We're talking today about AMVAC’s SIMPAS system which is taking prescription application to a new level.

Retailers and farmers got an up-close look at the new technology during a special summit in Rockford, Illinois this past week.

SIMPAS stands for smart integrated multi-product prescription application system.

It’s an aftermarket system that can be put on most planters, 22-inch or wider rows, that allows growers to prescriptively apply up to three products per row.

How does it work? AMVAC breaks it down into three steps:

1. Prescribe – Get custom prescriptions from retailers or agronomists
2. Apply – Exactly what’s needed, precisely where it’s needed.
3. Return – Return all product cartridges to the retailer. Every cartridge has a smart tag, with an RFID chip that keeps a record of what products have been in the cartridge, and the amount used, so farmers can be charged by the acre instead of by the entire container. 

Jim Lappin, director of SIMPAS product portfolio alliances tells us the goal is to eventually have over 30 products in the AMVAC SIMPAS portfolio, things like insecticides, fungicides, micronutrients and more.

And Caleb Shultz, who’s the precision ag channel retail lead, tells us that’s exactly what customers are most excited about — the expanding product portfolio. 

We think that’s really going to drive the adoption of the system as we bring a lot of products into the portfolio. When you have three opportunities on a pass at planting that really opens up a farmer’s mind to think about ‘wow, all the things I wanted to address but either just haven’t thought about or didn’t have a way to think about.’ One specific example – like when we apply our zinc product, often times zinc is just riding along with starter fertilizer or in a fertilizer blend…zinc is the most common deficient micronutrient. It’s actually not difficult but uncommon to only target that one nutrient. So, with something like SIMPAS we can completely target just the needs in any part of the field for that one nutrient instead of having it ride along with the nitrogen or the phosphorous, P and K, stuff like that.

The equipment can be purchased from participating Trimble dealers, AMVAC’s development and distribution partner for SIMPAS. We’ll have much more about SIMPAS technology on next week’s episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast.