Farming Video | How These Farmers Use John Deere Operation Center

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3 Years - Grower Standard Practice

I'm Aaron Joseph, go to market manager for Precision Ag with John Deere. And when we heard y'all were having a data conference, we thought it would be a great opportunity to come out here, talk about how much we value data, how it can help you make better agronomic decisions, and how the operation center can make that so easy for, for y'all. But rather than me show you a bunch of slides and tell you why I think it's great. We thought we'd talk to our friends here, um, that are you guys are all familiar with and get their, their take on the matters. So Kelly, Chad, thanks for joining me. Y'all on the phone are welcome to jump in too. So just anytime you have a question, we'll just kind of pop popcorn around for the answer. But I think I wanna get started. Tell me about a bit about your operations center journey. How did you guys get started and, and get involved in the operations center? We brought a lot of variable rate on our farm. Uh, all, all of the seed is variable. This meeting is being recorded. The seed is, uh, the seed is variable rated. The anhy is variable rated. Evans writes the prescriptions. It's all sent through the cloud. Uh, I don't understand that part, but my, my sons do and we uh, what's that Magic ma? Magic, yes. John Deere magic. And so like, you know, the a MS or GPS to me is to save money. And so my, my variable rate of seed wreck, I, I try, try to raise a half a pound of grain per stalk. And so in a higher yielding area, we might be up to 34,000 and a lower yielding area will be down to 24,000 plants per acre. And, uh, using the, using that function as a way, you know, we've saved a tremendous amount of seed. My overall seeding wreck used to be about 34 35. Now it's about 28 and a half, 29. And that, that's the biggest value that I have is to, to save that seed money. I figured I'd give man a shot to go at it. No, man. I know he's jumping up down Yes, the, to, to talk about operation Center. It's basically, it's become kind of like a farm bible for us. I mean, my son's 31 and when he came into the operation 10 years ago, you know, uh, we, we started working with the operation center a lot more heavy, uh, going from just the basic yield maps now to work planter. Uh, you know it a lot of times our guys, we used to all have to meet here at the shop and discuss everything, everything on notebook paper, you know, the rates and everything. Now Lane shoots out, work planters the afternoon before and everybody knows what they're doing. Uh, Kelly's right on the variable rate seating. Uh, I could sit here and talk 30 minutes on Operation center and how it's changed our, our whole operation. One of the big things is, is on farm trials, we all need research and development on our farms and you know, that was always hard. You had to count this many rows and put up flags and hopefully the ink on the flags will still be there at the end. Variety trials, strip trials, whatever. Now if your operator, uh, you know, enters that in, you've got everything at your fingertips a hundred percent of the time. Uh, I knew that's where Matt was gonna head with that, but no, I'm the same way. So my son come in the operation in the same way and I'm, I'm, I'm not that guy like y'all, most of y'all know me, you know, I got a pile of notebooks everywhere I go. Still got it with me today, you know, but when he come in operation, everybody that comes in gotta look for their piece, right? What, what is your piece to the operation? Where do you fit in? And that's where his has been. And it's took our journey in the last five or six years way ahead. And did we have before? We sure did, but I could, I didn't have time to utilize it the way I thought we needed. Or I thought my, I thought my time was better used on the field pulling wrenches or whatever to shop when a lot of time it's not, I was looking the wrong way. You know, when we start gathering this data, we don't, with Operation Center, we can quit guessing now we know, you know, and that's the pieces that had helped us with. And, and it's the same way, you know, Jackson now we we're looking at, you know, buying more screens where he can send it to, you know, uh, when you have multiple machines in the field, he can send it out, the work order's out instead of having to like set up handing everybody I work, I, I rather cardboard, you know, I rather a cardboard hand. Everybody cardboard. But uh, you know, he sends it out that's already a machine. So that's one of the first ways I guess that we've really, really went, went in Operation Center and, and made it work for our farm view. Awesome. Matt mentioned the Todd. Todd, Todd ain't been on there a lot. Todd, what you, what you think about Operation Center. Center? Uh, appreciate that. Uh, ma we use it a lot. It is like a bible. And I would like to say too, we talk about Grower Standard practices with fertility and seed and all this. Well look at what everybody on there is using to keep up with all this. It's Grower standard in my opinion. Like you've gotta have it now. Uh, we've been doing it since, I