As dealer optimism continues to inch upward heading into the second quarter of 2017, no-till farmers are anticipating increased adoption of precision farming equipment this year.

Total sales in 2016 increased 8% to $42.3 million compared to $39 million in 2015. The increase was primarily driven by the acquisition of Novariant.

In this episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast, brought to you by Farmers Edge, we share the experiences of 2 dealerships that have hired in-house agronomists and how those additions have accelerated the growth of their precision farming departments.

Valley Irrigation, a division of Valmont Industries Inc., and Trimble, a provider of precision agriculture solutions, announced that Valley Irrigation will become the exclusive OEM distributor of Trimble’s Irrigate-IQ precision irrigation solution.

One of the toughest challenges ag retailers and agronomists have faced in using precision ag technologies is that different software and hardware systems haven’t been able to “talk” to each other, hampering the ability to help producers manage valuable data. Now that is changing with the introduction of AgGateway’s ADAPT software toolkit.

Implement guidance is still an emerging technology in North America, but it is being utilized in other parts of the world to improve agricultural production. This recent article from Ag Contractor & Large Scale Farmer looks at some of the considerations for adding implement guidance to a farming operation.

There’s a new app to help farmers decide when to spray their fields. Pocket Spray Smart is a free iOS app made by Agrible.

AgriSync announced a major update to its collaboration and service management tool for professional ag advisors and their farmer customers. The update delivers customers’ most-requested features and further enables ag experts and their organizations to affordably deliver world-class support.

Clemson University agricultural engineer Kendall Kirk has developed free software to help farmers track soil sampling throughout fields.