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Planting technologies have evolved tremendously in recent decades. A range of innovations including row shut-off, multi-hybrid capabilities, high-speed planters, and SmartFirmers - just to name a few - are commercially available for farmers today. But how can farmers actually make use of these technologies to achieve better outcomes for their operation? Rachel Stevens, ACRE Farm Manager in the Department of Agronomy at Purdue University, makes her second appearance on the FarmBits podcast to discuss planting technologies specifically through the lens of multi-hybrid planting, which was the focus of her master's thesis project. One of the themes of this episode is the importance of matching management and technological capabilities. Rachel shares with us her experience working with multi-hybrid planters, the challenge of making prescriptions for multi-hybrid or other innovative planting strategies, and what planting technologies - current or future - she perceives to have the highest potential for return. When we say that we will talk about the realities of digital agriculture on this podcast, this episode does just that. It establishes a great foundation for the rest of this series that should allow you to approach the remaining episodes with a healthy skepticism and optimism that facilitate critical evaluation of the technologies presented.
Opinions expressed on FarmBits are solely those of the guest(s) or host(s) and not the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
On this episode
Show Notes
Resources:
Rachel's Thesis: https://go.unl.edu/stevensthesis
Rachel's Information:
E-Mail: rachel@heartlandagconsulting.com
Phone: (765) 231-5668
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rachelhstevens
FarmBits Team Contact Info:
E-Mail: farmbits@unl.edu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEDigitalAg
Samantha's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamanthaTeten
Jackson's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jstansell87
Read Transcript
Jackson: Welcome to the FarmBits podcast, a product of Nebraska Extension Digital Agriculture. I'm Jackson Stansell.
Sam: And I'm Samantha Teten, and we come to you each week to discuss the trends, the realities and the value of digital agriculture Jack: Through interviews and panels with experts, producers and innovators from all sectors of digital technology- we hope that you step away from each episode with new practical knowledge of digital agriculture technology. Hello and welcome back friends and followers the FarmBits podcast. We're glad you're here for the second episode in our planting technology series.
Sam: As we head into April, planting season will soon be in full swing for most folks around the country. So, in this episode we'll be welcoming back Rachel Stevens who you heard from in episode 25. Jack: In addition to her role as a digital platform strategy consultant for farms and agribusinesses, Rachel is the acre farm manager in the department of agronomy at Purdue University. Sam: Rachel got her master's degree from UNL in mechanized systems management. Her master's research centered around developing prescriptions for and evaluating the efficacy of multi-hybrid planting.
Jack: In this episode, we will use her research as a lens for understanding planter technology more broadly, the challenges associated with informing planter operations using management zones or sensors, the difficulty of effectively evaluating planter technology using other data layers like yield, and the importance of really aligning agronomic value with technology capabilities.
Sam: And when we say in this podcast that we talk about the realities of digital technology, this episode really captures that and some of those challenges and the continued need to do more research and to make everything work together as we hope.
Jack: Yeah, this episode establishes a great foundation for the remaining episodes in this series so let's get into some great content with Rachel.
Rachel: As I was coming out of my undergrad, I really just saw I think the direction that the industry was going to more and more intensive data data management, and so I kind of saw like for myself that it would be a nice compliment to have both agronomy undergrad with kind of this precision and specialty component on top of that, and so that's what really sparked my interest in going in that direction just to have that specialty in that experience. So, my master's research was with multi-hybrid planting and really it was somewhat testing the technology of multi-hybrid planting, but I would say more so testing kind of the theory behind the technology. Essentially, how do we create good prescription maps to utilize this technology. You know, the technology itself was fairly proven but kind of the background behind it that producers were really wondering or how do I even you know what data do I need and how do I create the maps that I need to utilize this technology. So, that was kind of the basis of our study and the overall goals I would say were to kind of test that side of the technology.
Jack: It sounds like it was a pretty pretty interesting project, it's kind of nice to work at the the interface of technology that's been developed and just try to prove it out a little bit further, figure out how to utilize it.
Rachel: Yeah, it's always exciting to be able to experience some of you know at the time this was a fairly new technology. I think the first commercial units were out in maybe 2015 and that's when I was doing the research. It was 2015 and 2016. So, you know really as the technology was first becoming available to farmers is when we were getting to utilize this in you know our university setting, so it was exciting to get to use that and feel like we're kind of you know on the forefront cutting edge of something.
Sam: So, yeah this doesn't have to be directly about multi-hybrid planters, but since you've worked with planter technology and worked with that a lot in your research what do you see as some of the greatest challenges just surrounding the planting season and planter technology?
