Ag Geek Speak

12. A Spring Precision Ag Software Support Recap

• A Podcast for Precision Agriculture Geeks • Season 2 • Episode 12

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Sarah and Jodi continue their conversation about common precision agriculture issues encountered during spring planting, focusing on field boundaries, controller settings, and troubleshooting variable rate applications.

• Field boundaries matter critically for prescription applications – without proper mapping, sections of equipment may shut off unexpectedly
• Prairie Pothole regions require special boundary considerations since water levels change frequently
• Use buffer tools to expand tight boundaries and prevent equipment sections from shutting off at field edges
• Out-of-boundary rates must be set in controllers, not prescriptions, since prescriptions only work with GPS coordinates
• Controllers need specific settings for GPS signal loss, especially important during solar flare events
• YouTube is an excellent resource for finding controller-specific instructions
• Some monitors require purchasing additional unlocks to enable variable rate capabilities
• Unusual issues like mice chewing wires can cause mysterious prescription failures

Visit our website at www.gktechinc.com to access our Q&A forum, where you can ask specific precision ag questions if you are a GK Technology, Inc. customer.


Sarah:

And now it's time for Ag Geek Speak with GK Technology's, Sarah and Jodi, friends and I can't wait to get in the fields again.

Sarah:

No, I can't wait to get in the fields again. Welcome back to Ag Geek Speak. In the last episode, jodi and I just had a great conversation of random questions that we kind of received here at GK Technology about different precision agriculture, issues, with spring planting from spring 2025. And so we are going to continue that conversation right now. Sit back, relax and geek out with us. Actually, I thought this season went pretty well. I really I did. Oh, I know a good question that I got this spring, the out-of-bounds rates and like the edges of the field.

Jodi:

Talk about that.

Sarah:

I feel like we get questions on that all the time, and especially from people in the Prairie Pothole region, and God bless you all, because those boundaries change, like every year or every 15 minutes. I don't know Like it rained today.

Jodi:

Especially yeah, especially after May 13th through the 16th, where we've gotten a lot of rain In North Dakota whenever this airs like, I know our dam back home where we've gotten over five inches of rain that probably increased two feet since last week. That's just one, and there's farmers that deal with a lot of potholes in their fields, more than just one.

Sarah:

Anyways, you're out of bound. But for the potholes in the middle of fields and for the edges of the fields, okay, your boundaries matter. I realized that a lot of times when we are creating prescriptions in ADMS from our maps that we have made, we're actually not turning on those boundaries when we're writing the prescriptions and even when we export them out. That's true, but those maps initially the zone maps and the prescription maps are made with the field edges based in the boundary, which acts as the cookie cutter for that right. So here's what you got to remember If you don't have map there, you will not be applying anything in that area and it will shut off the edge of the boom. Okay, and and we've got these booms now where the planters, if it's seed, you know whatever, they're split into sections. And so realize that if you've got part of that hanging into, into that part of the boom or part of the planter hanging into the area where there is no prescription and there's nothing underneath that boom, on the prescription, it's going to shut that whole section off, which means you will have gaps in the field where the application is not going to happen. So accurate boundaries is critically important.

Sarah:

Now what do we do in these spots, with these potholes, where, um, where they just change.

Sarah:

What do we do?

Sarah:

So first of all, number one, communicate with the grower, ask them how you want it to get handled, explain to them when they are by, when you are by the pothole, if you chop it out and and and they try to plant through it there's it's not going to happen, okay.

Sarah:

And then here's the other thing you can always mod area that, and I actually work a lot with my growers on that standpoint so that you know, maybe I've got just a different area under that pothole and I'll just assign whatever rate they want there, because if it's going to be a wet year it might be a different than if it's going to be a dry year. So actually having that ability to mod that out year in and year out sometimes is just really great. It's not that hard. You just go in and grab the little polygon in there and select it out and once you have that prescription written, so do this to the prescription, not the zones. So go in, grab that prescription, get that little pothole area, select it out, use the little magic wand and just change the rate to whatever you think is a great rate for that little area for this year.

