Precision Farming: Satellites, Phone Towers Guide Tractors, Planting

U.S. and Russian satellites and cell phone towers are guiding tractors perfectly down farm fields, saving money, bolstering production and helping keep the environment cleaner.

Known as precision agriculture, farmers can plant exactly spaced seeds and till perfectly straight rows without any hands on the wheel.

Midwestern farmers began using a simple, less accurate form of the GPS technology in the mid-1990s, but it is just arriving in northeastern North Carolina.

"It's the latest thing on the block here," said Ron Heiniger, a crop specialist and a professor at North Carolina State University. "Ten years from now, every farmer will have it."

With an antenna on the tractor and a computer screen in the cab, farmers can also precision-apply fertilizer so every area of a field yields its best.

Pesticides are sprayed in the right amounts to be effective without excess, reducing nitrogen runoff into the environment.

Precision farming follows the mantra of the four rights: the right product at the right rate in the right place at the right time.