don't know, at least 10 years ago. We came from another platform that everybody knows and switched over. We're glad to be here. Uh, a couple things we're seeing now, uh, auto Path. My guys including me, do not want to do anything in the field without Auto Path and now Auto Path boundary. I can set all those lines right here in my office before we ever go to the field. I consider it a must, uh, not to mention all the yield data and the, the compare. I mean I'm using that pretty much daily. Uh, I will say another thing that I really do appreciate from Deere, the, uh, the partnerships. So that used to be a hurdle back when all this stuff got started, nobody wanted to share with anybody, but from my experience now Deere really wants to share with everybody and that makes my life easier across multiple platforms. Uh, recently we worked with a company on Cotton, I think it's PCT, so they actually mapped all of our cotton grades on our yield maps and I've learned a tremendous amount here in the last 10 days or so from stuff. So I guess my point is it's little, little stuff like that. We, we can't really operate the way we are without Operation Center. Awesome, thanks for that input. I heard a mention of work planner and Auto Path in there. Does anyone in the room utilize work plans today Out of the operation center? Couple hands. That's great. Um, how about for you folks? Are you using work plans and how else are you using Operation Center to get ready for the season? Yeah, the, the auto path. So, you know, with our no-till and trying to go in the hills or using that and then, you know, trying to slide over that 15 inches every year to not, not plan on top of that old root ball, not go down that old road and things like that, that could be challenging in our hills. The, uh, uh, the sharing with the planners, it, it's more efficient with the tenders, more efficient with the anhydrous tenders, you know, all of that when we, with, with the sharing between the operations center now and it just, it makes us more efficient when we utilize the technology. I, I am embarrassed to say this, like when, when your sons come in, that's when you embrace that technology more. I, I, uh, I don't understand how it's so much easier for them than me, but it, it has been and I've learned and had to ki keep up. Uh, one piece of feedback we hear a lot is, you know, utilizing that extra labor on the farm, being able to send those work plans, you know that all those records are gonna come in seamless and you know that they'll be recorded accurately. Um, so yeah. Great point. Any other points on Operation Center? From my friends on the phone or for work planner specifically? Yeah, I'd like to. The work planners much easier now, but it done some math, uh, last fall it made a lot more easier, more use friendly with our mobile devices. Another thing to think about is, um, tracking the fleet, you know, it costs a lot of money to have different tractors out there to keep up trucks and all our app, we actually put money in all of our, uh, and it has been a huge blessing when we're spread out. We probably we're coming close to saving enough fuel from stop and trucks in route where there was not going be needed that night to nearly pay for the motor, the sale. And just to ease the sea where the trucks are, we, the combines are at, uh, where your planter equipment, where your sprayer's at and you can keep up with all your tenders. It is just amazing how you can incorporate that into that platform and make it a lot less stressful for you and see what's going on. Maybe you can get that guy to go home early instead making a two round trip when they spread out. Like we're, so it is, there's more to it than just the agronomic side, the logistics side as well. That was actually my next question with those modems, we have the R modem that is great to install in John Deere equipment, but we also have the end mode that's great for any truck that you have with 12 volt power. So combining that with the operation center, how are you guys using that to manage logistics on your operation? I think you started to hint at it there. Um, but does anyone else have any stories of how they're managing both the information coming into Operation Center and the visibility of the trucks to help with Logistics? I, I know Johnny on his farm, he has 'em in all of his trucks and you know, again, the operations grow, you get so spread out, the ability to see where all the trucks are at managing them logistically just to look at it on your phone really creates a whole other level of efficiency. Yeah. Um, there are some data points that are gonna be flowing into Operation Center now as far as estimated time remaining on a field and estimated time to empty to kind of help out with that as well. Have you dabbled with that at all? Yes, we have looked at that a little bit. Uh, again, my sons Yeah. Teaching you up here. Um, next question for the group. How do you use some of the tools within the Operation center and specifically the analyze space to help make decisions on your operation? So we have Field Analyzer, machine Analyzer, work Analyzer are using any of those to kind of keep track of what you're doing and