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Noah Newman:

Hey, great to have you with us for another edition of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast brought to you by Ag Express Electronics. Today we're heading out to Eagle, Wisconsin where Farmer Tyler Traola is getting ready to use his John Deere See & Spray system for the very first time. He discusses the motivation for investing in smart spraying technology and details how he's working with his dealership to make sure he has success with it this spring. Traola also reveals some of the steps he took to implement the retrofit system on a used sprayer, potential challenges he's anticipating and other technologies that are really giving him that winning edge on his farm. So let's jump right into the conversation. Here's Tyler

Tyler Traola:

Between me and my uncles, some land we all rent and some land we own is about 2,800 acres, corn, soybeans, wheat, only a couple of hundred acres of wheat. The rest is pretty much corn, soybean rotation, pretty much everything has a cover crop on it. After beans and corn, a cereal rye, after wheat, we get a little bit more exotic and do a ten-way mix of clover and sorghum sedan and sunflower and buckwheat, a little bit of radish, flax. There's some other goofy ones in there I can't remember, but we've been planting everything green the last few years. We've had better luck with that.

Noah Newman:

How long have you been no-tilling and using cover crops for and what are some of the top benefits you get from that?

Tyler Traola:

My uncles that I farm with and another landlord I have, were at the very first, No-Till Conference. So has that been 30 years they've been doing it? Been no-tilling a long time. I'd say cover crops we probably started 15 years ago. So they've probably been on the cutting edge of it. They've been early adopters of it and most of our soils have been transitioned into no-till practices. So a lot of this stuff is, I wouldn't say easier for it, but we're over the learning curve on a lot of it.

Noah Newman:

I'd say like today when it's pouring rain, you'll drive by some fields that you could tell are conventionally tilled and there's just giant puddles everywhere. So I would imagine that has been one of the top benefits for you, would you say just the water?

Tyler Traola:

Infiltration has been a huge deal, yeah. We've had field days before where they come out and do water infiltration tests and you just go across the fence line and it's a giant difference. We've already had an inch and a half of rain today and you drive around and there's not a lot of puddles. There's some, but it definitely makes a difference.

Noah Newman:

Yeah, absolutely. All right, so we're talking about See & Spray. Did you purchase See & Spray Premium or See & Spray Ultimate?

Tyler Traola:

It's the Premium kit. It's a used John Deere Sprayer. It's not new so you can't get Ultimate on anything that's not from a factory. So it's a Premium system that they added on. I think the Ultimate is the better system, but it wasn't in my budget. So we're going to start with the Premium and go from there.

Noah Newman:

It seems like that's the way a lot of people are going with this new technology, is the retrofit option. What was the installation process like? Can you take me through that?

Tyler Traola:

I didn't have anything to do with it. The Deere dealer I bought it from did it and I think Deere said it was an 80 or 120 hour job and they laughed them and said, "No way," and it took that long. It took a solid two weeks, I would say, for them to do it. I think the second system they do will be a lot faster, but never doing it before, it's a pretty big learning curve for them.

Noah Newman:

How did you get roped into it or introduced to it and why'd you go to the route of See & Spray?

Tyler Traola:

It was actually at the No-Till Conference. I don't know if there were direct speakers on it, but some of the main stage guys brought it up and there was a round table about it. Kind of sparked my interest in it. And then you start trying to run numbers a little bit on the cost savings of chemical and just the facts to try to be an early adopter and go to this technology before it's regulated, because there are already counties in Wisconsin where your atrazine use is restricted and stuff like that. It's like, why not try to cut down on herbicide use on your own before it's regulated?

So the No-Till Conference sparked it and then I have buddies that bought new sprayers who had the option to put See & Spray on. We were talking about it and at first it didn't seem like it made sense. Then the more you talk about it's like, "Yeah, let's try this and see." And then it took a while to find a machine that was capable to run on and then to find a kit and to install it and work out pricing and all that. So it's been a headache and as we stand here now, I still don't know if it's going to work or not.

Noah Newman:

So you bought a new sprayer just so you'd be able to install?

Tyler Traola:

Yeah, it's not a new sprayer, it's a used sprayer. I had a Hagie before and they came out with Commodity Classic. They came out with See & Spray on a Hagie, but that's for only new model years, so that's a little out of my budget. With Deere they said you could retrofit anything 2018 or newer. So I found a used Deere, 2018, that had 700 hours on it.

Noah Newman:

Oh, nice. How big of a sprayer is it?

Tyler Traola:

It's a John Deere R4038. So it's a thousand gallon, 120 foot boom. As far as I can tell, the See & Spray can only have on 120 boom. That's what what Deere says.

Noah Newman:

And so you haven't used it yet. So what's your game plan going into the growing season as to how you want to implement the See & Spray system?

