Artificial Intelligence

How a Downsized Dairy Turned to AI to Make the Numbers Work

Thu, 07 May 2026 18:31:16 GMT

On a 60-cow registered Holstein dairy outside Baldwin, Wis., artificial intelligence has become part of the management toolbox.

Mary Holle and her husband, Joe, milk in a refurbished 94-cow tie-stall barn at Holle-Oaks Dairy, a family operation that has seen major change in recent years. After taking over the farm from Joe’s parents in 2017, the Holles made a hard pivot in 2024, downsizing from 120 cows to 60.

With her father-in-law ready to step back from daily chores and labor costs continuing to climb, Holle could see the pressure building. The farm had reached a point where something had to change to keep things sustainable for everyone involved. Thus, downsizing the herd became the path forward.

Part of that downsizing process involved bringing in a tool still new to many dairy farmers — artificial intelligence, or AI. It wasn’t an obvious fit, but Holle saw it as a way to work through her farm’s numbers and run different scenarios without adding more layers to an already full system.

A Numbers Mindset Meets a New Tool

Holle, who also serves as the program manager for the Farm and Industry Short Course at UW-River Falls, didn’t come to AI without experience. She’s long leaned into data, building her own systems to track and understand how her farm is performing.

“I’ve been using Excel since I was, like, 10 years old,” Holle says. “I started doing my dad’s dairy herd records, because we didn’t milk test.”

That early passion for data turned into formal training in dairy science and ag business, along with several years of building detailed spreadsheets for her own operation. Today, those workbooks track just about everything on the farm, from feed costs and veterinary expenses to crop yields, soil tests and labor.

“I’ve been building complex equations within Excel for like a decade,” Holle says. “My biggest workbook is 17 pages long.”

Even with all of that in place, she eventually hit a point where spreadsheets alone weren’t enough to work through the number of what-if scenarios she was running. She wasn’t trying to replace the system she already had, but she needed a faster way to test ideas and see how different decisions might actually play out.

That’s when Holle began to use AI. She started experimenting with it by feeding in her own farm numbers, then asking it to run different scenarios and compare outcomes she would normally have to build out by hand. Over time, she used it to work through decisions faster and feel more confident in what the numbers were pointing to.

Running the Numbers

The 2024 transition pushed Holle to take a closer look at her cost structure. With fewer cows, fewer employees and new financial obligations, she needed to figure out what her cost per cow and break-even milk price needed to be for the smaller herd to stay profitable.

“I needed to run a series of scenarios to find the linchpins in the business,” Holle says. “We had to drop our cost per cow and get our break-even down to around $17.80 per cwt. for the smaller herd to work.”

She pulled data from her workbooks, including fixed costs, five-year averages for feed and vet expenses, labor hours, wages and loan balances with payment schedules. From there, she used AI to organize the information and get a better read on what was driving cost per cow.

“I asked ChatGPT, ‘What are the trends, what’s going on, can you put this into context?’” she says.

Working in short windows between chores, Holle ran different scenarios around debt, labor and herd costs to see which changes would have the biggest impact. It didn’t hand her one answer, but it helped narrow the decisions down.

“It told me what needed paid off first and where I’d see the most return,” she says. “I took the results to our banker and he said, ‘That’s ingenious.’”

In the end, the Holles were still the ones giving the final say, but AI helped them sort through information quicker and feel better about the direction they were headed.

Taking AI to the Field

After using AI to work through the financial side of the operation and guide the downsizing decision, Holle started looking at where else it could fit. Crop management was the next place she turned, and it’s something she’s still working through this year.

The farm currently includes about 500 acres in rotation with corn, soybeans, alfalfa and wheat. Similar to her herd management Excel work, Holle had built up soil tests, yield maps and field histories over time, but the information wasn’t connected in a way that made it easy to use. This year, she started using AI to organize it by field and year, then layer in crop history and yield data so it could be compared more directly.

“I didn’t have everything tied together in one place,” she says. “I had the information, it just wasn’t organized in a way I could actually use.”

With a new structure in place, Holle began asking AI more targeted questions around nutrient management and input efficiency. One focus centered around nitrogen — how much was already available in the field and where she might be able to cut back on applications without hurting yield.

“I wanted to know what was already out there before just putting more on,” she says. “If there was a place to save a little money without giving up yield, I wanted to find it.”

She’s also started looking at whether past decisions, like planting BMR corn, may have longer-term effects on nutrient availability. Using AI helped Holle spot patterns and show up to conversations with her agronomists better prepared.

This spring, she and her agronomists used that analysis as a starting point to fine-tune fertilizer and spray programs by field, paying closer attention to residual nutrients and timing. The new plan cut back on total fertilizer and chemical use compared to the previous year. By her estimate, this adjustment will trim roughly $40,000 from her fertilizer and spray bill in 2026.

Keeping Perspective in Place

While Holle sees value in AI, she’s careful about how she uses it. Sensitive information stays out, including personal identifiers, financial accounts and tax data.

“There’s always a step between sensitive information and it,” she says. “Anything personal or financial doesn’t go straight in. It always gets filtered or kept separate first.”