and manage progress throughout the year? Yes, we're starting to do more and more of that, especially in a couple farms where you're, you know, we're sharecropping and things like that. It helps to supply that data. It just, uh, supplies confidence. You know, when, when you have those partnerships and everybody's finances are involved, uh, with the, uh, liquid byproduct business that I have, the plant food business, we're using that because we get even more spread out than we do on the farm. And then, you know, showing those customers all of that data and things like that And through the partnerships, hopefully it's making it a lot easier to share that data and not having to print off the actual maps of running over if you don't want to. You're able to share that electronically AB absolutely. It's a simple email. Yep. How about folks on the phone? Anyone using any of the tools in the analyze space? Yeah, like on the machine analyze, I'm just gonna say this, you know, there's a, there's a new, uh, buzz word and that's five gallons an acre. And Chad Chad's very experienced with that on being able to use less water and and being more efficient. And, and we used the machine analyzer to figure out how much, how many hours we were using to fill up a sprayer. And if you really wanna feel bad about your operation, go look at machine analyzer on that. Combines tractors, anything you're doing, you'll find out that if you think you're efficient, you're not near as efficient as you think. So that machine analyzer's helped with that. And then we're multiple crops, we grow four or five different crops. So I gotta know what Chad's saying too. But, uh, anyway, we, you know, we can identify if there's a certain field and there are some that maybe don't like rice, you know, if they won't grow rice, we can, we can, we know that through the field analyzer, uh, through the, you know, difference in the way they perform versus other fields. I gotta know what Chad just Said to you. He said take it away so that you can't big brother on everybody. Um, I, I would, I mean I I would probably agree with that. We, uh, we have multiple landlords, I mean, you know, on our farming operation and we Just provide each landlord with the data that they want. 'cause we could simply take op center, just overwhelm them with information, you know. So I just ask each one like how far in you want to go? You know, do you want see plant maps or do you want see, uh, sprayer maps or do you want see harvest maps? And then when you get it into places where you need to, you know, you need to be tiling or you need to be irrigation or you need, you know, you need extra fertility, then you have proof. I mean you can show 'em on paper and show 'em and then explain to 'em why the yield levels, where it is or what we're looking at and the help that you would need when you're looking at a partnership or an operation or for a landlord, you know, when you're in your share rent type situation of, of, Hey, I I need some extra money here. You know, so we, we've been able to use it in multiple ways to get to our, everybody the same deal. Yeah, I think really it comes down to having that visibility into the operation, whether it is that agronomic data and being able to make those decisions on land rents or if it comes down to those efficiency metrics and how operators are performed, you're able to see that, uh, all in one place. So really cool stuff. Um, another question here I had, is anybody operating like older John Deere equipment or maybe anything that is not John Deere on their operation, um, have you dabbled or thought about precision essentials or being able to bring all of the data into the one space with Operation Center? Well, We have a 46 40 screen in our, uh, cloth come back, you know, and so it's worked, it's worked well. You know, the information just shoved right over and I mean that was like Todd was talking about, you know, being with other, other platforms, you know, and be able to bridge that between 'em is, is huge. You know, 'cause not all companies do that. So that's, that's been, been good for us to be able to, to manage that as well. How about anyone on the phone be, uh, interacted with the Precision Essentials kit? I guess if anyone's not familiar, the Precision Essentials kit's gonna provide you that G five display, the SF 7,500 receiver, that can give you S-F-R-T-K accuracy, uh, and a modem, uh, for one low upfront cost. And that would, that's applicable for an older piece of John Deere equipment or even maybe something that's not John Deere able to bring all of that data into the one ecosystem. We're on our farm today. We've been looking down that road for about, I don't know, about three months now, trying to figure out what to do. You know, whether we take our 2,600 screens, you know, that we have in older machines up to our 26 thirties that, you know, we're having some issues and her, you know, phasing out, but they're phasing out, you know, I mean we're, we're still looking at pieces here. That's my sons like, man, we, I said, I don't wanna buy the new screens like that that's been in there 15 years. Y'all correct me if I'm wrong, but it's been here a while, you know, so