Ag Geek Speak
GK Technology Inc Team Members, Jodi Boe and Sarah Lovas talk about precision agriculture, agriculture mapping, agronomy and drainage.
Ag Geek Speak
18. Yes, He Mapped The Lawns Too Preston Sundeen Pt. 1
We sit down with Preston Sundean to trace a path from farm kid to precision ag educator and entrepreneur. We dig into teaching ADMS, turning data into fast prescriptions, and why critical thinking matters more than button sequences.
In this episode we discuss...
• Preston's North Dakota farm roots and agribusiness training
• Career moves from ag retail to precision ag education
• COVID pivot into entrepreneurship and insurance
• Running a classroom like a workplace
• The ADMS learning curve and teaching methods
• Turning soil tests into fertilizer prescriptions fast
• Wireless data transfer and mobile office workflows
• Creative ADMS uses for claims and small jobs
• Lawn care mapping, NAIP imagery, and bidding
• GPS limits, lightbars, foam markers, and as‑applied maps
• The case for critical thinking across tools
Stick around next week for part two of our conversation with Preston Sundeen.
At GK Technology, we have a map and an app for that!
https://gktechinc.com/
And now it's time for a geek speak with GK Technology's, Sarah and Jodi.
Theme Music:In the fields again. I just can't wait to get in the field again. The life I love is red for my friend. And I can't wait to get in the fields again. Oh, I can't wait to get in the field again.
Sarah:Welcome to A g Geek Speak. And today we have a great episode planned out with us. Today we've got a special guest, Mr. Preston Sundean. He's got a lot of experience actually using uh GK Technologies ADMS software and actually having the opportunity to teach this to students who will be uh going out into the precision agriculture world. So we're really excited to visit with Preston today and thank you so much for being here.
Preston Sundeen:Well, thanks, Sarah, and thanks, Jodi, for allowing me to participate in the podcast. I love the podcast. Um, I'm a podcast fan and um looking forward to having a great conversation.
Sarah:That's awesome. Well, just to get things started, Preston, I think it's it's really good um for everybody to get kind of a frame of reference, like who you are and where are you from, and you know, what brought you uh into doing even precision agriculture. So let's just start. Where are you from?
Preston Sundeen:Uh from Lakota, North Dakota, and uh grew up on a family farm, um, went to high school in Lakota and then uh graduated from University of Minnesota, Crookston, with a four-year degree in egg business. After uh Crookston, I started in ag retail and did that for a number of years and led me to a position at Lake Reg at Lake Region State College in the Precision Ag Program.
Sarah:Awesome. Okay, and so what are you doing like now in agriculture? Well, what's your career look like today?
Preston Sundeen:So I was director of the Precision Ag program for about eight years, and uh during COVID or the middle of COVID, I decided to step back from being director and I started uh some of my own businesses up and going. And so I uh have uh an insurance aspect of what I do every day. Uh I write PC, so property, home and auto on farms and residential and business. And then I also am a part-time instructor still here at Lake Regia State College. I do uh precision Agg services as well for a number of people, uh prescription writing and data management with the with John Deere Operations Center. So I kind of just uh started my own company and uh contract out or find find things I'm good at and uh offer those services out to growers and and non-growers, I guess, on the insurance side.
Jodi:What inspired you to get into the insurance side? I mean, did you uh have some experience in the area or what led you there?