Jodi:

I think just pray pothole management in terms of mapping would be a fantastic conversation as a podcast episode, because, sarah, I remember the first time I sat down to try to make a zone map for a prey pothole field and it's just like shoot.

Jodi:

Well, what image do I use in terms of nape to draw a boundary?

Jodi:

Because it changes, you know, like do I use I shouldn't use 2021 as a really dry year to make it right.

Jodi:

Because or do I? Because the thing is, I'll never forget, sarah, when you mentioned that you know, if you're, if you're drawing a boundary, always make sure that you're drawing a boundary, um, at like, the maximum of like what the farmer would ever plant, right, because we want to make sure that, if we're writing a prescription and and like you mentioned too, yeah, include those areas that might be farmed and, of course, too, in the specific instances that Sarah's talking, think back to, okay, if I'm working in an area that's got some water in it in the middle of the field, what's the extent, the max extent, that this farmer could ever farm this, and how do I account for that in the final zone map so that, yeah, everything gets planted when it needs to get planted and that there's some level of fertilizer out there when there needs to be some fertilizer. But yeah, again, this could be a whole 30-minute conversation hour conversation of how to think about managing variable rate applications and precision agriculture in areas within the Prairie Pothole region.

Sarah:

I actually just wrote that down for a whole podcast episode. Perfect. I think we should totally do that. That would be a fun conversation.

Jodi:

Yeah, that would okay, it's interesting because, like I, I don't know I've got. Just west of my house. There's a field that, like I swear to god, the frost came out of for weeks and it just got wetter and wetter as it got drier and drier out. It was just bizarre. Hydrology is crazy. That's all I'll say.

Sarah:

That's the only point I just want to take. Frost is crazy, the way it comes out and then, all of a sudden, all you have is a sponge and you can bounce up and down on it because it's so spongy, oh gosh.

Jodi:

That's weird. I've never experienced that. That is so cool.

Sarah:

That's wild Cool is one way to put it A little frustrating when you're trying to make a seed bed out of it.

Jodi:

Oh God I can't even imagine.

Sarah:

It's awful, it's terrible, okay, but yeah, so we were talking about. What were we talking?

Jodi:

about. So we were just talking about out of boundary rates setting a boundary and like the importance of thinking about those when you're putting out a prescription.

Sarah:

I have problems with this, though, too, with certain clients where the boundary has been just on a regular quarter, with no potholes in it, where the edge of the field has gotten too narrow, and so I have actually recommended or maybe I'm not exactly sure how this goes, but there have been scenarios where I've worked with some people that have cut their boundaries too narrow to the field edge and so on the field edges equipment is getting shut off. Likewise, it could be that their equipment over to which is fine, but either way, you're shutting off a whole section or a whole boom or a whole. You know it's. It's not just that area under under the prescription, that just isn't there, you're shutting off a whole section of it, and so it gets to be feet. So you know, I I have I have on our notes that one of the questions was about cropping rasters, and this is what that question dealt with is that I've ended up recommending to a number of people to buffer out their prescription map, buffer out their boundary and then crop it back to that.

Jodi:

So like taking that, so thinking about it, like and how we would do that with an adms, you would take the boundary file and then you would use, like the buffer tool to to expand the boundary so that it's bigger and then use that expanded boundary to crop the raster. Yes, and you probably do the fill filter a of times to make the raster bigger too.

Sarah:

If that's okay. Yep, I've. I've used the filter, so I'm doing this to the prescription, not the zone map, the prescription, not the zone map, the prescription. And so I'm filling the prescription out. You know I'll use the fill filter and you can decide whether you want a three by three or a five by five, the prescription out. You know I'll use the fill filter and you can decide whether you want a three by three or a five by five fill going out, and then I might buffer that boundary out by I don't know 10 feet, maybe 20 feet, and then I'll crop it and it seems to like kind of fix a lot of the problems. I'm always kind of looking at it against the nape images and, again, if you're out in that prairie pothole region and you're doing this in that neck of the woods, you're going to want to take a look at multiple images, just like Jodi said earlier, for all the points that she just, you know, listed earlier. But that's how I'm making that work.

