Latest / The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast / Episode 63 | Data Intensive Farm Management (DIFM.farm)
Transcript
- Episode 63 | Data Intensive Farm Management (DIFM.farm) 00:00:05:12 - 00:00:57:05 Todd Gleason This is the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast, episode 63 Data Intensive Farm Management: a precision agriculture revolution. I’m University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Have you ever wanted to lay out field trials on your own farm, whether they be strip trials or checkerboard trials, and maybe do it across the whole of the field? Well, that second part probably would be very difficult, but not any more, because the DIFM, that's the data intensive farm management program, which uses precision agriculture technology with researchers and farmers working together to conduct these kinds of large scale trials, gathering all kinds of data, vast amounts of data, in fact, on how crop yields respond to input, application rates, field characteristics 00:00:57:08 - 00:01:17:08 Todd Gleason and weather. David Bullock heads up the team here on the Urbana-Champaign campus and across the United States that has been working with the DIFM, funded by a grant from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. And I asked him to explain just exactly what it is. 00:01:17:10 - 00:01:43:18 David Bullock It's a cyber infrastructure, if I can use that term, it it's something that farmers and crop consultants and researchers can use to run experiments, agronomic field trials on their own farms, not just run them, but get the data, have the data processed, and get statistical, get advice from the data about how to farm data intensive farm management. 00:01:43:21 - 00:02:13:21 David Bullock It involves using precision technology. Farmers can create, what many know, shape files that have, trial designs on them. And much like data, upload a prescription. You know, from a commercial, crop consultant, except it puts, it puts the experiment in the ground. So these instead of being, like a small plot trial, which is as big as, you know, a couple of basketball courts, these can be hundreds and hundreds of acres. 00:02:13:23 - 00:02:43:29 David Bullock And, and farmers can find out a great deal about, you know, you can check I'm putting 32,000 seed per acre down. Does that seem right? All right. Well, in what year does it seem right? What's the weather? Where on the field do I need more seed? Where do I need less seed? We get data on that. So instead of trying to rely on some on on various small plot trials to get data which are great and have their purposes, farmers are getting data right there on their own fields. 00:02:44:03 - 00:02:52:24 David Bullock So you're getting data from the field. You're trying to manage. And, we think we're helping farmers make, some good decisions and make more money. 00:02:52:27 - 00:03:05:25 Todd Gleason I do want to talk about the larger scope of the DIFM. However, off the top of my head, farmers are likely to ask one who does the data belong to? And two, can I do a strip trial? 00:03:05:27 - 00:03:07:20 Todd Gleason Because that's what I'm used to. 00:03:07:27 - 00:03:29:04 David Bullock What data we collect? First of all, the data is the farmers data. Okay? The farmers own the data. We will not sell it. We will not give it away. We will not let anybody look at it without the farmers written permission. We do reserve the right to use the data, the current data for the next several years for academic research, because we have to show that what we're doing is working. 00:03:29:07 - 00:03:56:01 David Bullock Okay. So we will use the data for academic research, but, but nothing else. The data is safe. It's, in the Oracle system. So, you know, the Russians can't get at it. And we, and so that's the it's the farmers data. What kind of data? Often, lots of kinds of data, principally. 00:03:56:01 - 00:04:18:05 David Bullock The most important thing we get is experimental data, which means we change the data of farm management. Okay. It could be nitrogen trial, right? How much nitrogen do you put in the ground in different places. It could be a pivot bio trial. It could be a hybrid trial. It could be a seed rate trial or any any pretty much any crop that the farmer can monitor. 