Preston Sundeen:Well, I was in education and COVID happened. And just a story about education and COVID. We we have precision A program, and so we have a shop and we have students working, and and um we have a four-row planter. The start of COVID, we we came up to spring break, and we had that planter all tore apart, had pieces everywhere, and the students left for spring break, and we never returned that year. We did everything online. And I will uh just kind of say what as far as COVID came and uh you're working in education, we're a very hands-on program. We're used to working with the students in the shop, uh putting things together, uh working with GK technologies in the classroom, just a very hands-on program. And then you uh turn it into in a blink of an eye to have to learn how to work remotely and operate a class full of uh farm kids or agricultural kids, all remotely through at that time and still is is Teams. Uh Teams was brand new. We got we got to learn Teams, which I'm a big Teams person. I actually, after learning all this stuff, uh remote uh classroom, there's a lot of good things that uh that can be done with it. But within that time, just kind of could see that there were opportunities. Uh just how COVID hit at a time where there was a lot of retirement going on, and I could see outside of a education that there was a lot of businesses that were being owned and operated by a generation that was about to retire. I could also see that there were businesses that uh were being owned and operated by people five years away from retirement that I thought uh to for a certain degree, and I'm not saying this was an insurance, I'm just saying um uh as far as opportunities, uh, that uh people were in their retirement mode. And I could see for a I consider myself self-motivated and uh kind of a workaholic, and I could see there were some opportunities there. And then the last thing that kind of tied it all together was COVID kind of just opened my eyes to the advantages of uh being your own boss, running your own business uh for multiple reasons. Um, and another aspect of it being in agriculture, a farm a farmer goes uh goes to work and increases their farm operation and and they are able to put something together to leave a legacy or to pass on to another generation. And somehow that just kind of hit me during COVID too, that I was uh very addicted to my work, but I knew that when my retirement came, it you know, I didn't do anything for my kids. And so uh part of what I'm building now, there's opportunity if my kids want to take part of it. There's there's a place for them in all of this, and we'll just see how the how the time goes there. So kind of a long-winded answer, but there was a lot, a lot that went into the change. But when I decided to make the change, I did it in a blink of eye. I didn't I maybe slept on it one night. I found what I thought uh my skill set would be good at, and I just dove in.
Jodi:No, that's that's awesome. And I I I think I'll ask some of these questions that are in my head right now in the second part of our conversation when we talk more about, you know, what are some methods that you think are successful or are great for teaching students? Because, you know, before we even started talking, you talked about how your kids have a lawn care business, right? So you're you're instilling that entrepreneurial spirit, not only spirit by by living it, but also you know, motivating your kids to do the same. And I'm I'm sure too the students at Lake Region see that and uh feel that that urge to be self-motivated and create things and do things on their own too. But I'll I'll bring that up again in a little bit. That's I think that's such a huge part for you being such a a great teacher, is that your your ability to do that and and act as a model for other people and for your your students to to do too. That's that's just cool.
Preston Sundeen:And we and we can get into it too uh on the in the second half, but that is kind of how I ran the classroom and and would build good rapport with the students. I ran the classroom um maybe not as a traditional classroom, but as a entrepreneurship type business. You know, I expected when the students showed up that they were coming to work, and I treated the classroom as a work environment, that professional setting, that setting where we could still enjoy the time and have fun, but it was serious. And uh as far as uh homework and tasks that were done or that were due, I would treat it like a job that uh that these were the responsibilities and what needed to be accomplished.
Sarah:So this might transition a little bit, but out of curiosity, how long have you been using our software? And what how did you get started using our software? Maybe that's even a better question.
Preston Sundeen:So when I I had uh Gary Wagner uh teach a class at Crookston, and uh with that, I I don't believe we were using GK technologies, but he certainly was, and that was maybe the introduction into it. Uh and then I went on, graduated from Crookston, and then got my first uh egg retail job. It was uh at a location that really never had an agronomist before. I was kind of the first quote-unquote agronomist, and so started building uh kind of a seed seed business out of there. Um, we we started uh selling a lot more chemical than was in the past, just started kind of getting into consulting and looking at fields through that elevator. And then I had a neighboring location that had a conversation with me, and I ended up kind of uh uh switching employers and in in that uh business, SNS agro service, I uh got more into the scouting, more into chemicals, more into the precision precision side, started using GK technologies to write prescriptions, and then somewhere within all of that, uh the family farm got into precision. Um we undertook a big planter project and we put precision planting components on a at that time, not maybe not too many people will know that uh flexicoil used to make a planter, and uh I got into precision planting and I seen that you could take a planter and and retrofit it to be completely precision planting. And so flexicoil made a planter out of Kinsey 2000 row units, and then they pulled a a uh flexi coil air cart, and that's what's what was the CCS. So it's kind of one of the first CCS planters. The corn seed was in the the air cart behind the planter, and then delivered it to the in our case it was a 16-row flexi coil planter, and then there was dry fertilizer in it, and so we were banding dry fertilizer and uh you know watching our singulation on a Gen 2 uh precision planting monitor, kind of before I knew that there was a lot of them around. I I'm sure there were other people that were in the same boat, but I kind of felt like we were the first ones in our area anyway to to be incorporating that. So um between you know doing things on the farm like that and uh GK technologies kind of just kind of sparked my precision egg aspect of what I enjoy doing, but uh long-winded answer. I think somewhere you know in the mid-2000s started using GK technologies.