That caution carries into how she uses the tool in day-to-day decisions. Even when AI is helping her work through parts of the farm’s data, it hasn’t taken over decision-making. Holle still relies on her own judgment when something doesn’t line up with what she’s seeing on the farm, especially when context doesn’t show up in the numbers.

“Yes, I think it’s made me a better farmer,” she says. “But it’s a tool for the areas where I don’t know enough. There’s always context it’s going to miss. You can read a person or a situation in ways it can’t.”

For other producers thinking about trying AI, Holle recommends starting small and treating it like any other tool on the farm. Don’t start with big decisions or sensitive financial work. Start with something simple, learn how it responds and build from there.

“Start with emails or documents,” she says. “Something low risk where you can see how it responds and get comfortable with how it handles your information before moving into anything bigger or more complex.”

From her experience, it has less to do with the technology itself and more to do with how organized the farm’s information is going in. If the inputs are messy or incomplete, the results will be, too.

“Garbage information in leads to garbage answers out,” Holle says. “If you don’t know what you’re asking for, you won’t get what you need.”

That also means knowing where the farm stands before expecting any tool to improve it. Clear records, numbers and a good handle on what’s working and what isn’t all matter just as much as the software being used.

“You need to understand your strengths and weaknesses first,” she says. “Know what you’re comfortable handling on your own and where you could use a little more support, so you’re not leaning on the tool for things you already do well or expecting it to fix gaps you haven’t identified yet.”

Faster Decisions, Tighter Management

On her 60-cow dairy, AI hasn’t replaced hands-on management or day-to-day decision-making. Instead, it’s helped her sort through financial choices, tighten input decisions and show up to conversations with advisers with more clarity around the numbers.

For Holle, it’s become a fast, free tool she can pull up anytime to work through questions and run scenarios. And it’s helped her move through decisions faster and keep the operation running a little tighter, without adding more layers to the process.

Farmers Don’t Use AI for Answers — They Use It to Think Better

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 15:10:24 GMT

What you should know:

To use artificial intelligence in your business for a competitive advantage — not just a gimmick:

Ask better questions than most people
Combine AI with real-world experience
Execute on the answers

For Rachael Sharp, dry weather hasn’t made planting go any easier in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. And when a planter went down, the first thing she did was pull up Chat GPT.

“I pulled up the part number, and I saw that I’d actually entered in there last year. So it told me the date I changed it, and that was helpful, because I was trying to figure out why is this wearing out so quickly?” she says. “We’re in desperate need of rain, and we’re pulling in some pretty hard non-irrigated land right now. I logged that we changed the bearing again, and so next time, knock on wood, it hopefully doesn’t go out again, but if it does I can look and see I changed it twice in the last year.”

That’s just one of many examples of how Sharp is using ChatGPT to manage equipment, her time, and the farm business. She and her father, Don, are featured in an OpenAI commercial, which premiered during the Super Bowl.

And she’s in good company with other farmers in how to use the artificial intelligence platforms.

Marc Arnusch, the 2025 Top Producer of the Year, says ChatGPT is the most used app on his phone.

Jeremy Jack, leader of Silent Shade Planting Company the 2023 Top Producer of the Year, uses AI as his daily management teammate from agronomy and business decisions.

Here are the four ways these farmers use AI every day on the farm.

(Photo: Yvonne Min)

1. Make better decisions faster

Colorado farmer Arnusch uses ChatGPT and Grok to narrow down his consideration set when making decisions.

“It helps on the strategic side of things, and when making a decision, I’ll let it give the top four or five things to choose from, which helps when there’s a million choices,” he says. “It really is like my funnel. I’ll set up my phone on my dashboard and just dictate to it. Then when I’m back at the farm office, my wife Jill is relieved because I’ve already processed out loud with the AI tool.”

While most farms collect data, Jack uses AI to make decisions, particularly agronomic.

“I uploaded multiple years of soil data across our farms,” he says. “And we’ve found ways to manage fertilizer better, for example with sulfur.”

The data interpretation has shifted his thinking by connecting the yield zones with as-applied fertility and return on investment.

Jack is also using the technology to double check every spray application — from rates, to tank mix, to nozzle selection, to pressure optimization.

Sharp has also found AI helpful in managing chemical applications. She can remember chemical boxes marked up with her father’s calculations by hand.

“I tell the prompt what I’m spraying, where I’m spraying, how many acres, tank size, and then I let it tell me what to order,” she says. “Over time, it’s learned which products are liquid and which are dry flowables. And it’s helped me keep track of the inventory we have so we don’t end up with pallets of odds and ends.”

(Photo: OpenAI)

2. Be more efficient

When it comes to where to start with AI, Sharp has one piece of advice.

“Think of the task that you don’t like to do at the end of the day. For me, I didn’t want to do paperwork at the end of the day,” she says. “So I threw it over to ChatGPT, and I said, hey, this is what I planted today, this is the date, and I left it at that. I started really, really simple.”

Now, she’ll record things directly in the field or in the truck. She says it has helped with FSA 578 forms. And in day-to-day operations, she’s found benefits for time management and accuracy in all record keeping.

