An artist's rendition of a Landsat satellite in Earth orbit.

Checking crops from orbit may be underused option

The available satellite imagery of our crops may be an underused tool for field analysis

Glacier FarmMedia — Last fall on her farm near Holland, Man., Anastasia Kubinec was struggling with a decision about a canola field. In one part of the of the field, it seemed like the crop was ready to combine. But other areas were possibly too wet and too green. One option was going in with […] Read more

Units such as these developed by a British firm, Small Robot Co., have already been put to work in per-plant weed control, in which an AI "advice engine" identifies which plants the robot can kill.

Farmers need to be open to AI technology

Already a major force, artificial intelligence soon will be smarter than humans

If Canadian farmers are waiting for the wave of artificial intelligence (AI) to hit the agriculture industry, they’re a bit late, according to a technology expert and consultant. It’s already here. And although he’s not a farmer himself, Walter Schwabe told producers attending the recent CrossRoads Conference in Calgary that if farmers don’t try to […] Read more


(FarmersEdge.ca)

Farmers Edge to use data to edge into insurance sector

Farmers Edge has signed a four-year agreement with global reinsurance company PartnerRe to bring precision farming technology together with ag insurance. Under the agreement announced this week, the two companies plan to work together to develop new insurance products for the agricultural market. While Canadian farmers have access to government-run, subsidized crop insurance programs, as […] Read more

Mike Wilson is working on profitability mapping solutions for farmers with Veritas. (John Greig photo)

Mapping profit can drive precision farming decisions

Precision farming can find the high-yield, low-yield, high-fertility and low-fertility areas of a farm, but the missing link has been how that ties to profitability. Why does it matter? The capacity to apply nutrients variably across a crop field isn’t new, but it’s been difficult for farmers to see the justification of the cost of […] Read more


Agri-Trend CEO Rob Saik. (Jennifer Paige photo)

Trimble to buy consulting firm Agri-Trend

GPS and precision farming firm Trimble is set to buy the Canadian operator of North America’s largest network of independent agricultural consultants. Publicly traded, U.S.-based Trimble, which specializes in GPS and other location services, including the collection and management of on-farm data and services for precision farming, announced Tuesday it will buy Red Deer-based, privately-held […] Read more

The challenges of precision ag

The challenges of precision ag

The technology for variable rate fertilizer is well established. But the agronomy is still catching up

Precision agriculture, including variable rate fertilizer, is commonplace in farm literature and has been for many years now. But despite the hype, the actual adoption of the practice has been slow. Ask for a show of hands at any farm meetings and the result surprises many. GPS and autosteer is commonplace and has made a […] Read more


photo: scott garvey

Seed Hawk debuts new features for the 2016 model year

New grain tanks, an 84-foot tool bar and a completely 
new metering system will 
soon see production

Evolve your farm,” reads Seed Hawk’s new corporate slogan, which could be seen nearly everywhere around the company’s display during this year’s Canada’s Farm Progress Show in Regina. And as Pat Beaujot, the firm’s founder and director of strategic markets, pointed out during a presentation to dealers, customers and members of the media at the […] Read more

aerial drone

Trimble takes to the air

The technology company introduces a new unmanned aerial drone for ag applications

In January, Trimble announced it was adding the UX5 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to its ag products division. This small drone comes equipped with a camera that can capture geo-referenced photographs, near-infrared images for NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) analysis as well as topographical information, making it a handy tool for anything from locating cattle […] Read more