Sarah:Wow. So you're that's that's like pioneer staging then for as far as it goes for users for for ADMS. I mean, I think we were incorporated in about 2006, so that's you must have been one of the kind of the first ones out there.
Preston Sundeen:Yeah, I remember um I guess I went, I didn't know I would been in that first couple years of the cohort use it utilizing it, but I remember going to the trainings and uh and being blown away, and then you just go back to the office and you start kind of learning something every day, and you just start applying it. And uh I I tell the students uh in the program, I tell them that's a you for the first half of the semester when we're in our GK ADMS class, you are going to hate using ADMS, and then the second set in the second half of the semester, you will have ADMS open and ready to go before I'm ready to go. It it just that uh switch flips and and it becomes that uh complicated program to very functional, and you you start uh enjoying the complications behind it because you you realize how much power there is with it.
Jodi:I feel like, okay, so we've we've talked about your entrepreneurial spirit and also kind of that uh getting started with ADMS is kind of like an open, it's kind of it's it's open, right? Like you've got to learn some things, but there's not really like a direct, like, I want to do this, what are the button presses I do that? You kind of have to learn how to think through and think about the the process. And I feel like that's very similar to starting a business, right? Like there's no owner's manual, user's manual to start your own insurance company, your own shop, your own farm, etc. What are some things that you that you think would help people like giving people the confidence to in students the confidence to use ADMS successfully? And success, what I mean by that is just like having an idea in their head and being able to execute it. And then how do you get folks, students, folks that are looking to start their own businesses and be successful in that? Help just get them confident to go through that messy beginning part. Because I feel like that's important for teaching. I mean, Sarah and I do that for onboarding folks into ADMS, but there's so many things in life too that are similar where you got to go through that messy part first, um, go through the ups and downs of it, and then come through the other end. Like, how did you deal with that as an instructor?
Preston Sundeen:Well, um, I'll just kind of ask answer it uh a little broad and then maybe dive into each specific case. But I think uh precision egg or to get started into these things, entrepreneurship, a product like uh GK is you you you have to want to be able to to grind away and go to work and um look for that uh that reward of success of when things uh go real well and they click. Uh the other thing that came to mind as you're asking the question was one of my favorite things to do right away in GK is once we build something, uh, get a boundary done, uh, we spend some time on something, I'll say, okay, now go hit the big red X, and now we start over. You know, uh I'll do the same thing in Excel. I'll we, you know, for most of prescription writing or a lot of it is learning GK technologies or ADMS, but the other aspect of it is learning the fertilizer calculation. So we do extensive Excel work and fertilizer calculations, and that's another thing now I'll do. We'll build a build a prescription or I'll I'll build them some sort of uh fertilizer calculator. Maybe it's with liquid fertilizer, it'll be pretty extensive. It'll may take us 30, 40 minutes to build, and then I'll and then they don't even see it coming. I say, okay, now highlight everything and now hit delete, and they'll they'll do it. And then you see there, I'm like, Yep. That Excel is like life. You open up that blank Excel sheet, and it's just it could be intimidating, staring at you, just empty white cells, or you can be like, That's my canvas, I'm going to work. I can't wait to see where this Excel sheet takes me today. So I don't know. That's kind of my answer. I I think of life as uh as an Excel sheet.