“We have seed samples that require a handwritten seed form that I turn in along with the sample, but I spoke into my phone and said, hey, Chat GPT, I need you to log that I sent this variety, this lot number, on this date, to the lab. And so, that’s probably one of 15 entries that I’ve made over the course of a month. And at the end when we finally turn in our last sample to the lab, I’ll ask it for a spreadsheet with all that listed,” she says.

(Photo: Sarah Green Photography)

3. Think more clearly about complex problems

Jeremy Jack often asks ChatGPT “What does this mean for my farm?” with current events.

“With the war in Iran, global fertilizer supply chain concerns, and even things like USDA reports, it’s given helpful perspective in how to think about what’s happening off the farm but impacts the farm.”

And he’s found success in using the platform to specifically think about the business strategy for his farm with vendors, including lenders, landowners and more.

4. Manage more professionally

Jack has been active with an advisory board for their farm, but AI has become like a boardroom in his pocket.

“I bounce ideas—pressure test if you will—before it costs me real money,” he says. “This includes input purchases, land agreements, and equipment purchases.”

He’s also come to use it in his external communications about the farm including his regular social media posts on LinkedIn.

When it comes to team management, Arnusch has input culture index results for vendors and employees, then the AI compares their individual characteristics with the job they are being asked to do.

“This has been a breakthrough,” he says. “It’s shown me that at no fault of their own, why some people fail at what they are being asked to do. It wasn’t because they weren’t working hard or doing the job. It was stretching them beyond what they can do.”

He gives the example of a farm foreman position on the farm, and how he used this process to match the candidate with the role.

(Sarah Green Photography)

Inside The Tax Return of Your Farm's Future

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:31:55 GMT

The traditional process of preparing agricultural tax returns has long been defined by manual data entry and the complex reconciliation of income. However, the integration of artificial intelligence into financial systems is ushering in a more sophisticated era of tax management. For the modern farm, the future of filing lies in a seamless pipeline where software handles the heavy lifting of data organization, leaving the high-level strategy to human experts.

Comprehensive Data Integration

The foundation of a modern tax return is the accounting system. Platforms like QuickBooks, Xero or specialized farm management software are becoming increasingly autonomous. In the near future, these AI agents will do more than simply record expenses; they will analyze them in real-time.

With direct links to bank feeds and digital invoices, AI can categorize expenditures with precision. It can distinguish between capital investments, such as machinery or land improvements, and standard operating costs like seed and fuel. This continuous synchronization means by the end of the fiscal year, the financial records are already in a format that mirrors the requirements of a tax return.

Automated Document Reconciliation

A significant portion of tax preparation involves matching — ensuring the farm’s internal records align with the documents issued by third parties. A preparer of a farm tax return may spend more time making sure all of the income is in the right box then planning to optimize the income tax level.

AI is uniquely suited to handle this high-volume verification. The system can automatically ingest Form 1099-PATR (cooperative distributions), 1099-G (government subsidies) and other Form 1099s and W-2s and verify them against recorded deposits.

If a document is missing or a figure does not match the ledger, AI identifies the specific discrepancy immediately, allowing for a targeted correction rather than a manual search through months of records.

The Role of Human Oversight

While AI provides the technical framework for the return, the final stage remains firmly in human hands. Once the software has mapped the data to the appropriate tax schedules, it produces a comprehensive draft for professional review.

This allows the farmer or a tax consultant to transition from a data entry role to a strategic advisory role. Instead of spending hours verifying line items, the human reviewer can focus on critical tax planning decisions including accelerated depreciation choices or income averaging that require professional judgment and an understanding of the farm’s long-term goals.

The result is a more accurate, defensible and efficient tax filing process. By automating the clerical aspects of the return, AI allows agricultural producers to maintain focus on their operations while ensuring full compliance with the evolving tax laws.

The High-Tech Transformation of a Dairy Visionary

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 20:51:50 GMT

“Growing up as a kid, I always told everyone I was going to be a farmer,” says Paul Windemuller of Coopersville, Mich. “I just didn’t know how it was going to happen, because we didn’t have a farm.”

That was more than 30 years ago in 1990. Today, Windemuller has achieved that dream as a first-generation dairy farmer who wholeheartedly understands how rapidly the dairy industry is changing. We met up with the tech-savvy, charismatic young farmer in Santiago, Chile during the 2025 International Dairy Forum World Dairy Summit to talk about how innovation and data ownership are reshaping traditional agriculture both here in the U.S. and around the world.

From Humble Beginnings to Innovation Leader
Windemuller’s journey into dairy farming began in western Michigan, where his family ran a farm equipment dealership. Despite not growing up on a farm, experiences working on various agricultural operations instilled in him a passion for livestock, particularly dairy. Windemuller’s academic pursuit in agribusiness management at Michigan State University, coupled with a pivotal stint at Lincoln University in New Zealand, laid the foundation for his future endeavors. It was there that he found a mentor who owned multiple dairy farms and also consulted with other dairies. This relationship fueled Windemuller’s ambition and gave him the business acumen necessary for success in the dairy industry.

