The roundtable topic of adding agronomic services drew a large crowd. To kick the conversation off, moderator John Marshall, integrated solutions manager for Wade Inc., took a quick poll to get a feel for how many in the room currently offered agronomy services. Of the 30 or so who sat in on this roundtable, roughly 20% had hired an agronomist.

The first question tackled in this roundtable discussion was “What is autonomy?” Initially the group would have thought of driverless tractors completing tasks in the fields without an operator in the field.

The 2017 Precision Farming Dealer Summit succession planning roundtable in St. Louis “played” to a packed room. Moderated by Tim Norris, former CEO, Ag Info Tech (2016 Most Valuable Dealership), Mount Vernon, Ohio, the participants included family-owned precision dealerships with a handful to employees all the way to businesses with hundreds of employees.

As water availability and usage becomes more important, dealers are tapping into opportunities to deliver precision products and services that allow farmers to be more economical with their water management practices. Here are 7 takeaways from the roundtable discussion at the 2017 Precision Farming Dealer Summit

The phrase ‘accuracy is addicting’ is one many precision dealers use to describe the success they’ve had selling RTK subscriptions to farm customers.

The roundtable discussion focused on “bundling service” saw a packed room of roughly 70 or so precision professionals. Moderator Chris Arend with Equip IQ, started the discussion out with a simple question, “Why are you here?”

Diversity, flexibility and hands-on experience are three desirable inclusions a recent graduate looks for in a precision farming job within a dealership.

The group of precision farming professionals who participated in the roundtable covered a lot of ground, but a few key takeaways stood out. “The majority of our time was spent discussion optimization packages, specifically proactive optimization packages,” says Jaime Paquin, general manager of Reichhardt Electronic Innovations, who moderated the roundtable.

The unmanned aerial vehicle market exploded in agriculture roughly 3 years ago, but a dip in the ag economy along with regulatory changes regarding drone usage influenced the short-term popularity of the systems.

Moderated by John Schmeiser, CEO, Western Equipment Dealers Assn., the roundtable on lessons learned from the recent tough times received good and candid participation from dealers of many types, colors and sizes throughout North America.