00:04:18:05 - 00:04:53:04 David Bullock The yield, and any inputs that the farmer can variable rate. We can do experiments with it. And so it's it's pretty revolutionary. I know that sounds big headed to me to say that, but I think we're this can change how agronomy is done. And I think it can change the world. And again, I know that sounds pretty uppity, but a lot of I'm not the only one who thinks that we can get data from farmers own farms, farmers own fields and help them. 00:04:53:06 - 00:05:12:04 David Bullock Help them, know what's going on. Now, one of the things we do, you always hear about agricultural, big data, agricultural big data, you go on the internet. And there's all kinds of pretty pictures of satellites hookin on to tractors, and they're doing all sorts of site specific stuff. And then we've got all this data, all this data, all this data. 00:05:12:06 - 00:05:34:12 David Bullock Here's the thing. And this is really fundamental. If you don't change management and look at the results, you're not going to find out how to manage better. And what field trials do is they change management. They change okay. How many soybean seeds am I going to put on. And you put different amounts on and you see what happens. 00:05:34:12 - 00:05:54:03 David Bullock You look at yield. Now with that sure. You want to look at electric conductivity. You want to use, you know, elevation, biology, all this stuff you can get from satellites, all the stuff you get from drought, all that data comes into play. But think about it. You can take as many pictures in the sky from satellite as you want. 00:05:54:05 - 00:06:10:04 David Bullock If it's taking a picture of a field where the farmer, you know, put down 200 pounds of nitrogen around where on the field you're not going to be able to do anything to think about. Well, maybe he should have put on 170 pounds. Maybe he should have put on 230 pounds, because that's not in the data. 00:06:10:06 - 00:06:35:23 David Bullock If you want to learn how to manage a farm, you have to get data that changes management. And that's what field trials are for. And there's been a great deal of excitement about agricultural big data. A lot of garbage is garbage. The DIFM is trying to focus on the kinds of data that farmers need to farm better. And we so we have a pretty narrow focus. 00:06:35:23 - 00:06:57:11 David Bullock We're not trying to grab every piece of data that everything ever came out of a 1970s hybrid trial. Okay, we are focusing narrowly, but we're getting tons of great data and it makes sense how we're doing it. There's a tremendous amount of smoke and mirrors going on in the digital ag space, and the big data space, big ag data space. 00:06:57:13 - 00:07:01:20 David Bullock And what we're doing isn't smoke and mirrors. It makes a lot of sense. 00:07:01:22 - 00:07:14:29 Todd Gleason This prompts a couple of related questions. First, is there a cost to use the program? And secondly, are farmers likely to have the equipment already in their tractor cabs in order to use the program? 00:07:14:29 - 00:07:27:26 David Bullock Most Illinois farmers do. Yeah, most Illinois farmers, if you've bought a combine, you know, in the past, whatever, 15 years, then you've probably got a yield monitor out there. 00:07:27:29 - 00:07:48:10 David Bullock Okay. If you bought a planter in the last 15 years, you've probably got, you know, variable rate planting abilities. You know, there are places in the country where they're small fields, etc. not all farmers have that. But in online, most of the farmers have some precision technology. Now, they don't always know what to. They'll tell me if I had a dollar, I got all this data. 00:07:48:10 - 00:08:06:02 David Bullock I don't know what to do with it, you know, just. And yeah, you got tons of data and you don't know what to do with it. We can help you know what to do with it. Not only that, but our system helps process the data and analyze the data and give hints and give the farmers something to talk about. 00:08:06:03 - 00:08:24:11 David Bullock The crop consultant. Why is this going on in the southwest part of the field? Is that because there's a lot of clay content? We're not trying to tell farmers do this, we're the experts. We're trying to tell farmers, look at this. Here's some data. Let's think about it. This will start a conversation. Now. Does it cost anything now? 00:08:24:14 - 00:08:44:23 David Bullock I mean, first of all, we give farmers every farmer $1,000 for dealing with my personality. Basically. And but then we also compensate farmers. We can estimate pretty close. Oh, yeah. This field lost $800 because they did the the trial. Why? Because some of the rates were too low and some of them were too high. And they lost some money. 00:08:44:23 - 00:09:12:05 David Bullock Okay. Right. Yeah. $800. The program we're, working with is the USDA, NRCs Natural Resources Conservation Service, and they have, program called on farm trials, and they want to subsidize on farm experimentation. So one of the things they want to do is make sure that we make sure farmers don't lose money doing this. It's it's of course, it takes a little thought. 