sgusers10的部落格

Source: Greeley Tribune, Colo.儲存Sept. 28--Chad Pfitzer called it "a potential game changer."Agriculture technology specialists, such as himself, are increasing their ability to help farmers operate new equipment -- tractors and combines loaded with GPS and other technical features -- from their offices, instead of driving out to the fields to assist them with the complex machines.Pfitzer -- an integrated solutions manager for 4 River Equipment, a regional John Deere dealership -- said some new tractors and combines are now coming packaged with features that allow ag tech experts, from a computer anywhere, to see what the farmers sees inside the cab and walk him through the steps of how to use it, or how to fix something.And soon, such technology could be available to crop growers on a much broader scale, Pfitzer said."Instead of taking hours, we're fixing problems in minutes," he added, while speaking to a crowd Friday at the 4 River Equipment dealership in Greeley. "If we don't have to go out to the fields, that saves the farmer so much time and money ... and that's extremely critical."Pfitzer's presentation was among many on innovations in agriculture during the Greeley Chamber of Commerce's 2013 Ag Tour, which focused on technology.The Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the drought of the 1950s and economic hardships of the 1980s, among other factors, have long pushed people out of agriculture. The farm population in 1920, when the official Census data began, was 30.2 percent of the total population. By the end of the 1980s, it had dropped less than 2 percent.And technology has played a huge role in helping that dwindling number of farmers feed a constantly growing population. With GPS, tractors today can even operate unmanned out in the fields.On Friday, two bus loads of Weld County and Greeley officials, representatives from political offices, bankers and a variety of other residents -- some with ag backgrounds and others without -- toured the area to see how such innovation is benefitting local farmers, ranchers and dairymen."I was absolutely amazed," said R. "Mr. G" Graubard, a teacher at the G.O.A.L. Academy, who was joined on the tour by a group of students from the school, which is an online charter school in Greeley. "I knew there was technology used in the industry, but not to this degree."The tour included stops at Bella Holsteins near Platteville, where owners Gary and Jerod Hendrickson explained how technology -- automated milking equipment and othermini storagefeatures -- is critical in their ability to milk 2,500 cows three times a day and farm about 3,000 acres with only about 40 employees.Technology also helps them in reusing their water four times ?-- from cleaning and sanitizing equipment to later watering crops, among other uses.Also among the technologies used at Bella Holsteins is a temperature-monitoring bolus that -- after being administered orally like a pill and staying in the cow's stomach for her lifetime -- continuously monitors a cow's temperature and alerts producers to key health or breeding events.The technology was developed by DVM Systems in Greeley -- whose TempTrack Plus software, which predicts ovulation for dairy cows, was selected this year as one of the Top 10 New Products of the Year at the 2013 World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif.The ovulation-detection software, used in combination with the temperatures-monitoring bolus, is the first commercial product that uses internal body temperature to successfully identify dairy cows that ovulate.Giving producers a better understanding of a cow's temperature and her ovulation improves the animal's health and conception rates -- saving lives, labor and potentially millions of dollars for the dairy industry, the Hendricksons and officials with DVM Systems said on Friday.Friday's tour included a stop at a DuPont Pioneer Hi-Bred research farm near LaSalle, where scientist Bill Curran explained how he and his employees grow tens of thousands of different hybrid corn seeds -- with various genetic makeups to tolerate drought and resist certain insects, weeds and diseases -- under different levels of irrigation. Through the growing season, the local researchers examine each of the varieties, and, with iPads in hand, take note of what's thriving, what's dying and everything in between.The tour also stopped at the Fritzler Corn Maze, where Glen Fritzler explained how precision agriculture and other technology help him each year to design and cut out his 13-acre corn maze that's visited by about 30,000 people each year.Speakers between stops included chemist Mark Meilahn with Weld Laboratories Inc., David Williams with Dairy Farmers of America, Mike Peterson with Orthman Ag and Raj Khosla, a Colorado State University professor in precision agriculture and soil science, among others.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Greeley Tribune (Greeley, Colo.) Visit the Greeley Tribune (Greeley, Colo.) at .greeleytribune.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesself storage