Sarah:Hey Jody, aren't you glad to know that there's bigger geeks out there in this world than just us? I mean, calling an Excel spreadsheet a canvas, that's awesome.
Preston Sundeen:I've a few friends that uh are with me in Excel and we we kid each other about Excel all the time. We are definitely Excel Excel geeks, yes.
Jodi:Are they uh accountants mighty?
Preston Sundeen:He is an accountant, and we and every time we text back and forth, there is always an Excel uh somewhat uh uh uh aspect to our conversation, yeah. Excel hidden meetings within the text, anyway.
Sarah:That's awesome. Oh, that's funny. So out of curiosity, you know, in your private business, even today, when you're working and doing precision agriculture, what are some of your favorite things that you do in precision agriculture? Or what are maybe maybe there's more questions in there, but like what are your most frequent products that you produce? What type of agriculture are you dealing with? How is this actually getting implemented in the real world from your from your private business?
Preston Sundeen:Uh I I enjoy office work. So with the prescription writing, it's uh going through with growers and um getting their fertility. You know, I I do the soil sampling or I have growers that uh have someone else soil sample. I get through the results and uh go work with them, put together the Excel spreadsheets on the blends. I enjoy it so much when the grower calls and says, Oh, I'm so sorry, but we're gonna switch from urea to anhydras. Can you can you change this prescription? I'm so sorry. I'm so and and we kind of need it in the next hour. Again, I'm sorry. I take that as I'll have it to you in 26 minutes. And and I carry my computer with me, uh, no matter where I am. I uh my vehicle is almost uh the same mobile office as every office I sit in, and I can put things together. Uh one of the requirements I do have pretty much for my folks I write prescriptions for is that they all have wireless data transfer, and I can write that prescription um and send it to them. And I always commit to a odd time, like I'll have it to you in 13 and a half minutes, and then I challenge myself to have it sent in 13 and a half minutes.
Sarah:That's funny. That's that's awesome.
Preston Sundeen:I was I was a little late today, nobody knows except for Jody and Sarah. That was a little late today. And in my text, I was gonna send it was going to be I am going to be seven and a half minutes late, but I laughed to myself and went, well, they won't get that, so I put five to ten.
Sarah:Now we know if we ever podcast again, now we know.
Theme Music:Yep.
Preston Sundeen:So have you ever done um some kind of project in ADMS that's really unique or crazy or oh, I won't say that I'm uh there's definitely uh more talented people that do a lot more unique things. Um, I I write a lot of different uh fertilizer prescriptions. I'm getting uh going on some uh chemical prescriptions uh as far as pre-emergent. Uh I use uh well on the insurance side, I had a uh producer that uh that had a uh pesticide spill happen on his property. So I use ADMS to do a mapping of uh damaged acres. Um I mean I just I don't know. It seems like even on on my insurance end or conversation with people and uh something GIS or where you need that visual comes up. I'm like, whoa, I got it. I'll open ADMS. We can make this work, I can map that out, I can do this, I can so maybe the non-traditional ways. I just it doesn't it's not it could be way past prescription season. ADMS gets opened every morning, first thing, it's there, ready to go.
Sarah:It is funny the things you can come up with that it's you know, all these weird ideas and ways that it's not necessarily writing prescriptions, but it's a different way of taking a look at the field, or it's a different way of working with that agriculture data set that you've got, or it's a question and you need to find data and and really work with that data and massage it onto it.
Preston Sundeen:All my kids' lawn care uh business customers, all their lawns in ADMS. Uh when they do if if the job has uh has uh sidewalk uh edging, all the sidewalk edges edges are measured in ADMS. I mean that's yeah. Like I say, every morning ADMS gets opened up that in Excel, and then they see where the day goes.
Sarah:So did your kids map those out or did you do it for them?
Preston Sundeen:No, no, you know I mean you can't let you know.
Sarah:I got them.