00:09:12:05 - 00:09:19:24 David Bullock Of course it takes a little time. Not a lot. It's not a huge learning learning curve. This is very doable. 00:09:19:27 - 00:09:25:07 Todd Gleason What's the vision for the future? Past the time you get through the USDA grants and such. 00:09:25:07 - 00:09:33:29 David Bullock The vision for the future is to create a system. First of all, we're doing you know, we've done hundreds of trials over the past, since 2016. 00:09:33:29 - 00:09:52:12 David Bullock We don't want to do hundreds of trials. We want to do tens of thousands of trials, and we want to do tens of thousands of trials every year. Okay. How do we want to do that? We want to work with farmers and consultants and make it user friendly that they can design these trials, put these trials in the ground, deal with the data, get ideas from the data. 00:09:52:14 - 00:10:16:15 David Bullock Okay. How do we do that? Well, you got to come up with a user friendly atmosphere and we've got one. Anybody can go to DIFM, dot farm, DIFM Dot farm, and look at the website and you can you can easily go in there and design your own trials and just see how it works. Send me an email and you can put the trial on the ground with the guarantee that you don't lose any money. 00:10:16:18 - 00:10:37:27 David Bullock So all you can do is get information, it's it's, you know, it's very doable. Our vision is that farmers all over the world are using this tool, and it could be crop consultants using it. It could be I don't care if if some big company wants to use this as part of, you know, their operation center or whatever, fine. 00:10:37:27 - 00:10:51:01 David Bullock We're not creating a commercial product. We're trying to create a public product that lots of people can use in lots of places to learn about farming, you know, site specific. 00:10:51:03 - 00:10:56:18 Todd Gleason Are there any notable outcomes from the DIFM to this point that you can elaborate upon? 00:10:56:21 - 00:11:00:25 David Bullock Yeah, sure. I mean, some of it is farm specific. There are some fields where it's pretty clear. 00:11:00:25 - 00:11:17:15 David Bullock Oh, boy. And here in the low lying part of the field, you really should put more seed on if you think there's going to be some rain, you know, this kind of thing. Or if you don't think that or you, it all depends. Right? So we've got many, many, many reports that go to farmers that give them site specific advice. 00:11:17:17 - 00:11:39:07 David Bullock Sometimes in Illinois where people got a flat and the flat and black 80, what we find is you don't need a precision, you don't need a site specific. This thing, it's pretty much uniform everyplace. And so do the same thing, don't you? Don't we use precision ag to figure out sometimes, you know, you don't really need precision agriculture for this field. 00:11:39:09 - 00:12:07:16 David Bullock It's possibility. Right. And sometimes you don't. As far as finding we're finding a lot of farmers paying too much for soybeans seed consistently. Especially in, a little west of here where it's a little drier. They're basically, going to make more money if they lower their soybean seed rates. Some of that for corn seed rates, especially in like, the Dakotas. 00:12:07:18 - 00:12:37:09 David Bullock Okay. We're finding that we are not going to precision agriculture our way out of the nitrogen problem. Okay. When we started out, we had hoped we’ll use precision agriculture and we'll find out where we can not put very much nitrogen on and where we can put a lot of nitrogen on and be okay. And that's all fine, except that the point there was that, look, this can be a win win situation because farmers, we know they're putting way too much nitrogen on. They’re losing money. 00:12:37:11 - 00:12:55:24 David Bullock That's not clear at all. We've got data and it shows that no on average Illinois farmers, lots of farmers, they're not just piling on so much nitrogen on there that they're losing money. Not I mean, sure, it could happen in any year, but in general. And nobody knew that before. Now, there was a lot of speculation. We've got the data to show that's not in general, that's not happening. 00:12:55:29 - 00:13:04:15 Todd Gleason Is there any information or data that you've already collected which might point to ways where nutrient loss issues could be solved? 00:13:04:18 - 00:13:33:24 David Bullock Yes, there is. There are possibilities, right, of sites specifically making things better. Okay. And there's some possibility there, but it's not going to be enough. Okay. We are doing cover crops trials. Okay. We are writing a, proposal to create use our system so that farmers can be subsidized by the government to do cover crop trials. 