we're, we're in that and we're trying to pick through now, which, which one we get. Do we get to precision that you said essentials or do we just buy 'em one at a time? You know? So there's a lot of options out there if you just mentioned one, but there's several options if you're looking to upgrade screens or you know, balls or stuff like that. Uh, there is a lot of options to it and I'd scratch my head three times and won't be outta the room. So I'm still trying to figure it out. I have one last question. We're wrapping up here with our 20 minutes, but how about each of you gimme your quick overview of what would be one underutilized tool in operations center that you think people should know about em? I talk about putting all the information together in one spot. You know, your your, like your USDA five 70 eights for the FSA, your, uh, federal crop insurance, you know, the, uh, the as applied maps, things like that. Having all that, you know, and it's right there accessible on your phone and going to your yield maps and just having all that information in one spot. And, you know, I think we just need to take time to put it in there. Yeah. And so that, that's the underutilized part is to sit down, you know, maybe this time of the year and get all that information in there so it it, it makes me more efficient. And, you know, you're going into the FSA office, you're talking to a landlord, you're talking to your insurance provider, things like that. Having all that information there, maybe, maybe the rest of you are doing a good job of that. I, I think we could do a better job of that. Thank you. Do you have one or kick it over to Todd or Matt? Anyone on the phone? I'm gonna say the most, the most not utilized in my opinion right now would be work planner. I don't think, I don't think people have understood, you know, with these different technologies we spray, you know, that you may have fields with different technologies. You put that work planter in there, you put that work order in there, he goes that field, it's not gonna spray. So if he goes the wrong field, he's not gonna kill it based on that. So I think that's the most underutilized piece of operation center we have right now, in my opinion. Yeah, for me, I'm gonna say it's the marking your field entrances. Danielle, she did that last year, didn't realize how important it was. But with new employees, truck drivers, uh, just on and on, even, uh, you know, different ones wanting to come see you to different fields. We got so many different locations. She went in and actually flagged the actual entrance where they're going in and out of the field at, on every one of the fields that we have. And that, I mean, it's amazing. We did not have any trouble this year. Trucks getting in ditches, you know, turning around where they shouldn't be. It's little things like that that are on there that you don't think about, but it makes a big difference when it keeps you from having accidents. I'll add, I'd like to add one thing too. I mentioned it earlier, but the, the auto path boundaries and being able to, I guess I'm very particular about what the way my rows are ran and if I've got other guys on planters, I can have all that settled in the office before we go plant. 'cause inevitably people get jumpy and put the wrong rope, you know, the wrong heading in or make the wrong line. And the rows, you know, once they're planted, they're messed up all year. But I can have all that set right here in the office and ready to go when they, they pull in the field, all they gotta do is select auto path boundary and they can rock and roll and I don't have to worry about the lines being wrong and all that all year long. Um, I'm going, mine's gonna be a little different than most folks are, uh, kind the way of field anyway. But, uh, I I'm gonna tell you, it's an opportunity to bring your family in, uh, whether it's your wife or whether it's your sons or daughters, even at a younger age. I promise y'all 13 or 14 years old, they way better than me and Kelly are. And I see as opportunity to bring 'em into the farm. There's too many farmers that are still, uh, I, I'm blessed to have, uh, my dad and my first cousin let me have a hundred acres a year that I researched and belt milk and that's a blessing. 'cause if ever farm ain't like that, there's too many. I mean, if I, if you're in here and I finish, hey, we can talk about it later outside, whichever one you want to do. But there's too many farmers that are still stuck at 60 or 70 years old making all the decisions and not letting their kids fail while they're here. You look, the people here, Kelly relies on his sons to do, to do most of this and they share it with us. I rely on my son. These guys here on the screen, Kevin's daughter, Matt's son, Todd. I mean like all them rely on somebody and brings them in the operation, brings them closer and it gives them something to, to come into the operation on and run it, run the business side of it. I mean, it's a great tool for that. And uh, that's, that's what it's really brought to our farms. It is. He's been able to, my son's been able to show us why we need to spend money on certain pieces when me and my dad look at