Mark my words, this will be something the old timers will brag about. This week, a customer of ours downloaded variable rate shapefiles from his smartphone and transferred them to his Ag Leader monitor... through a USB cord he had laying around. Yep. It is real.
No offense to Nathan, but he doesn't have a computer science degree or anything crazy. He is like a lot of other farmers... he has determination and ingenuity. This week, he and "his precision ag guy" Travis from Case dealer, Jacobi Equipment in Columbus, IN simply got inspired to try and make this simple idea work... much like my dad or others would weld together some objects to make life easier on the farm. And after downloading an app to unzip his prescription download, he was able read the files straight from his phone into his monitor. Done. No USB thumbdrive needed.
"No more USB drives for me," said the dealer. Now he can download and install updates to customer's monitors at will. Besides that convenience, he could also simply email the customer and allow them to download their own firmware updates and install from their own phones while in the field.
When I heard what Nathan did, I started jumping around our office, doing a little dance and yelling. Sarah and Lauren think I'm crazy anyways so no big deal. I was excited because not only did I not even ask this customer to try this but I knew that he saw what www.Optmzr.co could provide him and how immediate recommendations that are updated by the weather could have an impact on what he wanted to do in the field in real time. He saw it and simply couldn't wait for us to build an app. He didn't check with his corporate attorney or ask permission from his boss. Instead, he tried it on his own and made it work. I love farmers!
The result is that while planting he can download a new rate file at his whim.
Nathan shot video of process above.
What does that mean exactly? It means that after building his best laid cropping plan (variety by field), he has a solid plan B in his shirt pocket if the weather dictates something different... What if the next field east is ready to plant but he has a planter full of wrong variety? Seem complicated? I mean, how does he retrieve Plan B when it isn't even built yet? Well, Nathan will simply pull out his smartphone while finishing planting one field, tweak variety intentions for the next field, download his files and begin planting his new prescription in the next field... using all the available weather, soil and seed and timing data at his fingertips... all done without calling, texting or paying for additional data plans or equipment!
That is farmer ingenuity at its best. Want to download the exact How-To that Nathan gave us? Make a comment and we'll trade emails! "Weld your Smartphone to Your Monitor with a USB cord."
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