00:13:33:26 - 00:13:52:20 David Bullock Okay, so how does that work? Well, all of a sudden, we've got the data. The farmers, of course, would allow the government to see that. Yeah, I really did plant these crops. So you don't have to send Inspector out all the time. And we have a really efficient way to create science on cover crops. Okay. And farmers could run the crop crop trials. 00:13:52:23 - 00:14:11:19 David Bullock The idea would that the government would, would give them subsidies so they don't lose a lot of money doing the type of crop trials. And what do you know, all of a sudden we have we know much more about what's going on. We're not just scattershot doing this trial here, this trial there. We can have a system of a thousand trials, you know, and it's all very efficient. 00:14:11:19 - 00:14:36:19 David Bullock Our system helps keep the data clean. It helps make the experiments, you know, have common protocols all around. So you can you can use the data together. I think it's revolutionary. And so part of the point is to help the NRCS make better policies and make things possible for farmers that weren't possible before. I'm very excited about it. 00:14:36:22 - 00:15:08:09 David Bullock So what are we doing? Well, I've got to find more money. So far, we've found $9 million. Over the since thousand and 16. So somebody thinks this is a good idea, and I think the payoff is going to be way greater than that. I think this is a terrific public investment. And so, you know, our hope is we need, we have some people who are just brilliant, you know, computer coders and got some people who brilliantly work with farmers. 00:15:08:11 - 00:15:20:27 David Bullock And, I think we'd love to just start, something with a few employees that makes it possible for wonderful things to happen. So where are we going? Yeah. Can I find some more money? 00:15:20:29 - 00:15:33:28 Todd Gleason How are the primary agricultural input companies responded to DIFM or the data intensive farm management program. These would be the chemical, fertilizer and seed companies to some degree. 00:15:34:04 - 00:15:58:18 David Bullock We have flown under the radar, and we have meant to fly under the radar, it's only now that we're starting to try to publicize what we're doing more, we are getting a lot of response from co-ops and from, crop consultant industry. So that's the part of the private sector that we're working with, and we need to work with. 00:15:58:24 - 00:16:22:26 David Bullock Our view is that Illinois extension can probably deal with crop consultants, and crop consultants can help farmers. There's just not enough extension agents around. And that's not the right, maybe not the right, you know, paradigm anymore. The idea is that we can use a lot of computers and work with the private industry, whose job is already to give farmers advice, you know, to, to make these things happen. 00:16:22:26 - 00:16:43:09 David Bullock So that's our goal. If any big company wants to talk with us now, we are talking with Microsoft, okay? They have a whole digital ag thing going on. And I, I mean, we're going to work with them. Okay. So there are some of that, we, we are not in talks with John Deere or all these things and happy to talk to anybody who wants to talk. 00:16:43:12 - 00:16:55:20 David Bullock Okay? We're not. We're trying to give a public that I'm 63 years old, you know, we're not trying to start a business. We're trying to create something for the public. 00:16:55:22 - 00:17:00:10 Todd Gleason How quickly do you need people to sign up? And can farmers still be involved for this season? 00:17:00:10 - 00:17:03:16 David Bullock Yeah, farmers can be involved this year. You want to work with us? 00:17:03:17 - 00:17:26:14 David Bullock Give me an email. We'll we'll get it. But even if you don't want to work quite that quickly, if you're going to do a side press, if you're going to do some side dressing, you. We got time. You can either go to DIFM.farm and see what you got. You can email me. DSB u l l o c at Illinois that you, and we'll get you started there. 00:17:26:15 - 00:17:33:13 David Bullock We can easily, do lots of trials. This spring. 00:17:33:15 - 00:17:59:03 Todd Gleason David Bullock is an agricultural economist here on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. If you'd like to make contact with him to learn more about the diff m that stands for Data Intensive Farm Management Program. You can do so by visiting the DIFM website. That's d I f m dot farm, DIFM dot farm and then hit team. 00:17:59:03 - 00:18:16:13 Todd Gleason And you'll find both David's phone number and his email address. The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension and produced in association with Rachel Curry and Nicole Haverback. I'm extension's Todd Gleason.