Farms.com Corn Belt Crop Tour wrap-up event: Part I

Jul 15, 2015

Daryl Patterson of A&L talks about drones

The 4^th annual Farms.com US Corn Belt Crop Tour is over for another year and culminated with a wrap up event at the Penta Tillage manufacturing plant in Glencoe, Ontario.

The event, attended by nearly a hundred farmers, consisted of exhibitors, and speakers who shared their experiences about the tour’s findings and new technology being implemented in agriculture.

One of the technologies growing in popularity is the use of drones/UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles).

“Instead of manually controlling, you draw a box around the field with a Google image,” said Daryl Patterson, Marketing & Technology Manager with A&L Canada. “You tell it what camera you have in there and it plans (the route). You throw the plane in the air and it’s going to go and take pictures.”

The farmers can then use those images to make informed decisions about their farms including fertilizer application and yield potential.

While drones are a great tool for farmers to use on their farms, Transport Canada needs certain requirements to be met:

Special Flight Operating Certificates (SFOC) must be obtained
300-500 ft. altitude
Line of sight must be within 2km
No flying within 7km of an airport

The regulations are in place, but they’re not quite concrete yet.

“The paperwork can be a little daunting because there’s no template to follow,” Patterson said. “At first they make you jump through some hoops but they’re definitely working with us.”

Join the conversation and tell us if you use UAVs on your farm. What benefits have you seen from them? What have been some drawbacks?

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.