00:00:00
Soil moisture sensors. I have tried all kinds of them here on the farm, working with net FIM over the years.
00:00:07
A irrigation company. We tried everything out there, really wasn't impressed with 'em. None I could rely on. Well, this year, crop X come
00:00:15
to us at Commodity Classic and talk to us and said they'd really like for us to try their moisture sensors and see how they worked.
00:00:22
So they, they sent 'em out here to the farm, very easy to install, just more hole in the ground. And you screw this thing in.
00:00:30
It was very hard to screw in when it's dry, you wanna do it when you get a little more moisture in this high clay soils and high magnesium.
00:00:36
But, um, I still wasn't sold on them. But, uh, got to use 'em all year in several different locations. And I will tell you, it impressed me.
00:00:46
You got a line right here. You put it in the ground till you get to that line, you leave it, you just put this flag up,
00:00:52
you zip tie ya antenna to the flag. Real simple. Install it in seconds. One thing interesting is these covers are different
00:01:01
colors for your crops. I asked our representative when we installed 'em, he was showing me how to do everything.
00:01:06
I said, what's the deal with these covers? He said, well, this goes on corn. And then we got another color for the soybeans.
00:01:12
And then the fall when you go to pull 'em out, they're easy to identify.
00:01:16
And we could see it on our op center. We had it marked on the op center. And these worked through op center, uh, as far as the setup.
00:01:24
And sure enough, you could, I mean, it was so easy to see. It was unreal. We could see it six rows over into the corn
00:01:31
and that made it really impressive. It was no trouble to find. Then I thought, well, it's gonna be hard
00:01:37
to get 'em outta the ground 'cause we're kind of dry now. We hadn't been irrigating.
00:01:41
They screwed out easy as could be. But the big question is, did I make any money with 'em? Did I save any irrigations? And actually I did.
00:01:50
Uh, these was set up for every four hours to monitor. So they'd update each four hours. They can set 'em however you want 'em.
00:01:59
But the big thing for me was, is when my drip irrigation would come on, I could see that irrigation cycle every time.
00:02:07
That's a big deal for, for what I do here. This farm is about, uh, 40 miles from the house. So it's a pretty good little ride down here.
00:02:16
I ended up saving eight different irrigation cycles that I would've normally done a three hour irrigation on each zone.
00:02:23
I'd been, uh, basically 18 hours to 20 hours. I did not have to do that. You really need to pay attention to the soil classification
00:02:34
that you put these in. You want to get it in the right soil that matches the majority of your farm.
00:02:39
But you need to know, is that your wet soil or is that your dry soil? Because if that's your dry soil,
00:02:44
then you're gonna saturate your wet soil and you're gonna cause anaerobic conditions and you don't need that.
00:02:50
So you need to decide where to put 'em. Maybe you got enough soil, similar types that you can put multiple ones on your farm and
00:02:58
Represent all soil classifications. We got about six different soil types on this farm, so that ain't feasible for us.
00:03:05
We put it on other farms with our center pivot and I, I actually got faith in this product now we will be ordering more of them
00:03:15
to go on our farm to set it up. It's got a QR code on it. You just pull that top off, you take your phone, scan
00:03:23
that QR code, it sets up easy. It's right there on your smartphone. I mean, your fields are uploaded
00:03:31
through John Deere Ops Center. All that's compatible with op center. For somebody as as skeptical on these things as I was, I I,
00:03:41
I'll tell you what, they're pretty impressive. I'm not saying that just to be saying it, I'd straight up tell you.
00:03:47
But, um, if you do irrigation or you considering moisture sensors, these crop X sensors is absolutely the way to go.
00:03:58
We charge the batteries at the beginning of the season and they've lasted the whole entire season. Not had to do anything to 'em again, easy
00:04:06
to install, easy to remove. Uh, as long as you don't run over 'em, life's good. But that is nice on op center when I'm spraying these fields
00:04:15
or even harvesting, this is flagged. And, uh, you see it right on your, on your, uh, gen five or your gen four screen.
00:04:24
So you see the sensor in the field at all times. Everybody sees it. That is really convenient, really nice. 00:04:31.915 --> 00:04:33.205
