When I was young, I opened a closet and stumbled upon shoeboxes intricately organized by product manuals and receipts for tools my father purchased before I was born. I carefully flipped through the helpful information boxes from yesteryear, skimming ag technology product manuals. Surprisingly, despite their age, they offered valuable instructions and data from previous growing seasons.
When we considered different spraying strategies, my father and I would flip through our tractors and implements’ manuals at the coffee table. While we sipped coffee — or soda for me — we discovered opportunities to modify our practices by adjusting our equipment or technology.
Many farmers, like my dad, have their notebook organizational system. While these simple pen-and-paper record-keeping systems work, they keep information siloed, often disappearing into closets or filing cabinets. With Farm Management Software (FMS) like John Deere Operations Center, farmers create a centralized data tracking system by installing a JDLink Connectivity modem on each machine they wish to automate data collection. Many different models, even ones that are a few years old or machines of various colors, can track vital data points like GPS locations, spraying application info such as rate and date, and more.
Detailed documentation of spraying applications helps us learn from the previous season’s environmental conditions and adjust for this season. When farmers use the Operations Center to record, share and review data, we transition from manual documentation to digital, creating a centralized tracking system to communicate details quickly with our farm team so we can make data-informed decisions from the field and the office.
Transform Field Map-Napkins to Centralized Dashboard
I remember finding a hand-drawn field map that my dad had made featuring the names of rural roads, tree clusters, and property line information. While this map will remain a cherished possession, the Operation Center shows satellite images of fields complete with boundaries and the current location of any connected equipment.
A dealer like RDO Equipment Co. has experts focused specifically on precision products who are available to partner with farmers to set up their FMS, connect machines, manually add GPS coordinates or map the field's boundary by driving a connected Gator™ Utility Vehicle. A farmer can also upload their field’s Shapefile from a previous season or FMS. Digital maps are saved in the farmer’s Operations Center dashboard when field boundaries are identified.
Without the correct setup of tractor connection to an FMS and accurate field boundaries, a grower cannot effectively input all the necessary details, including GPS coordinates, to automate sharing application schedules.
Use Planning and Analysis Tools During Coffee Conversations
No matter how demanding the season, farmers connect to talk about how their crops are growing. With the Operations Center, the farm team can review spraying application data sets for each field through the Work Planner and Analyzer tools.
Work Planner acts like a work ordering system in a dealer’s service shop. The farmers enter the vital information an operator needs to complete their daily tasks efficiently. The grower can also include comments, like “Watch out for a rock pile at the end of the field’s last pass.” An operator can view this information from their mobile phone’s Operation Center app or their tractor’s G4 or G5 in-cab display The operator can review details, including any comments the farmers may have included, reducing field calls to the office to double-check details.
- Application Schedule: Start and end date and time of application.
- Spray Details: Product type, name and application rate
- Tank Mix: Total volume by gallons per acre and the application’s carrier
Watch this step-by-step guide to enter your application details in your Operations Center
After the field operators complete spraying applications, the team deciphers data through the Work Analyzer. This tool takes the recorded Work Plan, including application schedule, details and tank mix, plus field maps and any machine performance data points like tractor or implement speed, into one digital space. When a farmer opens the Work Analyzer, they can view data sets by date, field or product type.
After the farmer selects the specific criteria they want, they can compare operational performance, such as fuel usage and gallons per acre applied on that field’s map, through a visualization report. They can also download their data into an Excel spreadsheet to complete a comparative analysis with a trusted partner. Precision product specialists from a trusted partner like RDO can help farmers learn to create custom filters to view data, such as crop type, application rate or weather conditions. Custom filters to quickly refine data sets help operators to drill down on data that could be related such as tractor speed and Gallons Per Acre (GPA) used.
Farmers have always carefully detailed their applications. As we review our notebooks, equipment manuals, and plan for our upcoming growing seasons, connected tractors, and the Operations Center’s tools can dramatically reduce the time it takes to centralized spraying, documenting and communicating weekly tasks. Farmers and operators can quickly review their spraying application schedule through the Operations Center, review its efficacy immediately after completion and use the data to plan the rest of this growing season and those to come.