Rachel: I think probably from a producer standpoint it's timeliness, you know covering the acres needed in you know the time frame that they have available, you know we have all these other constraints whether that's other field work that needs to be done or whether I would say that's probably our biggest constraint is you know we're just producers are at the mercy of whatever the weather does that year. In some springs, we get lucky and we have you know 10 days of great weather and we can knock it all out but as soon as we start narrowing down our effective working days you know I think that's that's where we run into probably that issue, and so I feel like we've probably seen a lot of technology that's evolved to try to meet that challenge, timeliness you know like high-speed planting any sort of the technology that allows us to stop less you know increased capacity any sort of you know mechanized like row cleaners that we're not having to get out and take 10 minutes you know anything like that. I feel like it's all kind of one step more of trying to reduce any unnecessary time that we have you know to try to make the most of in-field time. So, I would say that is probably to me one of the the greatest challenges and then I mean we're always pursuing the challenges of you know getting a better stand, getting the optimum field conditions, optimized placement you know that perfect seed to soil contact and again like isn't that what all of our planting technology is about is trying to get the most perfect stand, so you know from there it's whatever management decisions we make during the growing season in pursuit of that 600.
Jack: So, I guess kind of thinking along those lines right of trying to make sure we have the right stand and some of that is associated with having the right rate of seed out there in the field right you want to make sure that you have the right rate in the right place, so getting back to and I guess you also want to have the right hybrid in the right place like we've already talked about a little bit so kind of getting back into the multi hybrids a little bit you mentioned that these planters were first coming online in 2015 and 2016 when you were doing your research- would you mind telling us a little bit about the companies that were manufacturing those units at the time and kind of how those have evolved since that point?
Rachel: Yeah, absolutely so as far as I know the first concept behind this was developed at South Dakota. They came up with a they modified a twin row planter I believe to kind of act as the first multi-hybrid planter and from there they worked with Kinzie to develop the commercial model that we ended up using which was the KINZE 4900 and that I believe was first commercially available in 2015. The way they structured theirs is- in each row they place their seed meters back to that so that they're sharing a common seed tube and then each of those seed leaders just switches on and off depending on whatever prescription you have.
Precision Planting also has their v-set selects and that I believe is a very similar setup, but then they also came out with insects which is just a split planter box and so it's not going to be as accurate because as it switches between those two hybrids you have to clean out the seed meter. It's sharing one seed meter, so it's not quite as precise in the transitions, but I mean and we can talk about this more later that might not necessarily be you know our limiting factor is the precision between transitions so yeah it's an impressive technology. I mean we had a great experience with the planter, the planter itself performed exactly as described you know very precise transition between hybrids. It also had the ability to variable-rate seed, turn compensation things like that. Like it was a great planter and it did what it said it was supposed to do.
Jack: So yeah, awesome and is that technology even to the level of being able to like shift hybrids by each row?
So, like each row can I guess shut off different times?
Rachel: Had I built a prescription that way you could have planted like every other row with seed like you know alternating hybrids you see a lot of really cool you know pictures that people have created where they are like you know their prescription map is like a picture or a logo within the field like the technology is very precise, like it does an incredible job.
Sam: That's awesome so yeah, so think about how the technology's there but there could be some other challenges too right so I think when most people think of multi-hybrid planters, I think I'm going to put my best hybrid or my you know my highest yielding hybrid on my good ground and you know maybe a more stable hybrid on my poorer ground- can you talk a little bit about how this may not always work or some of the challenges around that?
Rachel: Yeah so, that's the approach that we took was kind of utilizing that offensive/ defensive hybrid scenario, I would just have like a very broad summary of our research. We had a one to two fields where we saw I would say partial zone correctness you know, so we had one zone where the hybrid that was supposed to be there did perform better than the other but we had a lot of fields where really we had no difference in hybrids. Part of that was that we had two very wet growing seasons like notably what I think one of them was maybe the second or third wettest on record. You know, so it really wasn't a growing season scenario that was conducive to testing any sort of like defensive hybrid pairing you know there was no need for it. It was it was great years, everyone had some record-setting yields of those years. So, that was a major limitation of you know a grad project that's only two years long. So, I think there's validity to that kind of setup it's just you know for our limited research that was a major challenge was you know like how do you test the defensive hybrid in two very wet years.
Jack: Yeah, no kidding, so besides hybrid differences are there any other like products that you can think of that could utilize this similar like multi-hybrid planting technology, like seed treatments for example or you know any sort of like biological product anything like that that would benefit?
