Paired with its new Gen3 20/20 monitor for seeding or spraying, Agco’s Precision Planting has introduced its Panorama app, which it bills as better to take advantage of data collection and machine monitoring.
The app allows a farm manager to go back over information that was collected during field passes, analyzing and comparing it to later yield or scouting information — “so there are multiple facets of Panorama’s functionality,” says Matthew Nelson, software engineering lead at PTx, the smart-farming and autonomy arm of Agco.
“One is agronomic insights, which is really driving the ability to take that full data set that your equipment was already measuring and that you saw in the cab, but optimizing it for after-the-fact analysis.”
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That analysis provides the ability to look at individual inputs and changes in application rates or methods in isolation, to help determine their overall impact on yield or other in-field results.
“Say you’re curious about the impact of one variable on a specific outcome,” he says. “We want to make it easy to just add a quick filter and see how yield changes when you look at that variable.”
Panorama offers different “filters” that allow a user to isolate differences in a variety of seeding or application passes and measure how that has affected conditions in the field or the crop’s yield.
It also supports connection to the John Deere Operations Centre and Climate FieldView.
“One thing that we’ve been working on is a way to create filters,” Nelson adds.
“Let’s say I want to know my yield by my (planting) population, but I only want to know that when I’m looking at yield by hybrid and I only want to know that when I’m looking at a particular population range.
“So you can just set 30,000 and 35,000 population range and that will filter out all of the field that doesn’t match that criteria. We’re adding the ability to, for example, pick a row and say ‘What was the yield by hybrid?’ or ‘What was the yield by population for this row?’”
Panorama can also be paired with Precision Planting’s SymphonyVision system, in which cameras can be mounted on a spray boom to take images on site that can later be used for scouting a field without leaving the farm office.
“When you finish a spray pass with SymphonyVision, Panorama lets you take a look at both randomly-situated photos from across the field as a sample, just to get a baseline of what’s going on — but it also is triggering on particular thresholds. If it notices a problem like a particularly high weed severity, you can look at it right there, zoom in on the exact plant that was your concern before you’ve even left your shop, and then later on you can follow up.”
A feature that will soon be added to Panorama is the ability to send changes to a machine setting to the field, where they can quickly be downloaded by an operator.
“We’re going to start down a path of letting the user configure their machine from Panorama,” Nelson says. “That means, before heading out to the field, operators can remotely set up prescriptions and boundaries, reducing setup time and ensuring everything is ready to go.
“At the same time, dealers and owners can use remote diagnostics to quickly identify issues, so if something isn’t right, they can help get things back on track faster.”
Panorama is available on a subscription basis for US$500 per year. There are no per-acre charges, and multiple people in an operation can have access to it under one subscription.