When Windemuller returned to American soil, he was married with a baby, $2,000 in his bank account and no home. This fueled determination out of the gate, which quickly led to a job with Dairy Farmers of America, where he honed his skills in supply consulting, helping member farms optimize their purchasing practices. This was also the period when Windemuller’s vision for Dream Winds Dairy began to take shape.

Building Dream Winds Dairy
Dream Winds Dairy started on a modest 13-acre farm acquired by Windemuller and his family. With an initial investment of just $20,000, they transformed an old tie-stall barn into a thriving enterprise, starting with 30 cows in 2014 and expanding to 250 by 2018.

“This is where I cut my teeth on technology back when I put the robots in,” he says, noting that SCR collars drastically improved their operational efficiency and cow health. Windemuller says, through adopting technology, he virtually stopped giving breeding shots and began treating cows earlier with more homeopathic methods.

“That made a huge impact there, which also made a huge impact on my cull rate, because if you can breed cows and you can keep them healthy, you don’t need to cull them as much,” he says, noting that this helped him not need to purchase as many replacements.

The Power of Technology and Data
Today, Windemuller’s approach to dairy farming is heavily influenced by technology. He believes AI and automation play crucial roles in enhancing farm productivity and profitability. The introduction of milking robots and other technological advancements allows him to manage farm operations more effectively while maintaining an off-farm job.

Windemuller shares that soon out of the gate, he relied heavily on data, meticulously tracking numbers and tirelessly working to manage his growing farm.

“Every six weeks, I tested my herd,” he says. “I stared at those numbers trying to find patterns to manage them. I struggled, but I slowly learned.”

When he installed robots and sensor collars in 2017, along with it came real-time data on every aspect of his farm operations.

“Suddenly, I had more data than I knew what to do with,” he says, sharing initially it overwhelmed him, but eventually empowered him and turned him into a data-driven farmer obsessed with AI.

Global Insights: A Nuffield Scholar’s Journey
Windemuller says one year later, with the help of real-time data, both his breeding numbers and cull rates went from well below the industry average to well above it.

“That’s when I realized that data really empowered me. It trained me, and it made me a better dairy farmer,” he says.

The power of data led to a Nuffield Scholarship, allowing Windemuller to travel to more than 15 countries. Traveling the globe, he observed the transformative impact of AI and automation in agriculture. Windemuller says he drew inspiration from industry pioneers and recognized parallels between the evolution of electricity and the potential of AI in revolutionizing farming practices.

During this time, Windemuller listened to a Jeff Bezos podcast that he calls a lightening transformation.

“AI is like a horizontal enabling layer, much like electricity in the early 20^th century,” he recalls. “Now, after all my travels and research, I believe AI, as a technology, will be more transformative than even electricity. AI is not a single tool. It’s the foundation for almost every new technology that will power the next generation of agriculture. Whether we like it or not, over time, AI will become the invisible layer that runs through nearly every system we use in this industry.”

While AI presents seemingly endless opportunities, it also comes with its own set of challenges. Windemuller highlights roadblocks like data quality, infrastructural issues, fear of technology by farm workers and governance barriers. His research underscores the importance of accurate data and interoperability in successfully leveraging AI, as well as the need to foster a culture of innovation among farm teams.

A Vision for the Future
Windemuller introduces several frameworks to guide the integration of AI in agriculture. From the AI yield gap, which identifies untapped potential, to the livestock AI readiness index, which helps farms assess their preparedness, he emphasizes the importance of strategic adoption. Moreover, he envisions a future where farmers control their data through cooperatives, ensuring their freedom and leveraging cleaner data for industry-wide benefits.

For those skeptical of AI’s relevance to their farms, Windemuller’s message is clear: farmers should embrace data stewardship and technological experimentation. Simple steps, like using software to manage team schedules or feed prices, can provide a gateway to understanding AI’s potential. Most importantly, fostering a culture where technology is seen as an enabler, rather than a threat, is crucial.

Looking to the future, Windemuller envisions an era where humanoid robots and integrated visual technologies will further revolutionize farm operations. He predicts these advancements will enable farmers to achieve a holistic insight threshold, where comprehensive data points provide an unparalleled understanding of farm dynamics. This shift toward data-driven decision-making promises to distinguish successful farms from those that resist technological change.

“Everyone will have access to the same commercially available AI tools, but AI has a multiplying effect, if a farmer is 10% better than the industry average, and the multiplying effect is 10x, then that farm will be 100% better than the industry average (profit wise). This will have a hockey stick effect on industry consolidation and efficiency,” he says.

Join the Movement
As Windemuller concludes, his vision for the future is an agricultural industry that empowers farmers to lead the digital transformation. By harnessing the power of AI, they can make informed decisions and build resilient businesses prepared for the future.

“We don’t want one company owning all the systems or controlling your data, but we do want our systems to talk to each other,” he says. “Imagine a system where farmers are not just data producers, but are in complete control of their data. A system where we pull our information together through a farmer-led cooperative that governs how the data is shared, monetized and used for farmers. This means access to cleaner, scaled, verifiable data sets. For researchers and innovators, it opens doors to accelerate solutions that serve our entire ecosystem as an industry.

