Acres & Assets | Evolution of Crop Care: From Tractor Rows to Drone Scouting

Day after hot summer day on a tractor with no air-conditioned cab.  AM radio sitting on the fender blaring country western tunes above the roar of the engine.  Staring at row after row of corn and soybean plants from end to end and field to field dawn to dusk.  Barely creeping along at slow walking speeds so as not to plow out the crop.  In other words, row crop cultivating back in the good old days which was one of the main ways to care for a newly planted corn or soybean crop.  Taking care of the growing crop is vastly different today.

Like most farmers in the springtime of the year, I would heave a sigh of relief when the rush of planting was over.  Even though the hours became less, the focus quickly turned to caring for the newly planted crop.  Scouting each field every few days was critical to gauge if there was a good stand of plants that had emerged and if there was any insect damage to the emerging crop.  If crop stands were thinner than desired from a poor seedbed or drowned out by too much rain, the planter would come back out to “patch in” more seeds in the affected areas to get the stand acceptable.  If insect damage to the new crop was found, application of insecticides would need to done.

Scouting the newly established crop is still very important but different for today’s row crop production.  First, most corn and soybean seeds are treated with minute amounts of insecticides and fungicides to protect the emerging plants.  This helps germination to be more even despite weather conditions and lessens the extreme early season stand establishment issues.  

Scouting of the new crop progresses in several ways as the plants grow taller.  Farmers or professional crop consultants walk the fields and fly drones over the crop to detect any problems arising in the field.  Satellite imagery can also provide early warning about stresses to the growing crop.  Weed pressures and disease outbreaks can be detected as early as possible and treated to maintain a healthy crop and top yields.  Scouting of a crop will continue to harvest time as late season applications of fungicides when necessary have proven to boost yields of corn and soybeans.

Instead of days of cultivating for weed control, scouting for specific weed problems and in season application of herbicides has become the norm for keeping fields weed free.  The most technologically advanced sprayers of today use visual identification and AI to spot apply a small amount of herbicide just to the individual weed and not blanket over the whole field.  This not only saves money for the producer, there are environmental benefits too.

If crops are raised under irrigation, additional work is needed to properly care for a new crop.  Gauging when and how much water to apply to the field used to be guesswork.  Today, farmers use sophisticated technology to determine the amount of moisture the crop in the field needs and when it is should be applied.  Keeping irrigation pumps, motors, and center pivots operation if a full-time job during the growing season even with current monitoring and reporting systems.  

Raising a crop is not a one and done job.  Planning out the details of inputs and operations prior to even getting in the field to plant is only the beginning.  Getting the crop off to a good start with good planting operations and care is vital to setting the stage for optimal yields.  Then scouting and nurturing the crop throughout the growing season will keep yield potential maximized.  The laser focus of a farmer’s efforts from the beginning of the season to the end is to harvest a bumper crop!