Jodi:

That's genius. I never thought about doing that and I love it work.

Sarah:

That's genius. I never thought about doing that and I love it. Well, it's not the correct way of doing it. I mean, let's acknowledge that the correct way is to draw the boundary the right way the first time and make sure that your zones are getting set up so that this isn't going to happen. But if you're in the heat of the moment and you got a guy that's calling you up going hey, my planter is shutting off, you better figure out how to fix that. And this brings up another. Really, you're laughing at that. Huh, it's true.

Jodi:

No, I completely, I agree.

Sarah:

I mean, you kind of got to figure out some ways to fix some things in the heat of the battle. Yes, absolutely. That's what happens, and honestly, it's not that, unlike being a farmer, I mean when stuff breaks. If you can't get the part in, goodness gracious, how many guys end up being put together with chewing gum, baling twine and WD-40 to make sure it's still working for more than just soil sampling.

Jodi:

There's gum manufacturers that are like huh, why does our demand go up so much in the springtime every single year? And it's so funny, it's like complimentary goods of like. Why tomatoes, tomato consumption and like bacon purchases increase so much during like july, it's because people are having blts at home anyways.

Sarah:

Yep side economics, lesson tangent okay, so anyway, but I mean, it's true, right yes, absolutely right.

Jodi:

like you, there's things that need to get done and you have to get them done so that, as we talked about before, in such a fast planting season, like things need to happen. Question for you, Sarah.

Sarah:

Okay, Is there a way on controllers to change that out-of-boundary rate or like out of does it differ, I'm really glad that you asked that because, like, that was exactly where I wanted to go with this, this conversation. I actually had a number of people call me up this year to ask like where they could set that out of boundary rate, and I actually had people like call me and tell me to set the out of boundary rate on the prescription, which doesn't work. Okay, so it doesn't work. And here's why A prescription only functions if it has GPS.

Sarah:

The purpose of a prescription is to take your GPS location and coordinate it to a rate. That's what's going to go, that's what's going to get applied. Okay, that's what I'm sending out to the machine. So if you've got an out of bounds rate, all it knows is that it's out of bounds. If you've got a loss of GPS rate, specifically it means there's no GPS. It can't figure out where on the prescription it is. That has to be set in the controller and, yes, it most controllers have these things. So, okay, backing up. So you have to be on on the prescription. In order for the prescription to control a rate, it has to have a rate going to control with a GPS coordinate. If you have a loss of GPS, it does not work. It does not have a GPS coordinate to say, hey, I'm here, what rate do I?

Jodi:

need here and, as all of us that have been farming since 2024 know and farmed through May 10th of 2024, even things like crazy solar flares can affect you know when we have GPS in the field, and so setting that up in the controller is so crucial so that you know if you have nothing, if there's a zero rate for a loss of satellite, and a freak solar flare storm makes it so you don't have GPS. It makes it so that you actually have something that's going down instead of nothing. In those cases where you know you're figuring out what's going on and then figuring out what you're doing next, but helps to avoid unforeseeable issues that we've got no control over, like solar flares.

Sarah:

Right and so. But that is controller specific it and even within brands it's located in different spots. I got a call from a guy this spring asking about making sure, asking about where in a in a John Deere it was either a Gen 4 or Gen 5 controller the out of GPS rate was, and they were just absolutely convinced that it was something that was completely gone from that John Deere controller, from a 2630 up to a Gen 4 or Gen 5 monitor. And I'm like, no, I don't think that's quite right. Now realize, when you call GK Technology, you know we're always happy to try to help you get it figured out how to manage your prescription in your controller. But I'm not John Deere and I'm not Case and I'm not you know, any of these other brands.

