As we reported on Precision Pays, Virginia-based company LightSquared
has proposed to set up 40,000 wireless broad-band stations across the nation on a frequency that is right next to the one used by GPS. Opposition to the plan became organized in the form of the Coalition to Save Our GPS, which consists of a wide variety of industries and companies, including agricultural interests and technology providers such as New Holland, Deere, GROWMARK, Leica Geosystems and Trimble Navigation.

This week, the company announced a solution to the GPS interference issue by moving to a lower block of frequencies that is “largely free of interference issues with the exception of a limited number of high precision GPS receivers that are specifically designed to rely on LightSquared’s spectrum.”

Agricultural interests are concerned about that exception. A study released by the Coalition to Save Our GPS estimates that LightSquared’s plan could result in “direct economic costs of up to $96 billion to U.S. commercial GPS users and manufacturers.” Jim Kirkland, vice president and general counsel of Trimble, says the analysis “also highlights how LightSquared’s recently announced ‘solution’ to the interference problem, which LightSquared admits will not reduce interference for high precision GPS uses, is no solution at all. High precision GPS uses represent nearly $10 billion in historical investment by GPS users over the last five years and $30 billion in annual economic benefits.”

“The use of GPS technology is vital to thousands of people who make their living with agricultural and construction equipment. It is simply not acceptable to allow this new network to interfere with these important industries when all indications are that there is no practical solution to mitigate this interference,” said Ken Golden, director of global public relations at John Deere. “In agriculture, the loss of a stable GPS system could have an impact of anywhere from $14 to $30 billion each year. That could significantly erode the strong competitive global position of U.S. farmers in the world agricultural economy.”

Meanwhile, the 2012 agriculture appropriations bill recently passed by the House includes language specifically to register concerns about the LightSquared network and directs the USDA “to ensure the FCC is aware of these concerns.”

Listen to Harlan explain each of these and what they offer to farmers who want to take advantage of the efficiencies offered by the latest precision products here: Interview With Harlan Little

Leica’s SteerDirect Solutions

The Leica mojoMINI also has a number of new features, making this entry-level display a must-have for any farm operation. The Leica mojoMINI is a great solution for anyone looking for an affordable way to start saving money in the field by enhancing driver accuracy and reducing overlap. Plus, with new features like Boundary Recording, Coverage Mapping and Continue Field, the Leica mojoMINI is even more useful.

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

“I was attracted to Leica because of its deep roots,” Hayes said. “This is a strong company with almost 200 years of history. Leica is not only steering tractors, but they are also building CORS networks and have a large footprint in precision guidance globally. I’m excited to introduce the company and its products to new dealers, and help farmers benefit from the available technology.”

Also joining Leica is David Greer who is the Midwest sales manager. Greer joined Leica Geosystems earlier this year, and is based in South Dakota.

Greer started his career working for an independent farm equipment manufacturer and wholesaler. As the precision agriculture segment developed, Greer moved into sales and has held positions with several precision ag companies.

“I enjoy building relationships with resellers and farmers,” Greer said. “I like to help people solve problems. Leica offers simple, reliable, affordable equipment that can help farmers meet the challenges they face, and that leads to increased efficiency and improved profitability.”

Brent says that Leica products are unique in that they are not tied to one “color” and work with a variety of networks like the Iowa CORS network which allows them to create sub inch accuracy. The CORS Network is a cellular based correction signal which he describes as a mesh of RTK that blankets the state. He likes Leica products because of their simplicity, especially working with this network.

Brent says that most of his customers know they want some level of precision applications/products and come to him to help create a plan for how they’ll implement a system in their operation. He says they all have different goals and start and end points. His business has grown steadily over the last five years and that he believes there’s a lot of potential for it to grow in the future.

You can listen to my interview with Brent here: Brent Johnson Interview

Harlan says they’ve got a lot of interest in their touch screen units, the mojoMINI and mojo3D. He says farmers who stopped by loved getting their hands on them. Precision ag was in more evidence at this year’s Farm Progress Show than I can remember and one of the reasons is increased adoption in the industry. Harlan and I chat about what’s happening in the whole precision area.

You can listen to my interview with Harlan here: Interview With Harlan Little

Farm Progress Photo Album

Paul presented the Farmer Award to Ken Dalenberg (above) of Marshfield, Illinois – who was recognized for the role he has played in helping to develop and promote new agricultural technology for crop management. Ken has worked with a number of research projects on his farm to evaluate precision farming technology, along with other innovative products and practices through the University of Illinois, the Potash & Phosphate Institute, the United Soybean Board, and others.

Dr. Jess Lowenberg-DeBoer of Purdue University (left) and Dr. Harold Reetz (right, below) of Reetz Agronomics were honored with Legacy Awards during the conference. Dr. Lowenberg-DeBoer’s work in precision agriculture economics included groundbreaking research into the profitability of every aspect of it, including tracking the adoption of technology at the farm and service provider level, which played an important role in the growth of precision.

