Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

Jonah Johnson, 25, who farms with his father and brother near Woodstock, started Prairie Aerial Drones after searching for a solution in his own pasture.

“Pastures are hard to reach areas,” he said. “That’s sort of the reason I got my drone. “I couldn’t reach all of the corners, nooks and crannies in my pasture. You can reach anything with a drone.”

Johnson started his business last spring, getting the paperwork rolling to be able to operate a drone in the area. Aside from trying to find a solution for covering his pasture, he recognized the safety concerns with trying to do so on the ground.

”It’s just so dangerous for farmers to go out with their 4-Wheeler and side-by-side and try to spray some of these pastures in southwest Minnesota with the Buffalo Ridge,” he said. “Here you’ve got some large washouts from rivers and stuff, you take a long tumble down a hill.”

While aerial spraying has its challenges such as wind, the benefits are notable, Johnson said. Aside from providing a safer alternative for covering difficult terrain, the aerial drone can ensure better coverage of that rugged terrain.

“It’s a safer route and you get better coverage from it,” he said. “It basically runs off of RTK, which is exactly what auto steers tractors.”

Johnson bought his drone, a DJI P40, over the winter. The equipment can carry a pay load of up to 220 pounds in dry weight and 10.5 gallons in liquid. He started out spraying pastures, but has expanded into fungicide and insecticide application, which has turned out to be his busiest season.

Additionally, he can broadcast seed cover crops, winter wheat, rye and more. The technology continues to evolve, he said, and it will continue to do so to the benefit of producers.

“It’s exciting new technology and we are just at the beginning cusp of it,” he said “I think this is going to be a much bigger thing and it is a lot safer form of application. A lot of the studies I have seen have it placed right below ground application. The only thing holding it back right now is battery capability.”
While covering pasture is naturally a little slower, the drone can cover a notable amount of land in an hour.

“I can probably cover about 30 to 40 acres an hour,” he said. “Pasture slows down because you are going a lot slower to try to keep up with the terrain. The radar system has to be able to keep up with the adjustments of altitude.”

While he plans on building up his fleet, like other aerial drone operators, Johnson is working to navigate changing U.S. laws surrounding Chinese-based equipment.

“There are some laws that are sort of holding us back right now as drone operators,” he said. “The U.S. is leaning more towards United States built drones. DJI is a Chinese-based company. Really the only maps being used are the same you see on Google Maps. They’re phenomenal drones.

The terrain-following is top notch. That’s the problem here in southwest Minnesota. The terrain-following capabilities with the U.S. based drones just don’t follow the terrain as well as DJI does. They’re just light years ahead of any U.S. based company.”

Johnson urges people to remember that banning DJI would harm those who are benefiting from the technology.

“DJI, if we ban that it’s going to hurt a lot of people,” he said. “There’s a lot of talk in the legislation world about banning it. I don’t think that’s the route we should go. I don’t see what information they can pull from it. That would be an immense about of data to pull and store and all they really get from me is my elevation, which they can get on Google Maps.”

Anyone interested in speaking to Johnson about his services can contact him at 507-215-3987 or send him a message on his Facebook page, Prairie Winds Aerial Drones.

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

With harvest coming to a close for many producers across the southwest corner of the state, the time has come to begin planning for the next season.
For producers preparing for spring planting, Ken Franzky, the Agronomy Services Manager with Marshall-based Centrol Crop Consulting and his team of 52 crop consultants across the state of Minnesota and South Dakota have some advice for making sure their operation is prepared.

Frankzy, who grew up as a farm kid in western Minnesota and has worked in agriculture his entire career, said that the first step for producers to take is to assess prior years.

“Review what has been consistently working for your operation and provided proven results year-over-year,” he said. “As well as things that may have not paid as good or consistent of a return on investment or new things you have tried on a limited basis and have seen mixed results with. Be willing to try new things but on a scaled approach to control risks of unpredictable results.”

Producers should start planning right away while the last season is fresh in their mind so that they can draw proper conclusions and outcomes from the weather related issues that are beyond a producer’s control, Franzky said. Outcomes that their management decisions influenced positively or negatively should also be evaluated.

“This includes things like tillage systems, seed selection choices, planting dates, crop protection product decisions, timing of field applications, grain marketing, etc.,” he said.

Common mistakes that Frankzy has seen made by produces during preplanning have been jumping too quickly on decisions or prepaying for the next year rather than investing enough time in analyzing their data to make the most informed decision possible. Also, worrying too much about what their neighbors are doing, and not meeting with their ag lenders on a quarterly basis to keep communication open to continuously review budgets and cash flows.

Something else producers should consider when preplanning for the spring season is the ever-evolving technology in the agricultural industry, Frankzy said. However, some more traditional methods of operation assessment still provide the best results.

“Various technologies can provide ways to protect yields, gain in-field efficiency, reduce some risk levels, etc.,” he said. “But nothing is currently available to replace the fundamentals of quality soil sampling, proper recommendations for crop nutrition, utilization of best management practices for crop inputs, and keeping a mindset of environmental stewardship like farmers commonly do to protect their livelihoods and assets of soil, water, and air.”

For those looking for an outside opinion to assist in planning, the number one advantage of working with an independent crop consultant is the unbiased service and recommendations producers will receive, Frankzy said.