In the end, Windemuller believes AI won’t replace farmers, but it will elevate them, creating sharper managers and better stocked people.

“By leading this transformation, we ensure a robust future for the next generation of farmers,” he says.

Windemuller’s story is a compelling example of how innovation and strategic thinking are redefining modern dairy farming. His insights and initiatives not only promise to drive profitability but also ensure the sustainability of an industry poised for transformative growth. Through collaborations and commitment to leveraging data, the future of dairy is bright.

Paul Windemuller will share his story and present in more detail at the 2025 Milk Business Conference, Dec. 2-3 in Las Vegas. To see the full agenda and register today, go to: MILK Business Conference 2025

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AI on Dairies is Coming in Hot

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 11:44:48 GMT

Artificial intelligence (AI) is permeating nearly every facet of society, and soon it will be a regular fixture on dairy farms, too, according to Miel Hostens, Robert and Anne Everett endowed associate professor of digital dairy management and data analytics at Cornell University.

On a recent episode of the “ Cornell Cow Convos ” podcast, Hostens says he currently considers AI to be in the exploratory stage.

“At this moment, I think we’re in a bit of a ‘hype cycle,’” he says. “We’re just starting to see some of the advantages that could potentially be applicable to the dairy industry.”

Hostens says there currently are very few AI-based technologies that are ready for commercial farms, but that will be changing quickly as companies strive to apply the technology to assist dairies in meaningful ways. Some of the potential applications he mentioned are parlor management, lameness/locomotion scoring, automated body condition scoring (BCS) and calving detection.

He says the origins of AI have been in place for decades but have been bolstered recently by cheaper and more robust computational power, coupled with natural language processing techniques and photography and video technology.

Some “baby steps” toward full-on AI have already be implemented on dairies, such as using basic statistics to program systems to signal alerts. But in that case, humans made the decisions and set the data thresholds, versus the machine learning that is the cornerstone of AI.

“Nowadays, with machine learning, you can throw a whole bunch of data at these algorithms, and the algorithms are able to find patterns themselves without humans being involved anymore,” he explains.

There will be questions and even ethical considerations along the way. For example, it’s one thing to capture and apply data on cows for BCS or locomotion scoring, but is it an invasion of privacy to analyze and apply human behavior in parlor management? Hostens says that is yet to be determined.

And who, exactly, owns the data?

“The ownership stays forever with the one who creates the data and that’s the farmer,” declares Hostens, who also is director of Cornell’s Bovi-Analytics Lab.

But, he adds, unlike a tractor or piece of land, it is possible for more than one entity to own data. In addition to the farm, it could be legally possible for the AI company to own a common set of data.

Just like a robotic milker or feed pusher, Hostens says it’s also important to have a plan in place for breakdowns. If the system is knocked offline or quits functioning for some reason, who will step in to take its place?

In preparation for the onset of AI, Hostens advises dairy managers to take the following steps to maximize it in their business:

Get your data ready – Think about the issues on your dairy that could be solvable through AI, and begin collecting data sets on them now that could potentially be plugged into an algorithm later.
Consider monetizing it -- Hostens says AI companies cannot train their algorithms and deliver services to dairies without the ground truth that happens on a dairy.
“If you are generating data for an AI company, you can ask for something in return,” he advises.

Hostens says AI will obviously not eliminate the need for people to care for animals on dairies, but it will shift employee needs in some ways. For example, fewer people might be needed to manually perform BCS or walk pens to monitor calving, but someone will need to regularly maintain the equipment that performs those tasks instead.

“Those systems will have to be running all the time,” he says. “What we tend to do is put those cameras high on the ceiling and hope that they will monitor forever. But you will need to have some kind of maintenance system around it.”

AI systems also still need to be developed to a point that they are generalizable across farms, Hostens says.

“But the promises are big, that’s for sure,” he adds.

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Machinery News: John Deere Debuts Forage Harvesters, Ecorobotix Lettuce Algorithm, Kubota-Agtonomy Deal

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 15:10:19 GMT

John Deere has announced the launch of new F8 and F9 Series self-propelled forage harvesters, which the manufacturer says are built from the ground up with customer input to elevate forage performance and farm productivity.

Deere says the new F9 Series comes in two engine options — John Deere 18X and Liebherr V12 24L — with five horsepower options ranging from 700PS to 1020PS; the F8 Series comes with the JD14X engine bringing six horsepower options, ranging from 425PS to 645PS.

It also says the new machines offer improved automation with a higher level of comprehensive technology offerings compared with previous models.

The technology options include:

Ground speed automation — Deere also offers this feature on new S7 combines. The manufacturer says it helps maintain ideal load and prevent operator stress by adjusting ground speed in real time based on crop conditions.
ProTouch Harvest — A feature allowing operators to initiate multiple harvest-ready settings with the push of a button, while Active Fill Control ensures consistent truck fills even under the toughest harvesting conditions.