Sarah:

If you really want to know how to manage these prescriptions from the experts, you got to call your equipment manufacturer because they really are the experts. But another great place to go to find this information is YouTube, and I know that sounds so obvious, but I search YouTube all the time for ways to find out how to turn prescriptions on or off or what to do, and I send my clients YouTube videos all the time on that that sort of stuff, and so I was able to find a YouTube video on where to change those settings in a John Deere Gen 5. And it's actually really intuitive, really easy, not a big deal, but you just have to know where to go, and that's really the challenge with it, Oftentimes the challenge with all of these controllers, because they feel different between brands.

Jodi:

So one last question for you, sarah, one more common question that we got this spring, and it also relates to controllers. So staying in that same ballpark Okay, I've got a variable rate prescription, but how do I actually enable variable rate on controllers? I feel like this can be a common stumbling block when it comes to making VRT work making VRT work Absolutely.

Sarah:

And it actually like really goes off of that last conversation with like out of bound rates and things like that actually pretty well, because a lot of times the place where you're finding, like, how to turn on the controllers, it's kind of like all in this hidden areas like someplace in the background, right, which just so you know. A lot of times they're not that hidden. But again, usually and this is a common question for people who are brand new to doing variable rate oftentimes, and once you figure it out it kind of makes sense. But you kind of got to think through it just a little bit.

Jodi:

Yeah and there's no. Again, these are common questions. There's no shame in not knowing this. And absolutely, I think, the hardest part for anybody out there that started variable rate and started implementing variable rate, we've done that on our own farm. It's been hard right Because we're not familiar with it, but over time it's gotten easier because you kind of know things. But like it's a culture change right, it's a huge culture change and over time you kind of okay things kind of feel similar. But anyways, go ahead, sarah, continue what you were saying.

Sarah:

No, I actually okay, we'll come back to this because I think this is a good conversation too but yeah, so, enabling variable rate on controllers. So generally, if you have traditionally done just a flat rate prescription, you are actually manually typing in your rate. Let's just say we're doing a planter, right, we're doing a corn planter, we're going to plant 32,000 seeds per acre. That is the flat rate that's been going on. You just go to that place where you type in the rate and that's what it is. Well, when you want to do variable rate, you have to physically tell it.

Sarah:

Do not read the rate from this flat rate place that I've been typing in. I need you to read the prescription and so you actually do have to go in and tell your controller that In some places it's called like actually going and reading the map-based prescription. There's different ways of assigning it across different brands and it's going to be way too hard to explain, like every single one. But just that concept that you have to know that you actually have to physically tell your controller do not read my flat rate anymore, you need to read it from the prescription and if you need help figuring that out again, call someone for help. Your equipment manufacturer should be the first. They should be the people who should be helping you do that stuff. I know I've helped a number of people but again, we are not the equipment experts across all of these brands and YouTube.

Sarah:

YouTube is actually like I mean, I don't know what else to say.

Jodi:

And the one thing I'll add to the conversation too, is, like, the same concept as, say, you purchase a used monitor or something. Sometimes these again depending on brand, depending on model and generation sometimes you have to purchase and unlock to do variable rate, right? So, in addition to just enabling that option, sometimes you might even need to purchase an unlock, or you need to purchase a monitor that has that unlock installed. So just something to keep in mind and it is different from what Sarah mentioned, right, like, in that case, we're enabling it, we already have it. We just need to make sure that our monitor knows to read the variable rate prescription versus just a flat rate. And in this case, what I'm talking about is like, okay, this monitor has the capability to do this, but is it behind a paywall before I can actually get access to it?

Sarah:

So just keep that in mind, I think that's a really good point, and if you are interested in doing variable rate, you know that's one of those things that you probably want to have a conversation with with your equipment manufacturer. That's nothing that GK can help you about. Yes, you need to call up your equipment person and say, hey, I would like to do variable rate seeding, variable rate planting, variable rate fertilizer. Do I have that capability with what I have purchased from you? If I don't, how do I get it? Yes, you need to have that conversation with them.