Rachel: Yeah so, one of the other components of our study other than the offensive/defensive kind of scenario was in soybeans we used a single hybrid but two seed treatments and we used a level on fields that had known levels of SDS so by placing the only on portions of the fields where you know we had mapped the extent of the SDS from previous years' yield maps and some soil testing we were able to just localize the placement of that product to that section of the field, and I think it was something like a 78% per acre benefit to being able to precisely place that seed treatment because you know you're no longer spending that same amount of you know costs of the treatment across the whole field, so overall on one of the fields, I think there's something like four thousand dollars gained by using SDS only in that. So, you know like situations like that where we have these stable you know stable zones you know where we're able to very precisely map and know that doesn't change from year to year to year. Our SDS is in that spot, it's not moving, it's not dependent really on any weather conditions it's there. We have it, we have to deal with it you know situations like that you know it's a great use of the technology to be able to precisely place that seed treatment.
Sam: Sure, so when you were able to come up with some of these numbers I'm sure it was because of like you guys set up blocks in the fields and within these different zones, but if a farmer were to go out and get this technology- how do they make sure that this technology is working how they want it how do they see those returns at the end of the year?
Rachel: I would say probably in a similar way that we did, which was including textures and any sort of treatment, any sort of management zone map that you create. You know, that's the benefit of a lot of these claims for technologies is it makes it very easy to test the technology itself because as we're creating these prescription maps it doesn't take you know about 10 minutes more to draw in a couple check strips in every single zone and be able to go back and verify you know if what we were doing is the correct approach, are our zones the correct approach, was the treatment itself the correct approach? So, I would say I mean do the same exact thing we did and add in check strips. For research purposes, we probably had more on average than what you would need, but if you have two zones throughout the field if you had maybe four check strips per zone, that's going to give you a at least a baseline to work with of on some level of decision making of you know what is what you're doing the correct thing to be doing, so yeah I would suggest just go that route. There's a lot of great resources. You know you talk to both Joe and Laura about the research network, you know they'll help you set up anything like that or at least give you some guidelines for where you should be placing strips, you know how many strips you need, length width things like that help you- you know create a framework to figure out how to test this in your field.
Jack: Kind of along that same vein of evaluating how well these planting prescriptions work, what do you think are some of the challenges that are associated with evaluating multi-hybrid planting effectiveness or multi-seed treatment planting effectiveness?
I mean I think about the resolution of yield data right and how low resolution that is compared to really what we're doing with planting and then also you know kind of we have imagery that's available that can maybe help us answer some questions, so could you just speak to kind of evaluating that effectiveness a little bit more?
Rachel: Yeah you brought up a really good point about you know our resolution that we have with yield data, you know until I think when you think about how precise multi-hybrid language technology is or variable rate seeding. We can very precisely, very accurately you know change along a very definite line within that field but just because we can do that doesn't mean that that's necessarily correct for our fields for the multitude of data layers that we are incorporating to try to make these decisions of where these zone transitions should be and you know I think the data layer we probably rely on most is yield data and our yield data is averaged across a 30 or 40 or whatever your header size is you know and then we're trying to make these zone transitions that are even in a smaller you know we're talking some of these things we're taking it down to a 30-inch pointer scale, so it's kind of a like a I don't even know what the right phrasing would for that be you know we're trying to put a square peg in a round hole or something.
It's I think that's the major limitation, and I probably talked about this a lot but the major limitation for any variable-rate seeding any multi-hybrid planting is the data layers that we have behind it and are we actually confident in our combination of data layers, what data layers we are using, how much we weight you know various data layers against each other, are we prioritizing one above another in creating a management zone maps. I'd say that's one of the biggest things we learned from the study was for the most part the maps that we created in comparison to what like should have been planted were probably right 50% of the time you know. There was a lot that we did not pick up on and that's just I think in reference to how complex our systems are, how complex you know once you start combining yield data and soil data and year-to-year variability in weather like it's we have such a complex system so to say that we have created the perfect management zone map for that field. I mean you'd have to be pretty gutsy to say with confidence like yes I've done it. We had fields that we repeated from year to year in the study and the zone map when we analyzed what the correct zone map was supposed to be was dramatically different from year to year, same hybrids fairly similar growing seasons and just that year to year instability in what the correct management zones were supposed to be. I think that's very telling of the complexity of the system and maybe our limitation in interpreting data.