(John Deere)

“A higher-quality forage output with more power, more precision and more uptime, that’s the focus of the new forage harvesters for our customers,” said Bergen Nelson, John Deere go-to-market manager for harvesting equipment. “We’ve combined our strongest hardware with our newest and smartest precision ag technology to create higher-quality forage.”

More information on the new F8 and F9 Series SPFHs is available from a local John Deere dealer or deere.com.

Check out this test drive video from Farmworld_TV!

Specialty crop AI tech startup Ecorobtix unveils lettuce-thinning algorithm

Ecorobotix has announced the launch of its new lettuce-thinning algorithm, expanding the capabilities of its ARA Ultra High Precision (UHP) Sprayer to offer what it claims is one of the most advanced automated thinning solutions on the market.

The new functionality is available to ARA users via a software license.

“We’ve combined the power of AI with the reliability of ARA’s ultra-high precision spraying platform to eliminate one of the most time-consuming and labor-intensive tasks in the field: thinning,” said Katerina Lee, regional crop care manager for Ecorobotix.

Ecorobotix says its algorithm enables users to replace manual labor, grow crops with superior uniformity and cover fields faster than hand-labor crews.

Learn more here.

Kubota-Agtonomy join forces to develop autonomous specialty crop machinery

Kubota North America has announced a collaboration agreement with Agtonomy, an agricultural autonomy software provider, to commercialize autonomous operations on Kubota diesel tractors for spraying and mowing.

Kubota says the partnership reflects its commitment to pioneering solutions and equipping growers with smart technology.

“Our working relationship with Agtonomy represents a significant milestone toward commercializing our vision for autonomy by merging our expertise and technology with Agtonomy’s autonomous platform,” said Brett McMickell, chief technology officer for Kubota North America.

The initial phase of the partnership will focus on integrating Agtonomy’s capabilities with Kubota’s M5N specialty crop diesel tractor.

Learn more about Kubota’s vision for autonomous technology in farming here.

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A Farmer Can Dream, Right? Tesla Robots As the Farm Labor Force of the Future?

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 18:24:44 GMT

With a visual form ripped straight from a skin-crawl inducing robot thriller, Tesla’s new AI-bot, Optimus, is eliciting strong reactions from tech advocates and flip-phone touting technophobes.

Let’s indulge our imaginations for just a second and imagine how a farmer could put one of Musk’s $20,000 helper robots to work around the family farm in, say, the year 2040. I use 2040 because, even though the prototypes in the video below look awesome, it turns out the AI behind it needs more work before any farmer would feel safe setting a squad of them loose on the farm.

Our own Clinton Griffiths was also inspired by Optimus’ unveiling. In his upcoming column in the November issue of Farm Journal, Clinton gets right to the heart of the issue, and that’s whether the bots will pan out on the farm?

The real test, he writes, “will be whether it can keep its glossy finish motoring along regardless of whether or not the field is mud-free.”

I couldn’t agree more, Clinton. Serving up fancy drinks during an unveiling party on a glitzy Hollywood film studio lot is one thing. Standing up to all the dust and heat and tough conditions of your average farm or ranch is a different beast altogether.

In that vein, we offer up the following farm chore list Optimus can take over from here on out.

No, seriously Opti, you don’t need our permission. Just go ahead and take care of these few little things every single day for the rest of time, and we’ll be off, I don’t know, fishing at the lake with the kids, rocking on the front porch, or something.

Farm equipment maintenance tech
Director of crop protection jug disposal
Backpack spraying around-the-clock weed warrior
Chief grain bin inspector
Head ladder climber
Irrigation pivot inspector general
Head high in July crop scout
Pig loader and unloader extraordinaire
Master bottle mixer and calf feeder

Now that you’ve read my list, I’m curious how you would use a robot that walks, talks and moves like a real human (and never gets tired, bored or spends 20 minutes staring at its phone) on your farm? or click

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Your Next Read: As the Wizard of Yield, Ken Ferrie Reveals His Secrets on Unscripted

4 Ways to Focus a Tech Audit

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 23:00:09 GMT

Farm Journal’s Smart Farming Week is an annual week-long emphasis on innovation in agriculture. The goal is to encourage you to explore and prioritize the technology, tools and practices that will help you farm smarter. Innovation today ensures an efficient, productive and sustainable tomorrow.

There is a tremendous amount of new technology available these days, and the list is constantly growing.

While technology access and options might be the greatest in the history of farming, implementing and benefiting from the deployment of such technology, in many cases, is an entirely different story.

Most traditional row-crop and livestock operations have limited resources to devote to this area, especially in the wake of rising costs of iron, inputs and interest. When resources and cash flow are running tight, investment in new technology is typically one of the first players to be cut from the team.

In today’s farming environment, putting the capital into technology is paramount for the viability and growth of the business. To make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck, start with a technology audit before making decisions about how to maximize those resources.

