Smart Irrigation with CropX: Boosting Efficiency & Conservation in Farming

00:00:00 We're talking about moisture sensor technology, the evolution of moisture sensing. And we're here at commodity class with Nick Emanuel, 00:00:05 a Nebraska farmer and a uh, employee here of Crop X. You're excited about this and you're even more excited about this. 00:00:12 You've got a lot of history with moisture sensing, you know, from the old days you went out there 00:00:16 and said, I don't know if there's a lot of water in the ground or not. Now we can actually dial this in. 00:00:20 We can save a lot of water, we can save a lot of natural resources. This is where the future's going. 00:00:25 Yes. Yeah, absolutely. We did several years with, uh, testing many different soil sensors and, uh, moisture sensors. 00:00:32 And the problem with 'em was, is it was so many different components. You had to dig down and get everything just right around it, 00:00:39 make sure it was sealed good, good and tight. Send a sample off to the lab, make sure that it was all the absorptions was correct 00:00:46 and the readings was correct. And, and at the end of the day, he spent all his time out there in the field and, 00:00:52 and the large acre scales you take, you know, the operation mat runs. He does not have time for that. I didn't have time for that. 00:00:58 Yeah. And we started using the, the crop, looking at the crop X to put it on the farm. And it's just, you know, amazing the sim simplicity. 00:01:09 Yeah. That it has and what you can do with it now. All Right, Matt, you're holding this thing up. You're almost holding it a threatening manner for a while 00:01:15 because it looks almost like it could be a weapon. Well, you see, you see how light it is? That's what I don't see it. Okay. It is like a 00:01:20 scepter. Yeah. Tell me what, what am I looking at here, Matt? And then I want you to chime in and, 00:01:23 and give us the technical side of it. So this is the same water sensor. Other people have different water sensor, 00:01:28 but this is all in one unit. So you've got the different moisture measurements all the way through it, and you can tell it's 00:01:33 got the little auger points there. Yep. Super easy to install when you get it in the ground. That's all that's showing, right? 00:01:40 So you don't have all these other poles and we had to put post up and different things up. That's it. You run a sprayer over it. 00:01:46 It's got a waterproof cover that goes over it. Real easy to install, real easy to uninstall. Now here's the, I think the person 00:01:52 that's watching this says, okay, obviously this only matters for if it's irrigated ground, 00:01:56 Right? Yep. Okay. I don't need this in Indiana where I am because I wears no irrigation, so I don't need this. Right. 00:02:01 Well, not necessarily. It could be a benefit for planned health monitoring and even knowing how much moisture you have 00:02:07 going at the end of the season. Like dry land scenarios, we're learning a lot. Like if we were doing split applications of nitrogen. Yeah. 00:02:15 Well sometimes you don't wanna make that last application if you don't have enough moisture. Yeah. But who knows how much moisture you have. Yeah. 00:02:21 So this is a great value crop and Non irrigated. I can't do anything about the moisture, 00:02:26 but I can adjust well how I'm doing my crop treatment because if there's no moisture there, why put out the extra dollar 00:02:32 Your other inputs and other management can be adjusted, tailored out that Much. I want, I want 00:02:36 you to geek out on this in a minute, but before I do, I wanna hear from the farmers what's different about this other than ease 00:02:41 of use? What's different about this? Well, it's a, you know, look at how you install it. You know, you, you can, you stick a bar 00:02:47 through here if you need to and this screw's right in and, and then The battery lasts the whole season. Yeah. 00:02:54 I didn't even think about that. Yeah. And you ain't got no solar panel sitting here keeping it charged. 'cause I mean 00:02:58 I literally, I've had 'em with solar panels out there to keep 'em charged. And how does this, how does this stay 00:03:03 Charged? So, and that It has a battery. Yep. So an internal battery, so this is the IO OT and the brains of it right here. 00:03:09 And what these guys are referring to is all the other soil moisture probes on the market come with a standalone telemetry device. 00:03:15 Mm-hmm. That will read the sensors and send that data back to the cloud or back to the web-based solution. 00:03:21 Okay. This is all in one. So all the brains is collecting and the cellular components in here shoots it off to the web 00:03:28 and right there on their mobile device, they got instant data and information farmer In three counties. You 00:03:33 know what field number X at the Miller farm two counties over is doing. It's on your phone based on this. Exactly. 