him and Stuart looks at like, that's, that's not work. He said it's math and math is the only thing that don't lie. You know, so, you know, that's, that's just kind of where, where we're at on it's give us opportunity to bring the whole family together and make sure that, that we're getting the knowledge that we need outta on it. Awesome. Well, Kelly, Chad, Matt, Kevin, Todd, remotely. Thank you all for your sharing your thoughts. Much more interesting than me sharing a bunch of slides. But, uh, I am here for the rest of the day. If you guys wanna have any questions about operations center, I'll be right over here at our John Deere table. So stop by. Any questions now? Any questions, Matt? Any questions now, Wayne, any, any Questions about for Ms. O? The weather pulled it off. Would you like No question. We can't put that I ask a question, right? He wants to draw a report of what the weather was on a certain day. Alright, so we we do have one question here. Well, like she's addressing, I got a question up here live from the panel. One second. Um, asking about weather. So we do have weather showcased an operation center. You can see it on the, the front page on the map where you can see it in the home page with an overall report. Uh, we don't have a way to export that yet. Um, they are something they're working on. So as you look at specific dates and what occurred on that date, being able to export the actual weather features, whether it was rainfall or temperature or wind speeds. Um, with that day's work is something that is coming. Go ahead. You wanna Do a drawing for Essential ski please? You want a drawing for an essential ski ski? Chris, where's Chris? Do you got one on you? No, We're close. We are close to the, we get one. We Are, that was a great question. That's a great question. Any others? What's the entry level cost? What's the entry level cost For like the essentials kit? No, for the operation center. Oh, operation center is free. So you can get a, uh, download, uh, login. You can get a login for free if you go to operation center.deer.com. Um, no additional cost. You would need a modem on whichever piece of machinery to transmit the data in and a display. But as long as you have that already in the display, the actual functionality of the operation center is included with that. And you charge for each module? No. Within the operation center? No. And, and we've upgraded ours. We've run like a 2012 model machine of six 80 and we've upgraded it to where it's, you know, not, you don't have to go out there and plug the flash drive in. It is coming in. We've got the modems in it, you know, so you can, a lot of this stuff we don't ever talk about, which always talk about me and Chris talk about new equipment. New equipment, new equipment. They've got some great upgrades, a lot of great upgrades. I run a lot of older stuff. I'm, I'm the scratching dead guy be, you know, so we are always upgrading our old stuff. We've got scales of that scales and stuff in the, in the older machines just to make the data more clear, you know? Yeah. So I mentioned the precision essentials kit. If you have an older machine that doesn't have any of that talk technology, that's a great gateway. And we'll have some folks from our precision upgrades here with us this afternoon if you have some specific questions. Um, but trying to make it as eliminate as many barriers to entry as we can for folks that might have hold their equipment Way over here. Okay. What are you gonna roll out in your autonomy full scale for production For everyone? Uh, well, we've fully launched our, um, autonomous tillage, uh, solution. The rest we have, um, in development, I don't, well, I'm sorry. I guess your production ready, uh, tillage, autonomous tillage, I was told by our dealer. It's not quite, Well it's been kicked off in our, uh, initial states here in the Midwest. I guess. I'm not sure where you're located specifically. Illinois Illinois's good. That should be in one of our initial states so we can chat afterwards. Stop over. I would have one question on that. Mm-hmm. Um, my fear, my fear on the autonomous thing is that when I, I seen it first time I thought that I, when I talked about the first time, I thought, there's no way that'll work. There's no way it'll work. But when I seen it first time, I said, that'll absolutely work. You know, so, but my fear is, remember when we had the 20, I think me and Chris talked about, I remember we had the 20 series trackers and you could get 'em at that point. You'd get 'em auto steer ready or not, and they'd come back. I had two or three tractors had come back, put the whole cable suit. Is there a break in series tractors where you know that this $8,400 from here on all of 'em will be autonomous ready? You know, because you're gonna have a split in there for tractors that are five years from now. If we're gonna buy used, that's gonna be autonomous ready or not common. True. Yeah. They have that, uh, identified. So visiting with your dealer should have that, that specific break on when we're autonomy ready versus not. All right. Anybody else? Thank you Aaron. And a will be, you're gonna be available. Yep. 00:24:43.985 --> 00:24:44.765