Preston Sundeen:They're they're pretty busy within the lawn care business, and then and then they're all involved in this thing called sports, and uh I kind of let them do that. Uh I haven't pushed, I mean, they they do the the mowing end of it. I haven't pushed the behind the scenes end of it yet. Let them still be somewhat kids for a little while, but that day's coming. So I'll have a rude awakening.
Jodi:There's time. Is I have a weird nape question related to the lawn care side, right? So like we look for different nape imagery for, and that's what I assume is your background image for these measurements, right? Um so like we look for different things if we're doing a background map for like a variable rate or like a zone map creation or like a watershed management creation. Is there a certain type of like time of year that you like for your lawn measurements and your napes? Like, do you do it when all the leaves are gone so you get better images of like the sidewalks and stuff? Like what what napes do you look for for that?
Preston Sundeen:Well, I go and and do it just like I would do uh do a field. I go and do my borders and then I go in and I got the consultants package. So just for the lawn care business, because I gotta have the consultants package so I can just quickly download years and years of nape, and then I make sure I toggle through them. I mean, each each uh uh most people wouldn't spend any time on this. They they go and run a lawn care business and they just go mow lawn. And here I am combing through 10 years of nape to find the best one because some years, like you say, um, you know, maybe a 2000 and uh and 15 nape kind of hit hit it just right. Oh, but they had that shed they built in 2017, so I guess we'll have to use something, you know. So there's that give and take uh too to it. So I I have to have them all. I can't just go pick one and then decide, toggle on and off.
Jodi:It's so funny though, because like even on that small scale, like though you're you're thinking through the same things of like picking out napes for for zone management, right? Like, does this have the the drainage that they implemented or like they does it have the surface uh drainage that they did back in 2019? Like, is that showing up in the imagery that we're picking for looking at 2025? That's so funny.
Sarah:Okay, so here's my question, and maybe you said this already, but help help help expand on this a little bit. So when you've got these lawn in your ADMS and and you've got them all measured out.
Preston Sundeen:And they're in the operations center too.
Sarah:And they're in the John Your Operations Center. So and then do you have like do you do you have more than boundaries in there? I mean, you said you've got napes. What are you using the what what are you using the data for the lawns for? How how does it get used?
Preston Sundeen:Well, I've struggled a little bit. So I I use the I use ADMS to do the bidding because I can get square feet and I just bid things out uh per per square foot um or linear feet if it's edging and different things. And then uh so I run green lawnmowers, so I wanted to be able to get things into the op center. So they first gave me it was a Bluetooth that goes on your phone. Um, you plug it into the lawnmowers electronics and Bluetooth on your phone, but it it doesn't really go into the operation center, so I would have to actually put an MTG on it. And I've looked at doing some of that, and and I, you know, I I think I'm a cool guy and I do cool things, but I did draw the line, so I'm not I'm not streaming in in that way. Uh but I did this year, uh, so the kids do all the mowing, but then with that, everybody wanted spraying, and uh the we bid they bid the cemetery and the school, and that comes with spraying. So I do use um on my phone, I just did this year, and it is tractor GPS, and that doesn't as applied map, but they don't have it, so I can export it out yet. So it's just like the entry, the lawn care is like where farming was 15 years ago. There's all these cool things, but none of them really come together. So you have to have 15 different entities or operations or programs to be able to kind of do what you want to do. I envision in the next 15 years the lawn care precision will somewhat uh get a little bit more singleized and and uh hopefully there's some some better applications.
Sarah:That's funny. You know, I I really we might be transgressing into some other stuff here, but it's a fun conversation, right? Because it's still precision agriculture. So I built this house last year and you know, I I had this lot, and one of the things that of course I wanted to make sure were taken care of is the drainage. So brought in the lidar because the lidar wasn't that old. I knew when the lot was changed and all this stuff, and I knew it was gonna work. And I took this to my builder and I'm like, and here's the lidar. And they kind of giggled at me a little bit. They they were like, Oh, isn't this cute? Here's this woman with her cute little elevation data. And I'm like, Well, what do you guys think you're actually using for your elevation data anyway? This is the stuff that comes out of you know the Department of Water Resources um at North Dakota. It it is the elevation data, so yeah, I just I mean, there's so many different things that even on a lawn care basis, I think we can be using precision agriculture. But I honestly haven't really thought of that.