The focus of a farm technology audit, and subsequent purchase plans, can be based on these four key areas:

(Farm Journal)

1. Grow business revenue.
The first thing farmers think about when growing the farm is growing the number of acres or bushels. But today’s technology also allows for ways to grow business revenues without expending a mountain of capital resources. For example, more comprehensive digital field and grain bin tracking technology allows for more targeted contracts based more on a crop’s condition and digital data pedigree than solely its yield. There’s also emerging sustainability markets where the revenue is totally decoupled from the crop itself. The catch-all of these new opportunities are impossible to scale without digitizing the farm from top to bottom.

(Farm Journal)

Increase productivity.
Automating tasks and processes can help with costs and performance. Auto-steer is likely one of agriculture’s greatest examples of a technology that checked this box on a massive scale. In a Southern Agricultural Economics Association auto-steer impact study, the authors saw, in some cases, ROIs approaching nearly 25% productivity gains. As robotics and artificial intelligence advance, agriculture is ripe for leapfrog gains in this area.

(Farm Journal)

3. Reduce costs.
Shrinking costs and reducing complexity can help even small and medium-sized farms enable growth. Hands down, automatic swath control and planter clutch technology have been two of precision agriculture’s greatest ROI technologies. Even a decades-old Auburn University study reported input savings ranging between 1% and 12% per field. As even more targeted input technologies evolve and are brought to market, this will certainly be an area to keep your eye on.

(Farm Journal)

4. Stabilize daily operation.
Technology has become the heartbeat of a modern farm. In fact, technology has become so embedded that in some cases it is absolutely critical to the daily operation of the business. For example, nearly 50% of acres planted to corn, soybeans, cotton and winter wheat are now managed with auto-steer and guidance systems. What happens if the GPS constellation failed or was jammed by a foreign hacker? On an individual farm, what happens when the electrical grid goes out and automated fans don’t turn on for a grain bin full of wet grain or a chicken production facility.

Ask Yourself These Questions

Peeling back the layers on how your farm is doing in each of these four areas comes down to answering some detailed and pointed questions about your farm’s overall technical health. Those questions include:

What technology is missing that I absolutely need today or especially will need tomorrow.
Do my technology pieces play nice together and talk to each other?
Am I really using the technology I already have and the data that comes with it?

In the real world, those questions might sound something like:

Do I need to digitize and record more of my field activities, such as anhydrous or crop protection applications?
If I don’t, am I risking future opportunities in this new age of Climate Smart Commodities and carbon credits?
Is my yield monitor so old they don’t even make memory card readers to download the data?
Will my John Deere tractor talk to my new Kinze planter?

Finding the right technology balance will be unique to your farm. Labor, equipment, land and your specific farming practices all play into what technology best serves your goals. If your biggest pain point is labor, start by increasing your focus on automation. For others, it might be the need to find ways to reduce inputs with auto-swath technology.
It’s important to mention that technological harmony on your farm cannot be solved by geeking out and going on a gadget-buying spree. That usually only creates more problems. Before you buy anything new, take an actual physical inventory of the current technology on your farm. This baseline is a pretty good indicator of your farm’s overall technical health.

(Farm Journal)

Ghosts of precision ag’s past

If more than a couple pieces of technology on your farm were put in use or manufactured before Y2K hysteria was an issue, they probably should be taken out and parked in a digital fence row somewhere. There’s no lack of ghosts of precision ag’s past still present on many of today’s farms.
This is the realm still haunted by the YM2000, PF 3000 and Greenstar “brown box” yield monitors. These are the office shop drawers filled with Ziploc bags full of SRAM, PC and Compact-Flash memory cards fragilely hold onto the data of harvests’ past.

Antique analog-era technology is impeding the adoption of newer technologies with greater benefits and simplified ease of use. Curious what happens from holding on to technology far beyond its expiration date? Just ask Southwest Airlines. Its years of cumulating “technological debt,” or old tech, caused their infamous holiday meltdown. Your farm and our industry are susceptible as well.

The only thing worse than old technology is no technology. Realistically, finding no technology on a farm today is rare. However, many farms are stuck in a tech rut where the portfolio hasn’t grown beyond a yield monitor and auto-steer. In the age of sustainability and consumer transparency, it is going to take way more digitization than that. Literally, every pass across a field will need to be recorded.

What about your inner circle?

That means when you are doing your tech audit, it should include assessing your technology as well as the technology of your trusted inner circle — your co-op or commercial applicator, your crop scout, crop insurance agent and your agronomist. All that technology creates data that must interact with yours.

Finally, not investing in technology is not an option — if you want to survive. Since the dawn of precision farming, the industry’s mentality has been that technology falls into more of a luxury category than treating it as the capital expense it should be.

The technology treadmill in agriculture has always been unforgiving. Without knowing where you stand and where you’re headed, you’re going to be in for a bumpy ride because today’s technology treadmill has just accelerated to warp speed.

More Smart Farming content for you:

8 Field Activity Data Types You Need to Collect Now

Here’s How to Bridge the Data Gap With Your Ag Retailer

10 Easy Ways to Take Your Crop-Scouting Practices to the Next Level

Pagel’s Herd Manager Shares How Tech Upped Wisconsin’s Largest Family-Owned Dairy Farm’s Game

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 16:10:40 GMT

Technology and efficiency seem to go hand in hand. This is what Chris Szydel of Kewaunee, Wis. says, as he shares how incorporating technology into his role as herd manager has been a game changer that has upped the overall efficiency at Wisconsin’s largest family-owned dairy.

