With precision farming experience dating back to the mid-1990s, Chris Von Holten marvels at the progress it’s made. But he also laments the “Tower of Babel” approach the technology offers when sharing data.

Iott Seed Farms produces seed potatoes used to grow spuds for potato chips near Kalkaska in northwest Michigan. Owners Dennis and Greg Iott also grow wheat, rye and sudex in their potato rotation. This specialty crop presents challenges as the Iotts strive to collect better data to fine-tune their cropping system.

When Bill Rohloff stepped boldly into adopting precision equipment 2 years ago, the transition was a relatively smooth one.

Everybody likes a precision farming equipment story that ends happily ever after. For Jeff Toussaint, a fourth generation no-till farmer at Toussaint Farms near Medina, N.Y., his first foray into precision farming was more of a nightmare, and he attributes poor dealer support as the main reason for it.

Jacob Bolson works full time in agriculture and leverages that training and experience with Knutson Family Farms, which is operated by his in-laws near Hubbard, Iowa.

Mike Bland has been around the block a few times with precision farming equipment. More than a decade ago, he and his father, who is now mostly retired, started with a John Deere Brown Box for guidance, then upgraded to a GreenStar 2 controller and they now run with a GS3 unit.

On Steve Duwe’s 1,120 acre farm near Johnson Creek, Wis., making the most of his strip-till corn and no-till soybeans operation on moderately sloping ground, requires more than a steady hand.

By Brian Hoffman’s estimation, he’s had better than average luck adopting precision farming tools at Hoffman & Sons Inc., where he farms with his brother-in-law, Jesse Scroeder, and long time employee, Dan Bolling, near Brunswick in northeastern Nebraska. They no-till 2,200 acres of corn, soybeans, alfalfa and dryland cereal rye.

An early adopter of precision farming practices, Roger Wenning remembers using his Massey Ferguson combine in the 1980s to weigh grain as it offloaded and then tracked yield patterns with an early monitor.

Gary Kregel and his family have more than enough to do on their 2,100 acre dairy operation near Guttenberg, Iowa. Located near the Mississippi River, their fields are highly irregular in shape and range from highly erodible land to river bottoms.