Preston Sundeen:Well, to tie it together with education, so so I Snapchat all the different things I'm doing and whatnot, and then I got one graduated student. So I was uh downloaded that track, I can't remember what it's called, tractor GPS, I think. And so it makes it an as applied map. So then all of a sudden he was showing me his ATV rig, and he went out and sprayed the golf course, and he had the same app, and so he had to send me his as applied map, and then uh another graduated student, all of a sudden he sent me a Snapchat of a working outback GPS light bar system on his lawnmower. And then I had another graduated student that uh is employed uh with John Deere, and uh he then gave me the complete breakout of what I would need to do to get those lawnmowers into the op center. Told me I could go find a had the specific a I think it was a 4500 controller, 4600 controller that it was a unique one, or there's a unique model out there that doesn't have all the unlocks, so it goes on auction sales for sometimes you can pick them up for a little less than two grand, he says, and then you get Egg Express to get you the wiring harnesses, and that'll be this, and this is what you need to ask for, and this and this and this and this, and then you'll be able to have all this in the op center. And I went, This sounds great, and one day I'll be there, but the kids run three lawn mowers, and and I'm not about to have a twelve, fifteen thousand dollar expense lawn on GPS in the lawn care business.
Sarah:Yeah, I was gonna say how much is the total by the time you get done.
Preston Sundeen:I do have graduated students um that can that can lay it all out for me and and help me out and put it all together.
Sarah:So that's caught me thinking. Hmm. I wonder if I should have that. You know, then you could I suppose that essentially you'd have auto steer on your could you actually get it to an auto steer point?
Preston Sundeen:Uh there are I can't remember what uh if it's Kubota. There is one brand out there that that you can buy um from the factory with auto steer, but all all the ones that uh the kids run are zero turn, so I haven't I haven't figured that out.
Sarah:And if it had a steering wheel, I wonder if a guy could you put like an easy steer on there or something like that?
Preston Sundeen:I would I would assume so great. You know, and then but there again you would have to so just like that tractor GPS app, it just uses your cell phone GPS. And so the sprayer I got for the lawnmower is 12 foot sprayer, and I have uh have uh foam markers on it, and so now I have my as applied map. Oh yeah, yeah. That's cool, yeah. Quite the sprayer. I I have sprayed, I just tallied up and I've sprayed over 45 acres with a sprayer.
Sarah:So for the that's impressive.
Preston Sundeen:Yeah, yep. And uh so the tractor GPS, I do have an as applied map, but when you look at the map, it looks like there's a few skips here and there just because the GPS isn't quite that accurate, but my phone marker is spot on. I know there's there ain't a god bless the phone, but the as applied map. So when I when I it that that app you can't export it out, so I have to screenshot the application as applied map off my phone, and then I email it to myself, and then I print it out, and then I put it in with the invoices. And it kind of irks me that it looks like there's a couple of skips out there, so I have to in the invoice. Don't don't go by the as applied map, there are no skips. I'll make sure nobody's thinking I'm just kind of willy-nilling.
Jodi:Oh, that's funny.
Sarah:Do either of you watch Clarkson Farms by any chance? I don't think I do the first episode, and I know I gotta go back in there and watch that because it's hilarious.
Jodi:The only the only reason I bring it up is because the most recent season, it's like their fourth year of farming, and Jeremy Clarkson's just like, oh my gosh, you guys, look what I invented. And he's dropping paint over his tires so that the tires will paint his line and he can just go back and forth. And then his like farm hand comes over, he's just like, Hey, uh Jeremy, you do know that they've invented foam markers, right? And he's just like, oh, just press on that somebody's already beat him to this invention. And it and it's also funny because like in he buys a new tractor shortly after this, and like it comes with GPS and they can't figure it out how to work. It's just it's so good. It's as we talk about like tractor precision agriculture or precision agriculture over in the UK with somebody that's new dealing with it, like it's all the same problems.
