Smart Farming Week: March 10 - 16, 2025
Farm Journal’s Smart Farming Week is an annual week-long emphasis on innovation in agriculture. The goal is to encourage you to explore and prioritize the technology, tools and practices that will help you farm smarter.
From variable-rate and selective spraying to AI-enable prescriptions, Smart Farming is a strategy and mindset to optimize every acre. This focus simultaneously drives an understanding of return on investment and deepens the customer’s trust to produce more bushels more efficiently every crop year.
According to the company, the use of PhotoSeed technology has the potential to lower a crop’s carbon intensity score.
“We are talking about fuel produced in 2025, but that is going to use the crop we are growing this year,” Mitchell Hora says.
“We are really in a second phase of ag tech,” says Ryan Raguse, co-founder of Bushel. “We aren’t in an overly mature state—we’re still somewhere in the middle ground.”
The new 45Z tax credit passed in the Inflation Reduction Act, slated to take effect Jan. 1, 2025, means a farmer’s carbon intensity score will soon be worth more, especially if your corn goes to an ethanol plant.
A Minnesota grower asks Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, how to improve upon the soil fertility on 90 acres he is renting for the first time this year.
Take a reasoned, purposeful, and proactive approach to adding new technology.
Whether it’s planting, spraying, soil sampling or harvesting, new tools are turning the information you collect into actionable insights.
Yield Optimizer is a digital tool that uses independent seed trial data to help farmers make seed selections with guaranteed yield performance. CEO Billy Rose tells how it gives farmers peace of mind.
Just because tar spot was mostly a no-show in 2022 and 2023 doesn’t mean that will be the case in 2024. Charting humidity levels can help predict if the disease will strike.
It’s been said high-yielding corn needs 25" of moisture per acre per year. In 2023, when Mother Nature didn’t cooperate, management strategies to retain moisture coupled with new traits made a difference at harvest.
Being prepared will further instill you as a trusted advisor and someone ready to outfit a customer’s farm for the future with its complete digital dataset.
In a year with razor-thin margins, at best, corn and soybean growers can use a variety of new technology and tried-and-true agronomic tools to score higher yields this season.
In the West, automation is geared toward smaller, driverless equipment. In the Midwest, major manufacturers have introduced their largest horsepower combines and tractors yet, all with autonomous capabilities.
Minor space weather events have temporarily knocked out corrections signals over Canada and The Dakotas in the past. Would your farm be ready for a more severe outage?
The National Agricultural Aviation Association shares what indicates a professional aerial applicator.
These smart farming trends and example products highlight greater efficiency, maximum yields and environmental stewardship.
The NewLeaf Symbiotics team says reluctance to try biologicals is often a result of feeling overwhelmed by the options available, making education key as the space continues to grow.
The 2024 AgLaunch startups bravely pitched straight to the farmer masses at the event. While truly an impressive class, only one would be chosen for the coveted top honor.
If weather stresses have you looking for ways to give your crop a stronger start this spring, consider whether a plant growth regulator could be part of the solution, especially in high-yield environments.
Your technology investment will maximize corn yield on every soil type.
Data — a word that packs a punch but can be hard to define. From planting to irrigation, it’s necessary to have a digital record of these field activities to participate in sustainability and crop traceability programs.
Rick Rice, AMVAC director of application technology, says grant programs aren’t meant to forever subsidize a particular practice, but instead act as a catalyst for new participants to see its benefits.
Both companies have existing initiatives to grow the biologicals market.
The influence of one ag retailer propels multiple farms’ success, and the opportunity is further highlighted with this season’s growing challenges.
Two new studies from Locus Ag and Pivot Bio found the use of biological products consistently increased yields in a variety of crops across a range of growing conditions.
Biome Makers said it pairs artificial intelligence with its soil database to decode soil biology and provide growers with more actionable information.
From 2020 with only a few farmers participating to covering millions of acres in 2023, Taranis says it wants to help retailers and farmers understand every decision with analytics via its AcreForward technologies.
Steve Cubbage provides insights on the five areas expected to have the biggest impact on agriculture this year.
During testing, the company found only 4% of CRW larvae chose roots treated with TS201 when given a choice between treated and untreated roots.
Farmers Share Biological Experiences Through New Mosaic Initiative
Through the Frontier Fields program, a select group of farmers will document their experiences with a biological product over the course of a year.