Tyler Traola:

It came late when we first talked about it. We were like, "Oh, that'll be something nice to have next year. We have all our chemicals bought for this year and a plan put in place." But then the opportunity came up to get into it and we said, "Well, we haven't started spraying or planting yet, so let's make it work." So talked with my crop scout, talked with an agronomist, talked with a couple of friends and my input supplier and we came up with the idea that in no-till with cover crops, we're a two-pass system now anyway, 'cause we have to go out and burn down all the cover crops before we plant it right after, and then usually come back in June sometime or V4, V5 corn or then in soybeans and spray again.

So we thought it'll still be a two-pass system, but we're just going to try to move some of our residuals from the second pass up front to try to keep the weeds down, and then that second pass will be the See & Spray. I deal with Tom Novak and he deals with Rodrigo and that was my sounding board on it.

Noah Newman:

What kind of insights have you gotten from people like Rodrigo heading in? Any big takeaways as to [inaudible 00:05:56].

Tyler Traola:

I think he's somewhat skeptical. I wouldn't say in no-till 'cause I think most of his practices and what he does isn't necessarily a no-till system. I think we'll have good luck with it because we're at the scope that we can still do a good job, manage it and it may add a spray pass to our system, but we're at the level where we have the time to be able to scout, make that decision and make another pass. A lot of guys or the co-op isn't going to add another pass to their system and being no-till and having cover crops as long as we do, we don't have a very big weed bank here, so we don't deal with a lot of nasty weeds as it is because the cover crops or the cereal or rye are holding the weeds down already. So I'm hoping that as this technology adapts, our weed bank doesn't grow as well, but we're expecting to have some problems the first year or two, but I thought it was worth trying.

Noah Newman:

Anytime you try something new, you'd have to be really lucky or a genius for it to go perfectly.

Tyler Traola:

Right.

Noah Newman:

What are some challenges that maybe you anticipate or some potential road bumps that [inaudible 00:07:02].

Tyler Traola:

One thing Rodrigo brought up and Deere brought up too is, especially in corn, the canopy height and the timing of the spray, you want to wait until as close to canopy as you can to get all the weeds to emerge to be able to spray them. But then as the corn gets bigger, it's going to shade out more of those weeds or the cameras aren't going to be able to see the weeds that are there under the canopy. And if you spray too soon, the weeds may not be emerged yet or they'll be so small they can't see. The other thing I'm questioning in a no-till situation where we have a lot of rye, is brown rye going to show? How are the cameras going to handle heavy residue?

Noah Newman:

That was one of the questions actually that my boss, Frank and I...

Tyler Traola:

And I haven't been able to get an answer on.

Noah Newman:

My boss, Frank Lesser is curious. Will it work on brown residue and can you use it... You're free with covers? That was his big question also.

Tyler Traola:

Technology is advancing so fast. I think we'll have a lot of answers to this and after the first season we'll know. But right now it's different if you're spraying brown on brown or in corn or on beans, so I thought was some year. Why won't it be able to pick up your rye cover crop or your clover cover crop and you could tell it to kill it or not kill it or be selective that way. But I don't know how well... Because I would imagine all the testing Deere did was conventionally tilled brown fields.

Noah Newman:

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Now back to the conversation.

Do you have a network, any other, no-tillers you know of that have used this or are you the only one you know of right now?

Tyler Traola:

Right now I'm the only one, but like I said, I heard about it at the No-Till Conference so I know there are guys out there. I think a lot of those guys were more of the brown on brown situation like spraying fallow or spraying wheat ground or something. I don't know offhand of anybody that's using the system. I know a couple of guys that have bought it, but they're in the same boat as I am, where we haven't used it yet this year.

Noah Newman:

So when you go out and fire it up for the first time, are you going to be riding solo or is someone from the dealership going to help you out or

Tyler Traola:

There's a lot of calibrations to do. They gave me a big four by four sheet of paper or something you're supposed to put down and calibrate it. And the guys that set it up, there were two guys that set it up, they said they both want to be out here and even they're not sure how it's going to work. So I think the first day is going to be a pretty big trial run.

Noah Newman:

What are you applying with it and at what approximate rates? Just label recommended rates?

Tyler Traola:

Well, that's the thing too. A lot of these products don't have a label for seed spraying. If they do, they're a lot different. So we need to work through that. Even your gallonage or gallon per acre of water might vary or change. And then my thought was if you're just seeing spraying and if you're only going to spray 10% to 20% of the field, you can afford to do a higher tank mix rate just spraying those acreage. So corn, like we usually spray Roundup status, Callisto coming back, we'll probably spray the same, but just up those rates. So where there is a weed, odds are it'll be a little bit bigger. We'll be able to really nail it. Obviously still following labels, but hoping to be on the higher end of that use rate.

Noah Newman:

What's the timing of the application? When are you planning on using it?