Reetz has been a champion of technology and precision agriculture throughout his four decade-long career, founding the InfoAg Conference in the mid-1990s as a way of getting people together to share experiences and build a networked community of vendors, users, and service providers. Now with Reetz Agronomics, Harold continues his champion role, especially in the use of precision technology for conservation. Chuck just did an interview with him last week at the Conservation in Action Tour.

Picking up the Consultant/Entrepreneur Award was the OptiGro Team at Jimmy Sanders, Inc. of Cleveland, MS. In addition, there were several student winners recognized at the event, including: Eric Allphin, Xystus Amakor, David Harper, Ming Li, Joe David Luck, Daniel K. Mullenix, Georg Ruß, Ajay Sharda, Yeyin Shi and Luciano S. Shiratsuchi. There’s too many pictures to put them all in this one post, but you can see all the photos at the conference Flickr photo site below.

ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!

“It’s important for us to be here to show people where Leica comes from [and] our product range,” Rob Kiernan, Leica’s Global Sales and Marketing Manager told me.

He says while agriculture is different in other parts of the world … some places focus on huge fields, while many farmers work in numbers of acres that you could count on one hand … there is a need to have precision technology, such as Leica offers.

“If we have the core technology of the GPS, it does benefit agriculture across the regions [of the world]. We’ve always looked at the big fields, but the small fields are equally important.”

You can hear more of my conversation with Rob by listening to it or downloading it from the player here: Rob Kiernan, Leica Geosystems

ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!

Leica is introducing its new mojoMINI, an on-the-go guidance system for in the field and on the road.

Daryl Southard, an inside sales rep for Leica, gave me a quick demonstration of the product in the video below:

Make sure that if you are attending the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture (ICPA), you stop by the Leica Geosystems booth and see the mojoMINI and all of the other precision ag tools that Leica has to offer. More information is also available on the Leica website.

ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!

The winners are:
ISPA President: Dr. Raj Khosla, Professor of Precision Agriculture, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
ISPA President-elect: Dr. John Stafford, a consultant in Precision Agriculture and Computing for Silsoe-Solutions Inc. in the United Kingdom
ISPA Secretary: Dr. Nicolas Tremblay, Plant Nutrition and Crop Management Specialist at the Horticultural R&D Center, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Quebec
ISPA Treasurer: Dr. Angela Guidry, Soil Services Manager/Field Scientist, SGS North America, Brookings, SD

Congratulations and good luck taking precision agriculture forward!

Pictures from the ICPA are available on our ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!

Dr. Ken Cassman with the University of Nebraska’s Center for Energy Sciences Research told the standing-room-only crowd that without negatively impacting some of the world’s most sensitive ecosystems – the rain forests, wetlands, and grassland savannahs – the current rate of production growth won’t meet the rising demand. He says a process of increasing yields and reducing agriculture’s “footprint” is necessary: a process he calls “ecological intensification (EI).” And he believes precision agriculture could play a key role in that process.

“The buffer between proper management and poor management narrows, that is, the margin for error becomes smaller in terms of what helps the crop or what hurts the crop. So your precision of management becomes the single most important factor in helping farmers achieve yields near the yield potential ceiling.”

Cassman says the goal is to achieve 80 percent of a crop’s genetic yield potential while not increasing the impact that crop has on the environment. He says while biotechnology might help get us there, there is no magic bullet. It will take a combination of new technologies and techniques to hit that potential.

And a man who shared the stage with Cassman during the opening session believes we cannot play down the importance of testing and monitoring of fields to make sure the crops are living up to their potential. Dr. William Raun with Oklahoma State University also made a pitch for funding of extension services so that testing can take place.

“Extension is obviously important to us. We cannot just do research. We’ve got to have thousands of enrich strips and ramps out there in the fields and investing in that extension so farmers can see it.” And he adds that the numbers and formulas are out there to best forecast what can happen in a field. We just need to make sure it’s measured. “Yield potential can be predicted.”

It really was a great session. Because of the length of it, I can’t post all of the audio here, but I am going to let you hear the question and answer session after Cassman’s and Raun’s presentation. You’ll also hear from Dr. Raj Khosla during this segment. You can download or listen to this session at ICPA here: Opening Session Questions and Answers

I’ve also posted the day’s pictures on the ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!

In the exhibitor hall, I met up with Harlan Little, Leica’s North American Business Manager. He says for a company that works so closely with precision ag systems, it’s absolutely important to have a presence here.

“The biggest part of it is to have our booth here at the trade show to be able to make sure that all the practitioners that are here at the show, along with the researchers and different people from the industry, all have a chance to see and touch what Leica is all about from an ag standpoint.” Little says Leica is fairly new into the ag market, and a show with this caliber of attendee is a must for his company.

He says they’ve been showing off their tried and true mojoRTK system, as well as the new mojo3D, a seven-inch, touch-screen control unit, that can be used for manual or automated steering.

While there are some producers here at the conference, most of the attendees are from the research and academic fields, and Little is happy to talk to them as well.

“A symposium like this really gives that academia a little bit of what’s the real world capability out there and keeping it grounded as to what the next research piece needs to be.”