Jodi:

Yep and make sure you know like what is the total final dollar amount? Right, Because it's not fun to be blindsided by having to make an additional purchase on top of what you already thought would get the job done.

Sarah:

Yeah, lots of good stuff there. Hey, do you have any great planting stories Like the best, the most entertaining planting story, what's? Do you have a?

Jodi:

good one of those, jodi. I don't have any fun ones, do you?

Sarah:

I've got a fun one from a couple years ago and it's a good one. And so I had this call from somebody who was having an issue with a prescription, can't get the prescriptions to go, can't get the prescription to go, Talking through the controller, talking through everything, and it was on a planter. So we're talking through everything. I mean I'm trying to overturn all of these stones and I'm like I don't know, I just can't figure it out. And and I'm like calling Kelly, because I'll be honest, like when I can't figure out how to do something, I'm going to call Kelly. I'm going to call Darren, because those guys have pretty much seen it all.

Sarah:

Um, we are not the experts on the equipment by any the the controllers that are out there, the equipment but, um, I don't know. Gk's been around for a long time and we've sent a lot of prescriptions to a lot of different controllers. So I'm not going to sit here and say that we don't have experience here, anyway. So I call up Kelly. I'm like racking my brain, we're trying everything, we're like don't know. And I finally called back. I'm like I can't figure it out, I don't know what's going on there. She called me back 48 hours later Mice. I said what Mice ate all the electrical wires on there and it has something about how there was some sort of an override so that it would still plant a flat rate, but a lot of the electrical stuff was. There's other weird things that were going on. Again, a test prescription would have been really great in that scenario.

Sarah:

Then they probably would have found it, like you know, when it was still way too wet to to plant felt really bad for those guys oh, man gosh, you know it's so funny.

Jodi:

It's almost it's worse than if, like the mouse would have just chewed through everything, right, so it wouldn't turn on, but like they just had to chew enough where it caused issues. But it was hard to figure out exactly what the heck went on because it was still doing stuff right. Like it's so much easier. Like when it's not doing anything, because then you can just say it's not working. Like when it's still doing stuff, and it's just like it's doing stuff, but it's not what I want it.

Sarah:

It's not doing what I'm telling it to do when it comes to electrical stuff and like part of it is working and part of it isn't, and then only some of the wires are chewed off.

Jodi:

That mouse like vindictive. That's what it was.

Sarah:

There would have been some mouse bait there in my world. Oh, I would have been so mad.

Jodi:

Oh my gosh, I've learned so much from this conversation. Sarah, thank you so much for sharing all these stories.

Sarah:

Yeah, this was a good one. I learned a lot too.

Jodi:

Yes, and I think our audience is really going to enjoy this. And if you've got other stories, other common spring questions that you're getting to, we'd love to hear about them. Check out our AgGeekSpeak website. On the GK Technology website, I think there's an episode suggestion box, but you can put your comments in there. But these are the things we like to talk about and share experience and tips and tricks on so that we can help everyone have a better spring.

Sarah:

We also have a question and answer forum on our website so people can actually go on and chat with us and get questions answered. It's really a fun. You can ask whatever's on your mind. It's at our website, wwwgktechinccom, and across the very top there's a Q&A form. Go ahead in there and and uh, you can check that out.

Jodi:

Some of the uh you have to have an 80 MS login in order to get access to that.

Sarah:

Yes, you do need to be one of our customers in order to do that, but if you need help becoming one of our customers, please feel free to reach out. We'd be, we would love to help you. Please feel free to reach out, we'd be, we would love to help you. But there's like it is. It is and there's there. There's different questions in here. You know everything from asking questions about you know the different bands of light and the 2024 NAEP imagery to actually there's a GRX export for grids Um and that, and that would have been for a John Deere controller. So I mean, we get questions like that stuff all the time.

Jodi:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sarah, and we will see you on the next episode of Add Geek Speak.

Sarah:

At GK Technology. We have a map and an app for that.