On-Farm Experience: Lance from New York

EQUIPMENT: John Deere X9 combine with John Deere 445 tribox spreader, and John Deere 612R and Hagie ST12 sprayers for liquid applications.

We’ve had VRAFY for a bit over a year. Last fall, we used it as the combine went over the field, then used VRAFY to do soil sampling in one-acre grids and have that info come back to our John Deere Ops Center account.

The one-acre grids really opened our eyes to where the variability was. Having a platform to be able to go back to put nutrients on to equal the ground out really helped us out. Manganese was one that’s really expensive. We were just applying it at 150 pounds per acre, but after sampling, we found out we needed a higher rate in some parts of the field and none in others. With phosphorus and potash, we were able to do the same. Overall, we spent about the same on fertility, but with a lot more efficiency.

This year, we have our soil samples so we’ll be able to follow the combine with the fertilizer application. In some fields, we’ll be able to go in just as soon as the combine leaves. For us, we’ve got a smaller crew, so when we have the people ready, we can just send the prescription to the machine and get to work. It’s all very easy because it is able to go through my John Deere account to read the samples and send prescriptions back through to the applicator.

-Lance from Chazy, New York