Today's precision farming technology will also give you the ability to import information from many other geo-referenced sources such as; remote sensing satellite imagery, soil sample maps, topographic maps, weed maps etc. What is missing in the precision farming puzzle is the agronomic pieces. Once a farmer has the yield monitor data collected and the map produced the question is: what do I do now? Currently no one can confidently advise this farmer as to what management strategies to put into place to address yield variances on fields where geo-referenced data has been collected.
This lack of agronomic support is precisely why a new joint venture at Indian Head was initiated. The joint venture involves the SSCA, the Indian Head Agriculture Research Foundation (IHARF) and Agriculture & Agri-food Canada at Indian Head. This joint venture will establish the Center of Excellence for Precision Farming Research on a one half section of land near the Indian Head experimental farm. The vision statement for this partnership reads: "We are a unique partnership made up of farmers, scientists, industry and government whose goal is to evaluate precision farming concepts on a farm size scale in an unbiased, practical and environmentally responsible manner for the benefit of all producers."
Creating the center of excellence is a tremendous task and one that would be impossible without the support of industry. Fortunately our industry contacts also feel the need for such an institution and have backed us accordingly. Our industry contributors currently include: Royal Bank, Flexi-coil, New Holland, AgrEvo, Simplot, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Westco, Monsanto, Zeneca, and Pattison Brothers - Lemberg. We will also receive support from PFRA for GIS services and Saskatchewan Agriculture & Food (SAF) for extension support.
The center will function to conduct research, specific to precision farming techniques, on a field scale basis. This means plots will be 50 - 60 acres in size and all operations will be performed with standard farm equipment. Seeding equipment will be set up for low disturbance seeding. Information produced at the center will be incorporated into the SSCA's and SAF's extension programs for delivery across the province. SSCA will present this and other precision farming information at our country meetings, field days, conference and through our newsletter. We will also investigate the options of providing precision farming information over the Internet.
So what does this mean for the average farmer? We hope, through this joint venture, to help farmers learn more about precision farming techniques and how or if this technology will be useful and economical for us. Right now there are a lot of questions about precision farming and its usefulness but very few answers. We hope to provide some of these answers through the work to be done at the Center of Excellence for Precision Farming Research at Indian Head.