Sarah:It's it's all everybody that works in it has the same relatable, you know, I do think that we went from I I don't know, I suppose I should be careful with this, but nonetheless, I do think it's really funny that we went from talking about mowing lawns in the United States to European agriculture in the same conversation. But I'm just gonna say, like, there it is.
Jodi:You know, it's it's so funny though, because like precision agriculture, because it's so young, right? And like we're we're both limited, but also not like it's just kind of an open book where if you want to make something work, you have to have the idea in your head and kind of like a guideline of how to go there, whether that be putting in the map and the software or wiring together like hardware to to record what you want. Like it's so open and also like so young that I don't know, it's we're all trying to figure it out as we go, and we we all have the same problems because we're all just trying to figure it out as we go.
Preston Sundeen:And we all have the same somewhat background, and we all know well, there's a way, there's a way I can find okay. So let's see here. I ran foam markers on uh on uh 8103 Terrogator. I wonder how I can figure that out on a lawnmower sprayer, and then you look it up and like, oh yeah, people make this. Oh, you just order it up. I don't put the red dye in. I used to put the red dye in on the floater, but uh in the lawns I just drop plain old white foam, no red dye. Every now and then I think I should get red dye just like the old days and have pink foam, but yeah, you don't want to have I mean that sounds like interesting laundry. Yep. That was in the bachelor days, every every pair of jeans I had was stained red dye from the uh foam markers, foam markers.
Jodi:Is it seed treatment or is it foam marker dye?
Sarah:But I think this is a really great conversation, actually, because you know, here we are, we're talking about you know the basics of precision agriculture and how you can adapt that to new concepts in different places. Okay, here we're trans transcribing it, if you will, over into mowing lawn. But that's really fun. And you know, what's interesting is um agriculture has always had that culture of tenacity to figure things out, and just like Preston said, use that as a foundation for creating something and asking questions about how we can do this. There's there's a way, but you got to have that foundation there of knowledge. And to me, it seems like that was what you really provided the students when you were teaching that basic knowledge about how precision agriculture concepts work. And I'm sure, you know, considering the culture also of not really having big backgrounds in computers, that you know, let's face it, most of the time when we grow up on a farm, you you learn how to use a 9/16th wrench before you learn how to use, you know, Microsoft Windows. And so, you know, trying to get um that that culture so you end up with those basics of how you do stuff in computers to apply GIS and to uh precision agriculture is complicated.
Preston Sundeen:Critical thinking, I think, is what is the is the big thing to employ that. Um, just because what you said, there may not be that accustomed to computers, so if you're using ADMS, you have to okay, you and I'll do this a lot too. A student will ask a question, and I'll be like I'm not gonna tell you that answer. Let's you tell me the answer. Just think it through. Why why did you ask that question so soon? What did you did you process it for a moment? That you know, let's let's think about that. And I think that's the biggest thing when it comes to you know agriculture in general, precision egg, is that critical thinking. Uh, and you mentioned that the kids grow up, you know, with a 9/16 wrench, and they do, but I'll even argue to a point that a lot of these uh high school kids are I they're 100% on the farm, they are farm kids, but they are operating tractors, they and tractors that work, not like in my day, old 875 versatiles that you had to fix, or you're putting down in hydris and you had to uh you'd have the hose plug up all the time. That you know, things are more or less operational, and so it's it's installing the critical thinking to every component, the computer side, the the hardware side, the tractor side.
Sarah:So I think that's gonna be a great place where we can cut this one off uh for this time and next time when we come back, we're gonna talk a little bit more about instilling that critical thinking um into the students and the things that you did to kind of go through um and help those students really learn how to get that that that basic knowledge that you can apply that critical thinking out there. So, with that, we're gonna say thank you, Preston, for being here. Um and we're looking forward to you talking to you next time on this. And with that, at GK Technology, we have a map and an app for that.
Theme Music:And I can't wait to get in the fields again. No, I can't wait to get in the fields again.