“We do not sell products like other input suppliers,” he said. “Rather, our goal is to assist farmers in finding and extracting the higher rate of return with all their input and agronomic decisions.”
Some final advice that Frankzy offers to producers is to be smart with their planning and decision making.

“Do not get talked into or pressured into things that ‘sound too good to be true’ or are mostly based on testimonials or limited scientific research and data,” he said. “‘Trust but verify’ as the old phrase goes! I would like to remind our MN and SD farmers to act with a little Missouri attitude, ‘show me’ first and let me see, believe, and understand the value of a product or production practice before I jump in 100%.”

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com


Caring for livestock is a practice that has evolved over the years especially with vast changes in technology over the past few decades.
Nick Enfield, is a production consultant with FarmPro, a service offering from Pipestone Business, a company that helps farmers by providing resources and expertise in swine management. One of those services, Enfield said, includes consultation and management of swine barn ventilation systems.

On a recent episode of the SwineTime podcast, Enfield was a guest alongside Dr. Jeff Blythe, also with PIPESTONE, to discuss the challenges of proper ventilation in swine facilities. The knowledge and information that has been gained over the years is vast, Enfield said, but we are just scratching the surface of the science behind proper ventilation and its impact on swine health.

“That may be the understatement of the discussion,” Enfield said.  “And the reason I say that is we get to see a lot of different styles of barns and differences in how pigs are raised. Obviously there are some preferences and new technologies out there, but what we want to share with producers is the base level ventilation that needs to be executed for success.”

For Enfield, the number one and first thing a producer should do to maximize the potential of their ventilation system, is to ensure all of their equipment is working properly.

“For me, the number one thing prior to utilizing the experience or mathematics you have to get into is that the barn has to be functional,” he said. “The equipment has to be functional. Fans have to be working, curtain machines have to be working. Inlets need to be working. Because if you don’t have that, it really doesn’t matter the settings any expert would put in, say, the controller to operate the ventilation, or what temperature you set as a set point, if the fans are not functioning.”

Much like a car or home, downed equipment and repairs are to be expected, Enfield said. However, keeping up with maintenance and repairs is essential.

The second most important thing to consider, Enfield said, is probe placement. The probe detects air temperature, and if it is placed improperly, for example near a heat or cooling source, it can skew the entire system and lead to under or over ventilation, as temperature will dictate how much air moves in the barn.

“It’s pretty simple, just like in a house,” he said. “You would set your thermostat at 72 and really, you just need to make the decision of ‘do I need to have my AC on or do I need to have my furnace on?’ It’s no different except we don’t have to tell the thermostats to kick on the furnace or AC, we set the parameters to begin with and then temperature will dictate what turns on and when. I say that because even if you have everything set up perfectly in the controller, if your probes are reading odd, like they are in front of a heater and catching that line of air, it is going to greatly skew the temperature reading.”’

After you confirm the equipment is working and probe placement has been addressed, producers can dive into the nuances of the math involved in creating the ideal ventilation and humidity in the barn, Enfield said.

The math, he said, is the third most important thing to consider in creating proper ventilation. With a variety of barn styles and setups, the math can be something that is very nuanced.
“You could have different experts argue over some settings, or how far apart or close you set things in terms of temperatures but you have to have a base level of what that has to be for CFMs, we’re talking volume of air.”

A lot of research is available that can demonstrate at what rate your fans need to be running in order to achieve the necessary volume of air, Enfield said. Some factors that will influence the rate include the size and number of fans available in the barn.
Poor ventilation can include under or over-ventilation, Enfield said, which can lead to a variety of issues. In terms of swine health, it can lead to bacteria and pathogens that thrive in high-humidity environments. Under-ventilation can also lead to more air containments, and breathing difficulties for livestock.

“With higher humidity, it’s just harder to breathe,” he said. “Think about Iowa in August with all the corn and you walk outside and it’s 85 degrees at 7 a.m., and it just feels like the air is thick. So in an under-ventilation scenario, it can challenge respiration, which ultimately can hurt the growth and efficiency of the pigs. There is some science behind this, in terms of metabolic rate, or the minimum amount of calories they need to function.”

Essentially, in terms of the pigs’ body temperature, if their body temperatures are higher, it may be signaling the animal to eat less as their bodies think they do not need to take in as many calories for their base level of sustenance. Consuming less feed in turn causes a slowed growth rate.
Although rare, over-ventilation is a possibility, Enfield said.

“It does happen way less than under-ventilation,” he said, “but it does happen. The reason under ventilation tends to happen more often is because people are just very aware of the utility cost of those facilities.”

Enfield stressed that producers have learned so much over the years about stewardship of livestock, and have worked to improve their processes for the betterment of the animal and their operation. FarmPro, he said, can help them to figure out how to achieve ventilation efficiency, which in turn will impact the efficiency of their herd.

“It is wildly amazing all of the, what I call, lessons we have learned that make our lives easier as caretakers, and ultimately way easier and better for the pigs,” he said. “I tell everyone we are constantly working to improve animal welfare, from advancements in computer technology in these hog facilities, to better design of pens and alley ways, and so much more. It’s mind blowing how far we have come.”