Sam: Sure, so I think you mentioned this a little bit earlier when you're talking about this complex system of making management zones, but then when you're talking about the seed treatment about how that's like more of a stable zone, so you know thinking about just that complexity is there some prescriptions, are some certain uses for multi-hybrid but planting that maybe show return more often just because of the inputs that we're having to put in does that make sense?
Rachel: Oh yeah, I definitely think if anyone has a situation like that where they're very known issues with you know SDS particularly, it seems like to me a no-brainer. Like I said, I think on that one field is four thousand dollars in return for using SDS and only that sounds like you could easily pencil out you know how the planter would pay for itself across a couple of years. I don't know about other ones that I would feel as confident in saying like oh yeah that's you know because just the changing variability that we see across years for any other sort of like hybrid selection things like that. It's just I think that there are definitely people who have figured out how to use this correctly and that's awesome, but I do not think that that's necessarily like their system is transferable to all cases because I've seen you know some people I think maybe had some results that they had some really good, positive results from it, but I don't it's just everyone's unique situation you know lends itself to a unique approach, so I would say any sort of thing like we mentioned with you know any known disease and known treatment is a whole other story than trying to figure out the correct approach for placing hybrids, creating management zones you know lots of questions that we still have that would be awesome if someone figures out and the added level of complexity of the hybrids that change. So, I mean there's such a turnover in hybrids and right so none of these hybrids are being bred for as a specific offensive or defensive hybrid that's not what they're created for. Like, I don't know what the appropriate terminology would be, but I always refer to them as like multi-management hybrids, you know they're bred to perform across a wide variety you know settings and I really, I feel like people ask the question a lot like well do you think that breeding companies would start reading for that and why would they start breeding for hybrids that perform you know in 10 situations versus hybrids that perform well in 50 situations like that's just not in their best interest as breeders. So, I really that's going to be a major limitation it is just what even is an offensive or defensive hybrid because that's very much just like a phrase we grow out that doesn't really have any exact definition.
Jackson: Do you think that even though companies may not necessarily be breeding for offensive and defensive hybrids that they will get to the point though where they're able to offer a tool that says okay this hybrid may be best suited for this particular condition even though it's going to perform well in a lot of different cases like this is best place to put it to at least have i guess a reference for somebody to use in a multi-hybrid planter situation? Rachel: Possibly, I mean they know a lot about these hybrids that I think doesn't get distilled down to the final user, you know there's a feel like the phrases a lot that end up with the final user are you know this is a go-getter or you know this is like a really security hybrid you know like it's sure it's they're more general phrases, but I think there's a lot of knowledge behind these products that eventually could get turned into like you said a usable kind of metric that you would give to a producer saying if you are considering a multi-management approach these are the situations where we would suggest that it would go, but then that also gets over to turnover of hybrids you know you figure that out for a hybrid. They suggest that for a hybrid and three years later you know we're on to the next thing, so that it's a moving target.
Sam: So, you talked about this like challenge also of the technology of the planter is actually ahead of where we are at the management zones right like it can change on the line and we don't really necessarily want to do that because soil is such a continuum. Where do you think we're going and the fact of you know there's a lot of sensors that are on planters, how are they going to be able to inform these placements at maybe a more gradual level than we can with a prescription?
Rachel: As far as sensors go, I'm very interested to see like where that kind of approach, that technology goes because like if we could figure out how to use this like it seems like it would be a great tool but as an agronomist a couple things like come into my mind. One, a lot of these are like moisture sensor based which means that they're going to be very like location and time dependent you know you're not going to be able to compare field to field because our moisture is so variable based on you know our soil conditions and you got a rain, so like say you planted half of the field using some sort of sensor that's using you know a moisture sensor to read or a light sensor to read moisture and organic matter say and then you had to stop halfway through and you came back three days later using that same sensor is going to mean that we have entirely different results for that second half of the field. So, that's one thing that I think about. The second thing is as we think about, so there's kind of three steps as we're thinking about creating management zones. The first is partitioning, the second is interpretation and the last is profiling and anytime we use a technology that is taking out that middle step of interpretation, I have some level of hesitation so essentially this sensor is profiling data but it's skipping the interpretation process and going straight to the profiling you know steps. So, some of these sensors they're saying okay we're going to read your organic matter and based on that we're planting a specific population to me that's taking out a very critical step of looking at what is even the behavior of the specific organic matter that it's reading, you know we're not, it's just skipping it very to me a very important step of why that portion of the field is performing the way it does and this is not to say that it's not going to work, but that's like my major hesitation as an agronomist you know anytime we're taking out any level of interpretation it gives me pause.
Sam: At first this seems very obvious like what are the agronomic indicators that may suggest two hybrids in a field maybe more beneficial than the other and we're coming at this from when we look at nitrogen research, we're not just looking at yield we're looking at you know nitrogenous efficiency and things like that is there anything else you guys are really looking at besides yield when you look at how well do hybrids work in the field?
Rachel: So, we looked also at soil data as a fairly high indicator of as both part of our prescription maps but also as we were screening sites you know is there enough variability in soil data from the sense that again we were looking at this as an offensive versus defensive approach, so is there enough change in our soil types and subsequently our water holding capacity of these soils that we would see a variation you know and how crops perform across the field? So, a couple of our I would say the most interesting change in one of our fields was one of our fields was a predominantly silty- clay- loam but it had probably maybe a quarter of the field were these very deep sand pockets and they were these little pockets, I remember right that they were river deposited and then like less cats were blown off of them and so it's like a very distinct soil change and that was kind of like common in that area. You know, to have that feature in some of your fields, so that was a very distinct soil change and for us that was like a pretty decent indicator that we would be able to place two hybrids on that field. I would say in situations like that though there are some things that blur the lines and whether or not it's going to be successful so for that field it was also irrigated and those portions of the fields were under irrigation and so I don't think we saw as distinct of a difference as we expected simply because you know that irrigation kind of acted like a mask and you know brought up those low performing areas close enough to the rest of the field that it wasn't as big of a deal as we thought it was going to be in dry land situations. I would feel fairly confident in that field, but it was going to you know do what we expected.
Jackson: So, it sounds like if I'm a farmer that is you know considering adopting multi-hybrid uh planting technology or you know to be able to put out multiple products or traits at least what I'd want to look at is number one my soil type maps and see if I do have any drastic changes in soil type, are there any other data layers that you'd kind of suggest uh looking at in addition to kind of those soil types and considering dry land versus irrigated to I don't know characterize a field and how it may perform?
Rachel: Yeah, and I should should also say our soil maps are good informative data layers but what we used for our soil map decisions were actually EC maps you know because it's such a more precise look at how our soils actually change you know our surface soil data is a great you know as we were doing some preliminary data to just look and be like oh yeah like there is definitely some variety and soil types there. But, once we got that drill down to which fields we were actually going to utilize we wanted to have a much more precise and accurate data layer to use and that's where we used EC data kind of as that surrogate layer for soil type, so I would put that one pretty high on the list as something to look at something to utilize if they were considering a multi-hybrid approach to the field.
Jackson: Yeah, it's one thing like you know with our nitrogen management and I'm sure it's the same way here we think about you know trying to give people a tool that says okay variable rate nitrogen is probably going to give some sort of return on this field right and it's just, it's really hard to characterize whether or not it's going to work. We just you know, I don't think we're there yet but it would be so nice to be able to offer that to a farmer and say hey look plug your field on this tool and oh we'll show you in our ROI you know.
Rachel: So yeah, coming out of the end of our project that was one of the things that you know if you can kind of put a wish list at the end of a project like that was definitely if there was a way and I think this is actually feasible research that someone could do if there's a way to characterize variability of a field you know from looking at all of those data layers and essentially create some sort of scale that you know it plots you along this scale and if you have x amount or more variability you know this is a good fit for multi-hybrid or if you have this amount of variability or more consider variable rate seeding things like that that would just be a tremendous tool I feel like for producers to have. Like where do I sit on the variability rate you know something like that to help give them some sort of framework to understand you know how much variability they have in their field.
Sam: Absolutely, so speaking about a wish list what type of technology are you most excited for where do you want us to go in the future with planter technology?
Rachel: That's a great question from like a personal standpoint, I have been really interested in seeing what hydraulic downforce has been doing for people and I say this from the perspective of watching my dad utilize hydraulic downforce on his planter. To me, it's just an impressive advancement in row by row accuracy from the standpoint like before you know if we're using even pneumatic or just you know springs, we're always trying to add more pressure like you know I feel like we're always like okay I'm setting the whole planter at x PSI, but what he's seeing in a lot of his fields is actually for the most part all the row units are lifting so the hydraulic down force has the ability to you know not only apply downforce but also you know compensate for the weight of the row unit in some of these cases is simply too much, and so it's lifting the room unit so that we're having very precise. I would say c tutorial contact no additional compaction to me it's just it's fascinating to look at some of the data that he has from those fields where you know you'll see eight of the rows are lifting you know and just a few of them are applying down pressure as they cross spray your tracks or cross where you know maybe it was harvest compaction things like that. So, I think it's a really cool advancement and row by row technology.