“It is just like a light switch,” he notes, sharing that he first performed his role with a clipboard and reports printed off of DairyComp and manually doing everything.

Szydel joined Pagel’s Ponderosa as a nighttime milking technician in 1995. A decade later, he was promoted to herd manager and now manages both the Pagel Ponderosa and Hilltop Farm dairies, overseeing three different parlors and 65 employees. His role has evolved tenfold.

“We doubled in one year, making for a big learning curve. Essentially, everything that was running so smoothly on a daily basis for 1,000 cows had to be converted to a 3,000-cow dairy with a whole new site and setup and going from one parlor to two parlors,” he says. “It was a big transition with a big learning curve. John Pagel told me, when the potatoes start falling off the plates, you got to put them back carefully.”

Cadillac System

“My best analogy is going from a horse and buggy to getting into a new Cadillac,” he explains.

The Cadillac systems that Szydel is referring to is the ParlorBoss and SenseHub (formerly SCR) working together in their rotary, which allows Szydel and his team to now perform herd management tasks while cows are milking, reducing lockup times.

“We went from 5-6 hours a day on headlock time for the herd to 4 -5 hours per week lock up time,” he says sharing the SenseHub system pulls data from the cows collars, forwards it to DairyComp that then will relay it to the ParlorBoss screen. “All the tasks we need to take care of for the cows show up on the screen. The cows are being taken care of without disrupting them, it is a low stress environment.”

Szydel shares that SenseHub has also significantly helped them reduce antibiotic and hormone cost on the dairies.

“It does a great job of identifying cows early and we can give them attention sooner. With this technology, we can better identify the animals and have the compliance to double check to make sure that the cow got the attention that she needed,” he adds.

Conducting all their vaccinations and hormone medicine on the rotary, Szydel explains if a cow needs more attention, they can use sort gates to separate her for an exam.

“Everybody else can then go from the parlor back to the pen,” he says, explaining even on small breeding days, they can sort off cows into a small pen and breed and not disrupt the whole group of cows. “The cows are more comfortable in the pens after milking. The sort gates also allow us to breed cow 2x a day, separating the ones we need. We can breed the cow within 5 to 10 minutes and then open up the gate and allow her right back into traffic.”

Investing in technology like DairyBoss and SenseHub has also changed the workload amongst all Pagel’s employees.

“My biggest challenge over the last year and a half with the sort gates, ParlorBoss and SenseHub is keeping my team productive. We have saved time with this technology, so I have had to restructure what we’re doing,” he says.

Dialing in on efficiency across the entire dairy, Szydel and his team have taken on maintenance work during their downtime.

“We’re doing things with our team to help out other departments to help fill the gap,” he says. “We don’t want to let anybody go because the farms are expanding, and we have great people. We are just restructuring a bit.”

Cool Cow Boost

Turning fans on and rolling curtains up used to occupy a lot of time for Szydel. He shares that incorporating a temperature control system in the barns and parlor was a huge time saver, as well as a boost for production.

“I can control the temps in the parlor and the holding area from my cell phone or laptop and this gives the cows the best environment,” he says.

Szydel shares that the herd’s production hovers around 90-92 lbs. of fluid, 106 lbs. energy corrected.

“We would drop probably 8 to 10 lbs. of milk in the summer because of the warm weather,” he states, sharing repro also saw a boost.

“Our pregnancy rate is holding between 37 and 39% and we are able to not only get cows pregnant, but keep them pregnant, too,” he adds.

Worth the Investment

Additional cost-effective technology that Szydel says has been worth the investment includes:

Pulse NeedleFree System is a lightweight, disposable needle-free injector. “We want to make sure that we don’t have the blood-borne pathogens switching from cow to cow and it takes a lot of time and effort to switch needles,” he says. “Headlocks are no longer needed for routine management treatments.”
Cattle-Care is a dairy management software that uses existing parlor cameras and artificial intelligence to generate automated protocol reports. “We can reduce deviation in our protocols and having this technology lets us know the consistencies of the protocols and our shifts.”

Five Most Used Apps

Szydel says his role as herd manager has him in front of a computer 50% of the time. He shares his four most used apps include:

Valley Ag Software
DairyBoss
Teams Folders
Cattle Care camera system
SenseHub (formerly SCR)

Szydel points out their Cainthus system monitors the feed that is in front of the pre-fresh cows, making sure bunks are full, as a dairy technology must have.

“If we get some areas where the cows are eating more, or eating less, we can talk to our feeders and have them drop more or less feed in those areas,” he says. “It also sends alerts to the feeder’s phones if the cows look to run out of feed, letting them know to feed this group first.”

With so much technology to choose from, Szydel says ultimately what he is selecting for is cost-effective technology that will improve the overall efficiency of the dairy.

“Otherwise, all this technology adds up, so we got to make sure that we’re spending the money in the right areas and that we can get the results from it,” he says.