Agriculture Industry expert, Andrey Skotnikov, posts on the latest technology and productivity advancements on Interconnectivity in agriculture.
-
E-Based Educational Initiative
By Andrey Skotnikov - Thursday May 16, 2013Due to further progress of agricultural science, biology, information technology, and advanced technical development, the business of farming and ranching has become increasingly sophisticated and challenging in order to remain competitive and profitable. A farmer needs to know not only basic agronomy, but new competitive technologies of raising crops, soil chemistry, advanced agronomy, equipment fleet management, finance management, marketing, channels of distribution, and so forth. The leading ag equipment manufacturers and seed producers have different services intended to provide farmers with efficient, supportive farming systems such as navigation systems, software for field mapping, agronomic management... -
Creating a Yield Map Expert System
By Andrey Skotnikov - Monday May 6, 2013
Let’s discuss a system approach for integrating existing components to develop a yield map expert system and a comprehensive decision support system (DSS) for Precision Ag. A proposed definition of Precision Ag is: an information and technology based agricultural management system to identify, analyze and manage site soil spatial and temporal variability within fields for optimum profitability, sustainability, and protection of the environment (Robert et al, 1995.). The analysis of the existing status of Precision Ag suggests the following preliminary remarks: It is necessary to develop an integrated DSS including modules for data base creation; mapping; geostatistical, statistical and economical analyses; soil... -
A glimpse of the future
By Andrey Skotnikov - Monday April 22, 2013
A glimpse of the future With today's state of ag equipment, technology and existing seeds, crop production can be increased in existing areas by 50 percent or even doubled. On top of that the cost of crop production of such yield in existing borders can be reduced by 10 to 20 percent. I feel your doubts. That's why I invite you to our event, the IDEAg Interconnectivity Conference, to take a glimpse at the future, discuss how we can reach these goals, and what might be preventing us from doing so. In previous blogs, I have mentioned three existing issues: Real yield is far below the biological potential of any crop. The use of farm equipment in the U.S. in most cases is very inefficient. The key issue - the knowledge required... -
Better seed data could drive higher yields
By Andrey Skotnikov - Monday April 8, 2013After my conversations with farmers I'm convinced that Knowledge Sharing is the right problem to discuss. At the present time farmers use technology that gives obvious effects supported by calculated ROI. Autoguidance, performance monitoring and weather data are among these things. On other hand Variable Rate Technology (VRT), in spite of intuitive benefits, stumbles upon an absence of data to calculate its ROI. Here’s an example. If you would take a look at any website of major seed producers, you would find a target corn yield in a range of 127-174 bu/acre. This is an average yield. There are no concrete recommendations on soil preparation or fertilizer rates or their combination in relation to yield. At the same time, the... -
LEAN Processes and Shared Knowledge
By Andrey Skotnikov - Thursday February 21, 2013Aaron Hutchinson, who attended the first Ideag Interconnectivity conference, told me that my concept of applying LEAN manufacturing processes to improve farming efficiency and profitability “is very innovative and shows a strong grasp of what the agriculture market needs to do better while producing even higher quality and consistent products.” I was pleased to hear this from Aaron. He’s knows a few things about process management and control as the president of Cogent 3D, whose products include the iCropTrack mobile farm management app for iPads. LEAN is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for...
