TerraClear takes on rock management
with artificial intelligence
with artificial intelligence
By Mavis Fodness
A time-consuming spring planting chore is becoming easier thanks to TerraClear Inc., who recently opened an office in Sioux Falls.
While glaciers flattened much of the land in the tri-state area, making it ideal for row crops, the left-behind rocks are reminders of the ice sheets that spread across the Midwest thousands of years ago.
“Glaciers weren’t really nice to us, for a lack of a better way to put it,” said Josh Ring, the sales and enablement leader in TerraClear’s Sioux Falls office.
TerraClear’s rock management takes advantage of the technology advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and global positioning to identify rocks in a field and develop a map to pick rocks up in a matter of hours versus over a period of days.
Ring recalled working as a farmhand in the 1990s in southeast South Dakota, where he completed rock picking in the traditional way — walking an entire field.
“Basically, from sunup to sundown, walking fields, looking left to right, trying to find what we could find,” Ring said. “Stooping, scooping, standing, walking over, and throwing it (rocks) back into buckets. If we found something too large, we’d flag it and come back with a backhoe at a later time.”
While the Brandon, S.D. native said rock picking paid well and the large rock piles left him with satisfaction of a job well done, today’s teens are less likely to pick rocks for days.
TerraClear’s AI-generated maps are making rock picking three times faster.
The first step is to create a TerraClear account and upload the boundaries for the field-specific mapping process.
Once an account is created, a pilot flies a drone over the field. Fields free of snow and excessive ground cover provide the best view for identifying rocks.
“We are able to identify rocks that are 7 inches or larger and (those that are exposed),” said Ring, explaining what exposed means, “hey, that’s an 8-inch rock there but actually it’s much larger underneath.”
Mapping can take place in the fall as well as the spring, the most common timeframe. Maps can be utilized whenever a block of time presents itself for rock removal.
“Because of the eagle-eye view we have with our drone, we are going to identify more (rocks) than the human eye in a side-by-side, looking left to right, or even sitting up in the tractor looking left to right,” Ring said.
Completion of the high-resolution map takes three to 10 days depending on flying conditions and if an internet connection is close to the field’s location. Once the map is available, the information is placed in the TerraClear account.
Various filters can be applied to the map to identify rocks by size as well as a path to pick up the rocks.
At $3.95 an acre, TerraClear’s rock management could easily pay for itself, as Ring explained a local farmer’s harvest experience with a single rock.
“An 8-inch rock got kicked up past the rock gate and got ingested by the combine,” he said. “It caused about $180,000 in damage to his combine and they had that down time where he’s waiting for that to get repaired.”
Ring indicated many farmers have repeated mapping the following year when switching crops to eliminate more rock, as the Midwest’s freeze-thaw cycle continues to bring more rocks to the surface for the next year.
To further assist with rock removal, TerraClear also has a rock-picking service.
Ring said farmers have chosen to hire a TerraClear crew to remove the 10-inch or larger rocks, while farmers collected the smaller rocks themselves when time allowed.
“Time to pick is valuable,” Ring said.
About TerraClear
TerraClear was founded by Brent Frei, a mechanical engineer, in late 2017.
The Grangeville, Idaho, native sought a more efficient way to pick up rocks other than by hand or by rock picking equipment.
According to the TerraClear website, Frei’s focus turned to rock locating rather than develop better collection equipment to better work on all types of terrain.
TerraClear has offices in Sioux Falls, Parkersburg, Iowa, Issaquah, Wash., and Grangeville, Idaho.
More information is available at terraclear.com or by calling the sales office at 712-545-7144.
A time-consuming spring planting chore is becoming easier thanks to TerraClear Inc., who recently opened an office in Sioux Falls.
While glaciers flattened much of the land in the tri-state area, making it ideal for row crops, the left-behind rocks are reminders of the ice sheets that spread across the Midwest thousands of years ago.
“Glaciers weren’t really nice to us, for a lack of a better way to put it,” said Josh Ring, the sales and enablement leader in TerraClear’s Sioux Falls office.
TerraClear’s rock management takes advantage of the technology advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and global positioning to identify rocks in a field and develop a map to pick rocks up in a matter of hours versus over a period of days.
Ring recalled working as a farmhand in the 1990s in southeast South Dakota, where he completed rock picking in the traditional way — walking an entire field.
“Basically, from sunup to sundown, walking fields, looking left to right, trying to find what we could find,” Ring said. “Stooping, scooping, standing, walking over, and throwing it (rocks) back into buckets. If we found something too large, we’d flag it and come back with a backhoe at a later time.”
While the Brandon, S.D. native said rock picking paid well and the large rock piles left him with satisfaction of a job well done, today’s teens are less likely to pick rocks for days.
TerraClear’s AI-generated maps are making rock picking three times faster.
The first step is to create a TerraClear account and upload the boundaries for the field-specific mapping process.
Once an account is created, a pilot flies a drone over the field. Fields free of snow and excessive ground cover provide the best view for identifying rocks.
“We are able to identify rocks that are 7 inches or larger and (those that are exposed),” said Ring, explaining what exposed means, “hey, that’s an 8-inch rock there but actually it’s much larger underneath.”
Mapping can take place in the fall as well as the spring, the most common timeframe. Maps can be utilized whenever a block of time presents itself for rock removal.
“Because of the eagle-eye view we have with our drone, we are going to identify more (rocks) than the human eye in a side-by-side, looking left to right, or even sitting up in the tractor looking left to right,” Ring said.
Completion of the high-resolution map takes three to 10 days depending on flying conditions and if an internet connection is close to the field’s location. Once the map is available, the information is placed in the TerraClear account.
Various filters can be applied to the map to identify rocks by size as well as a path to pick up the rocks.
At $3.95 an acre, TerraClear’s rock management could easily pay for itself, as Ring explained a local farmer’s harvest experience with a single rock.
“An 8-inch rock got kicked up past the rock gate and got ingested by the combine,” he said. “It caused about $180,000 in damage to his combine and they had that down time where he’s waiting for that to get repaired.”
Ring indicated many farmers have repeated mapping the following year when switching crops to eliminate more rock, as the Midwest’s freeze-thaw cycle continues to bring more rocks to the surface for the next year.
To further assist with rock removal, TerraClear also has a rock-picking service.
Ring said farmers have chosen to hire a TerraClear crew to remove the 10-inch or larger rocks, while farmers collected the smaller rocks themselves when time allowed.
“Time to pick is valuable,” Ring said.
About TerraClear
TerraClear was founded by Brent Frei, a mechanical engineer, in late 2017.
The Grangeville, Idaho, native sought a more efficient way to pick up rocks other than by hand or by rock picking equipment.
According to the TerraClear website, Frei’s focus turned to rock locating rather than develop better collection equipment to better work on all types of terrain.
TerraClear has offices in Sioux Falls, Parkersburg, Iowa, Issaquah, Wash., and Grangeville, Idaho.
More information is available at terraclear.com or by calling the sales office at 712-545-7144.