Jackson: Is there any resource right we've talked a ton about planters and you obviously like know a lot about planters. What resources would you direct people to kind of learn a little bit more, maybe explore what's out there?
Rachel: I don't know that I have like one specific place that I really go to for like technology resources, occasionally I just find it fun to look at like the major manufacturers websites and see what they are pushing as like you know what's their number one thing that they're trying to sell this season just to see kind of in general where the industry is going. You know, I've loved seeing all the stuff that like John Deere has been putting out with their exact emerge and showing you know the exact placement and how it you know compensates for speed and travel and gravity and you know all the different things that they say. As for like resources that are like more detailed you know, universities are are coming out with some like good extension neb guides it's probably a challenge for a lot of universities is because the technology is changing so fast, you know it's like it's hard to keep up with testing something for multiple years to feel like we get a good grasp on what to tell producers to do before the next technology is out. You know, so but I would say that's probably that's not a good resource like suggestion I'm just saying that's if people are frustrated that there is not more resources out there from universities you know that's why like they're doing their best to keep up but it's just such a change in market.
Sam: So, to wrap things up what is one piece of advice you'd like to offer the listeners when looking to advancing their planter technology?
Rachel: I mean, I should probably have clarified this at the beginning of the episode but I'm like no expert on planting technologies this is just like years of me fiddling around with a bunch of different ones that I've been interested in, but I would say like generally speaking as a producer is kind of considering this broad spectrum of all the different technologies that they could pick from make a list of what technologies maybe you're most interested in interested in, what you're prioritizing and then see how they kind of stack up with our overall planting objectives now our objectives for planting are you know we're trying to get good seed placement, good depth, let's see just loyal contact and then maybe try to re-prioritize based on you know if your thing that you're most interested in is not going to get you any closer to those objectives probably needs to move down the list a little bit. So, prioritize based on what is actually going to improve those objectives for you and then consider ROI. I know that's such like a hard thing to do because like how do we determine you know this technology is going to save me x amount of money, like there's some clearly good data for some of these technologies like row shutoffs you know like that they pay for themselves and that's why we've probably seen such a dramatic adoption of them was it, was a clear no-brainer that this is going to have a positive impact on my ROI, so I would say if you can try to run some numbers on these technologies to you know say this one I think is edging out this next technology that I've been considering simply from an economic standpoint and go from there.
Sam: Thank you to Rachel Stevens for taking the time to join us for this episode of the FarmBits podcast. Her perspective on planter technologies developed particularly through several years of intensive graduate work has provided valuable insight that will apply to the rest of the episodes in this series.
Jackson: Yeah, there are so many interesting things about this episode, but one thing that I thought was particularly interesting is how technological capabilities advance at such different rates right so in this this case like planter technologies are actually ahead of our ability to inform prescriptions agronomically, which may affect the value that one can actually get out of the planter technology. In other cases you can think about like you know for example like yield monitor data right, it's at such low resolution that we're really able to probably make decisions on more of a plant-by-plant basis right now than what our yield monitors are able to provide so with planting technology it'll be interesting to see how much this mismatch actually affects industry dynamics moving forward and what technologies are going to be available on the market.
Sam: I completely agree. It's something we've discussed before and how these technologies that come out they have to coincide with an understanding and a willingness to adopt that otherwise they're just not successful. I liked hearing about how the multi-hybrid planters or some planter technology have a place in treating diseases and pests, which may not be the first thing you think about when you're getting out there at the field at planting time, so I think that's something so fascinating that we do need to think about more.
Jackson: There's so many things as Rachel mentioned it's a complex system. I mean and there's so many different things that can be affected, so that's pretty much it for this episode, next week we're going to continue through our series exploring planting technology and we hope that you'll join us again for another exciting episode.
Sam: Thank you for taking the time to join us today on the FarmBits podcast, if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts to be informed about the latest content each week we welcome your feedback so if you have comments or questions for us please reach out to us over email on twitter or in the reviews section of your favorite podcast platform our contact information can be found in the show notes. We'd like to thank Nebraska Extension for their support of this podcast and their commitment to providing high quality informational material to members of the agricultural community in Nebraska and beyond. The opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are solely their own and do not reflect reviews of Nebraska Extension or the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We look forward to you joining us next week for another episode of FarmBits.
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