00:03:38 And see with our thins, you know, we have a very thin top soil, So no, you know, oil says you don't wanna have top soil 00:03:44 top you have soil on top of the ground. So give us credit. Exactly. So we're always two weeks from a drought 00:03:50 it can rain 20 inches. We're two weeks from a drought. What we have found out with the water centers is we maybe don't have to water 00:03:56 as fast as we think we do. It's what our dads did every seven days. This will actually at least save you one 00:04:02 irrigation if not two to three. And that's a hundred percent ROI on what that sensor costs. Nick, you're the farmer as well 00:04:09 as the employee of the crop X. The person watching this is gonna say, yeah, but you know what, that only tells me the 00:04:14 moisture where this thing is. That's a 240 acre field. I I don't have one these on every acre. 'cause I can't possibly put 240 of these out. 00:04:21 How, how, how dense are they? Great point. So what we always say, going back to the analogy of how we used to farm, where we used 00:04:30 to turn on the pivots when we used to see the first corn burning up. Yep. Well typically that 00:04:35 Corn, corn, Well that corn that's burning up might be 10 acres of the whole field. It might be the sandiest part. 00:04:42 But those 10 acres don't nstitute for the majority. So what we do is we put this in the majority soil type. Okay. And we know if we can maximize our irrigation, 00:04:50 we're gonna maximize profit on that majority soil type. And so it's one sensor per field, but we're maximizing that majority soil type 00:04:57 and that's doing a lot better. Then we might lose a little yield on those 10, 10% of acres on that. 00:05:02 Yeah. But we're gaining on a majority, The way we use that is you put it in the predominant soil type. 00:05:06 So if we know we got a droughty area that goes along in that field with the predominant soil type and it says you need to water on Thursday. 00:05:13 Yep. We probably need to water that drier spot about Tuesday. But then by the time we get to this, it's right on time. So 00:05:20 The nuts and bolts part of it, there's a battery in here. Is it good for one season? Yep. 00:05:23 Last one whole season. You just have to charge it in the off season, but the last one whole season. So I 00:05:27 Pop this out at the end of the season, I take it into the shop and then I replace a battery and I'm good to go for next 00:05:32 Year. Permanent crops, if you got it installed, uh, permanently, you just take this cap off 00:05:37 and there's a replaceable battery inside, just replace the ba swap the battery if you got it in a cover crop or something all season. How, how, 00:05:43 How sparse will you, will you be putting these like one per 80 acres? Uh, probably won't go that that small at the beginning, 00:05:51 you know, just because of the year we're in, you know. But you can take this on a 200 acre farm, put a couple of these out. 00:05:57 Yeah. And in the predominant soil types and it gives you a gauge to go by. Uh, money. I can get the return 00:06:04 by now utilizing water more efficiently. What, how long Until I get my money back. Well, like Matt said, you know, 00:06:11 this roughly is gonna cost you about $10 an acre saving. One trip of irrigation is roughly $10 an acre. 00:06:17 So all it's instant. ROI, like you said, on average we're saving three trips, three irrigation trips. 00:06:23 Really? So the money's back Three to one. But what we don't talk about is the improved plant health, the improved nutrient efficiency, 00:06:29 everything we get from better water, water utilization. We'll get a yield bump with it too. This Is gonna be a bigger deal. You're in 00:06:35 Nebraska, the heat is on about, uh, alala aquifer. There's, you know, there's places that are really gonna start feeling the pressure in the, uh, environment, 00:06:42 Which we already are. Yeah. We're limited on water out in western Nebraska. We, you know, eight inches a year, so it's critical. 00:06:47 You gotta use technology like this. Got it. He's name's Matt Miles. He is an Arkansas. He's Kevin Matthews in North Carolina. 00:06:53 They're gonna be both using, both of you guys are gonna be using this this year? Yes sir. Yeah. I believe I'll have five of 'em to start 00:06:57 with on the farm if I remember right. Forward. It is Nick Emanuel from Crop X. And we're talking about this cool thing 00:07:01 that I took away from Matt because he was almost using it in a threatening manner. Anyway, we're coming in from Commodity Classic 00:07:06 with Nick Emanuel, crop X. You wanna learn more about their product lineup? Go to crop X.com, Crop x.com. 00:07:11 Till next time, Damian Mason from Commodity Class 2025. 00:07:14.165 --> 00:07:14.525