For Birkey’s Farm Store, a 19-location Case IH dealership group based in Champaign, Ill., a drone distributor came knocking, and they answered.

As Mark Vanderloop steps out of a Fendt 700 series tractor equipped with a Sabanto Steward autonomy kit, his customer, Jason, who runs a custom farming business, shares some thoughts about the technology.

Tim Norris and Joe Hamilton will explain their approach to precision, the drivers behind their hardware and subscription package purchases, their precision pain points and more during a special farmer-to-dealer panel at the 2024 Precision Farming Dealer Summit, Jan. 8-9 in Indianapolis.

Tim Norris has learned through experience that one of the best ways to generate employee buy-in and maintain high levels of staff motivation is by cultivating a shared vision.

Early on in my Day in the Cab visit with Pete Kopriva, precision farming specialist at Case IH dealer J.J. Nichting, he said the amount of phone calls he was getting had “really died down” since the previous week.

Jack Bartholomew, a former farmer himself, converted an ambulance into a “store on wheels,” fully stocked with parts and tools to serve his customers.

“This year we decided to go full force with the planter inspections because of all the failures we were seeing during the growing season,” says Abby Weltzien, service & parts manager of Swiderski’s precision farming department in Mosinee. “We wanted to drive home the importance of it to the customers and help educate them on the issues they could run into if they don’t fix certain problems with their planter.”

We asked Precision Farming Dealer readers to share the best and worst precision agriculture-related idea, practice, technology, etc., implemented at their dealership in the last 2 years and explain what went well or what went wrong.

“If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” says Skip Klinefelter, owner of the fast-growing independent group, Linco-Precision LLC. “However, don’t grow just for growth’s sake.”