Farm Dog, John Deere and ADAMA previewed their mobile-to-sprayer integrated solution to 750 agriculture professionals at the 2019 Develop with Deere Conference in Chicago in late January. The solution increases labor efficiency on the farm by simplifying information sharing and reducing the likelihood of operational errors for agronomists, growers and spray equipment operators.
“We are spending unnecessary time on communication handoffs between agronomic decision-makers and equipment operators—too many calls, faxes, emails and texts,” says Farm Dog CEO Liron Brish. “In addition to labor waste, we estimate that miscommunication occurs in up to one-third of these handoffs due to everyday occurrences such as spotty phone signals, illegible handwriting and stubby fingers. It’s the agricultural equivalent of a frustrating game of telephone.”
The solution seamlessly integrates two key activities in precision agriculture for pest and disease management: treatment recommendation based on in-field observations and variable-rate spray application. Growers and agronomists will now be able to create treatment recommendations within the Farm Dog mobile appl and send them directly from the field to variable-rate spray equipment via John Deere Operations Center, without risk of miscommunication of key information. Artificial intelligence empowers users with insights into treatment history, local regulations, crop specifics and other key agronomic inputs.
“This integration removes communication handoff costs and risk, ensuring that everybody responsible for keeping fields healthy is aligned in real-time,” says Brish.
The joint collaboration project between Farm Dog, John Deere and ADAMA is supported by the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD Foundation).