Top 5 Ways to Invest in Your Farm’s Future

April 15, 2021

How to Invest in Your Farm’s Future

The agricultural tradition is all about hard work paired with innovation—from the plough to the tractor and on to today’s precision agriculture systems. Precision agriculture takes this quest for improvement to the next level by putting farmers in control of each square inch of the field.

Precision agriculture uses technology and data to fine-tune planting and growing in different parts of the field, through steering, guidance, rate control, software and more. Think of it as cutting with a scalpel rather than swinging an axe – you enjoy greater precision and control.

1. Guidance and Steering

For every operation you apply to your land; tilling, planting, spraying or harvesting – precision is key. But manually operated machines leave room for missed or overlapping rows, especially when weather conditions are bad or when you’re operating at night. Even small deviations from a neat grid can add up over time – leading to losses in resources, crop yield, and, ultimately, profit.

Precision steering and guidance systems are designed to address this. Trimble’s automated and assisted steering systems use the latest tech to provide clear, detailed corrections on the smallest level. By monitoring the screen display, you can make sure your rows are perfect on every single pass. Trimble’s systems use terrain correction to stay precise in varied conditions – they can ensure accuracy of up to 2.5cm.

2. Fine-Tune your Inputs 

There are many factors that affect the health of each square foot of your fields. Changes in soil type, pH levels, topography, pests and diseases, moisture and more make it ineffective to treat your entire field with the same inputs. The more precisely you can match inputs with specific field needs, the better your yield and profit will be.

Trimble products use data collection to give you real-time insights and instantly improve your work. Using automated flow and application control systems like Field-IQ can eliminate over-application, cut down on waste, and vastly improve profit.

3. More Accurate Maps and Imagery 

Yield maps shouldn’t just look good, they should clearly and simply provide the data you need to improve your operations. With better maps and imagery, you can accomplish better yield monitoring –comparing different seed varieties over the years and improving seed selection based on your learnings.

Trimble’s mapping and farm imagery solutions are practical – we focus on accuracy and data insights, empowering you to make better decisions. In addition to yield monitoring, our systems allow you to track moisture to determine if grain should be stored or dried, record the amount of crop harvested and loaded onto lorries and identify the highest performing parts of your field.

4. Precision Software

The collection of farming data has become more precise over the years. But data on its own isn’t very helpful; instead, you need concise analysis you can act on. It’s also important to have a centralised place for data collection – rather than different software for your inputs, yield monitoring, work orders, finances and so on.

The Farmer Core software works with your existing precision ag systems to collect data and create simplified, clean displays that help your decision making. Trimble Connected Farm works to help you plan, execute, track, and record your operations and is accessible on mobile, desktop and machine displays.

5. Stay Sustainable 

Improving your farm’s sustainability is one of the most important ways you can protect your operations for decades and generations to come. Staying sustainable includes using fewer resources, wasting less product and maximising the overall efficiency of your farm.

Trimble’s Field-IQ system helps you to achieve this efficiency by enabling greater precision in the field. By eliminating over application and wasted resources, precision ag helps your soil and the environment stay healthy.

Investments in precision agriculture now will put you ahead of the curve while ensuring your farm’s profitability over a long-term, sustainable outlook. Contact your local Trimble dealer to learn more.