Tyler Traola:

That's going to be where the most management scouting comes in. Like corn, I think it'll be the V4, V5 window, which isn't a very long window. It depends a lot on rain. If weed pressure is heavier than that before, I think this first year it may add a pass just till we dial in what we know we're doing or if we have a lot of misses. Beans too, are going to be tricky with some 15 inch beans and some 30 inch beans. Trying to time when that residual is running out, when weeds are emerging as compared to when 30 inch beans are going to canopy. There's a pretty big window in there. It's going to be a learning curve.

Noah Newman:

Definitely sounds like it will be a learning curve. If you were to say when it's all said and done, maybe not this first year because like you said, you'll be learning things a lot, but what would it take for See & Spray to be worth the investment for you? What are you hoping, what kind of savings are you hoping maybe?

Tyler Traola:

Well, I'm hoping that it'll pay for the difference from the sprayer I traded in to this sprayer. I hope it will, not in the first year, but over the depreciation schedule or the life of the sprayer, I'm hoping that the chemical savings will pay for the cost of the technology. I'm not really looking at it from a custom spraying standpoint, but more from just a farmer standpoint. If you can save X amount of dollars on your chemical every year, you should be able to apply that to the technology and invest in technology instead of invest in jugs of chemical.

Noah Newman:

Any other big pieces of precision technology you're using other than the See & Spray?

Tyler Traola:

Yeah. I think the big reason we could go from a Hagie with a front boom back to a Deere with a rear boom is RTK GPS and the use of AutoPath. I think you're probably familiar with that, where it takes the lines and stuff has come so far it's absolutely incredible. And even with See & Spray, that wouldn't even really be possible without exact apply nozzle bodies on 15 inch, having to shut off every 15 inch. Just the chemical savings from that and the precision of that has come light years. Drones, I think, are coming. I think they'll have their place. I don't know if they're totally refined yet. I have one. We use it to scout and stuff. But as far as spraying goes, I think they have their place, but maybe this might be the last sprayer we ever own. And then it'll be drones spraying after that. I think they're coming pretty rapidly.

Noah Newman:

And then everyone talks about autonomy a lot. You see that having a place?

Tyler Traola:

Autonomy is here and it's real. Even most of our tractors are 10 years old and you can still sit at your computer desk in the morning and put in your guidance line, your field boundary, your variety, your rate, your prescription, pretty much enter everything in. We have automatic turns in our tractors. Literally the only thing you do is sit in the tractor, make sure... I would think in the next 10 years, autonomy will be really... I don't know that we'll be sitting in a tractor in 10 years just the way it is now. Even from when it's changed in my short farming career, it's really come a long way.

Noah Newman:

So how's planting season going so far? Do you have a lot of your corn in the ground yet or where are you at?

Tyler Traola:

We just got an inch and a half rain today, so we were running out of dry ground before that. And now this will really slow us down. I would say we've got about half our beans in. I would say maybe, I don't know, John, we have a third of our corn? Kind of a ways to go.

Noah Newman:

That seems ahead of a lot of people though.

Tyler Traola:

There are certain parts of the state that are a little behind, but we had a couple of breakdowns early in season that slowed us down. We upgraded our corn planter this year and then it turns out our tractor had a hidden glitch in it that we just found from updating the planter. So that costs us three or four days.

Noah Newman:

Oh no.

Tyler Traola:

Got that fixed. So we're doing okay. It just needs to dry out a little bit.

Noah Newman:

Anything I'm leaving out about the See & Spray that you think people should know?

Tyler Traola:

What do you think? What have you heard about it? I am just excited about it 'cause I think it's the future and I wanted to be an early adopter of it.

Noah Newman:

You're ahead of the curve. You're the first no-tiller I've talked to who's using it.

Tyler Traola:

It's going to take a lot of patience.

Noah Newman:

Well, it sounds like you've been a heavy adopter of other precision technologies in the past, so it sounds like you have the right mindset that you understand that it's not going to just be smooth, easy transition.

Tyler Traola:

Part of that being no-till, we don't have to buy a vertical till every year. We don't buy a chisel plow. I don't have any 500 horsepower tractors. That frees up a lot of our budget to spend on technology. So the one or two tractors we do have, we can afford our TK AutoPath. The sprayer and the drill are the biggest used pieces of equipment on our farm, so to have a sprayer be your most technologically advanced, I think makes the most sense because you use it the most, cover the most amount of acres with it.

Noah Newman:

And that'll do it for this edition of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast. Thanks again to our sponsor, Ag Express Electronics for making this series possible. Also, thanks to Tyler for taking time out of his busy day to let us visit with him about getting that See & Spray system ready for the second pass in June. So we'll have to go back and check in and see how it goes. But until then, for all things Precision Farming, dealer related, head to precisionfarmingdealer.com. I'm technology editor Noah Newman. Thanks so much for joining us for this week's episode. We'll see you next time.