Little is glad to be able to make reconnections with some old friends, as well as all the new ones they are making.

You can hear more of my conversation with Harlan, by listening to it or downloading it from the player here: Harlan Little, Leica Geosystems

Also, check out our photo album on Flickr: ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!

Throughout the day, hundreds of research scientists, producers, technology company representatives, equipment manufacturers, input dealers, agronomic consultants, software developers, educators, government personnel and policymakers have been pouring into the Mile High City from 40 different countries to look back on the past 20 years of precision ag innovations and to work together on the future of maximizing the potential of the world’s farmlands.

At the opening reception tonight, I caught up with Dr. Raj Khosla, the chairperson of the 10th ICPA and a professor at Colorado State University. He told me with 300-500 participants from such a wide variety of places around the world, he expects a large part of the conversation will be on the hot topic of food security.

“Precision agriculture has been mentioned as one of the solutions in meeting food security. Populations are increasing. People’s eating habits are changing.” And to meet those increasing demands, Khosla says they have to figure out how to translate some of the precision ag techniques used in the U.S. and apply them to lesser-developed countries. He says meeting the food demands of these growing countries could literally transform those societies.

“When you’re tummy is hungry is hard to listen to anything else other than feeding itself. There’s an opportunity for precision ag to contribute to lesser developed countries, smaller field sizes by coupling the technology and the [large labor markets].” He says it is just as important to use the same amount of labor to grow the larger quantities of food so precision agriculture doesn’t end up putting those workers out of jobs.

Khosla says precision agriculture is putting the right inputs in the right place, at the right time, and in the right manner. It’s a great conversation, and you can download or listen to Khosla’s interview at ICPA here: Dr. Raj Khosla

And check out the ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!

“Our customers have a wide range of requirements related to precision technology, and we’re working to provide them with solutions to fit their individual needs,” said Harlan Little, North American business manager for Leica Geosystems Ag. “Each of these packages was developed to be modular and scalable so that our customers can easily add functionality or move components into other vehicles, and all at very economical prices.”

“Daryl is a great addition to the team and brings with him a wealth of experience managing inside sales of technical products,” said Harlan Little, NAFTA business manager. “Daryl has a great ability to connect with our customers and will provide additional training and sales support. We look forward to bringing his skills and talents to bear in our business.”

The Leica mojo3D may be pre-ordered now, and will begin shipping March 29. For more information about the Leica mojo3D and other ag guidance solutions from Leica Geosystems visit www.AgGuidance.com.

I interviewed Harlan and you can learn all about the new features and benefits of the new mojo3D in our discussion. He also talks about the mojoMINI which he’s holding in his hands in the photo.

You can listen to my interview with Harlan below.

Commodity Classic Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2010 Commodity Classic
is sponsored by: and

To learn more about it I spoke with Darren Herstedt, Leica Geosystems service and support manager for North America. This is him sitting in front his computer utilizing Virtual Wrench. He says the customer can hit a couple of buttons and call their server so they can see the customer’s display remotely and guide them through a situation in real time. It saves time and money for both parties. He says that the system is available to almost all growers in the United States since they employ a service that utilizes most cellular carriers. Here’s what the product brochure says:

With your permission, your local reseller can remotely view and adjust settings, look at your field terrain and base station location, install software upgrades and, ultimately, diagnose and repair 90% of problems.

You can listen to my interview with Darren here:

Translated, that means farmers aren’t waiting for a service truck to arrive in their field to fix the problem. Leica has found that about 90 percent of the service calls related to ag electronics can be “repaired” remotely, as it is primarily a matter of adjusting the various settings to the terrain and the task at hand.

So just what is Leica Geosystems? To start with it’s part of a nearly 200-year-old Swiss company with a long heritage of pioneering measurement solutions around the world. That background has been why they believe they can offer a strong lineup of precision ag products to today’s farmers.

Here’s some more information from a company background sheet:

Based in Heerbrugg, Switzerland, Leica Geosystems is a global company with tens of thousands of customers supported by more than 3,500 employees in 28 countries and hundreds of partners located in more than 120 countries around the world.

Simplified steering solutions – easy to install non-hydraulic steering options and integration to third-party equipment to simplify the installation process. However, this sometimes results in lower accuracy steering solutions as well.

Today the company announced that Harlan Little has been named the North American Business Manager for Leica Geosystems’ agriculture group.

Little started with Leica Geosystems in late January, and will be based out of Leica Geosystems NAFTA headquarters in Atlanta.

“Harlan is a great addition to the team and brings with him a wealth of ideas and industry contacts to help grow our business throughout the U.S. and Canada,” said Rob Kiernan, global sales and marketing manager. “We are ready to take our business to the next level with new leadership and a suite of new products being introduced this year.”

Little has been in the precision agriculture arena for some time with sales, management and marketing positions at AGCO, Raven and Ag Chem Equipment.

For more information about Leica Geosystems’ agriculture team or the ag guidance products offered, visit www.mojoRTK.com.