VERMILLION COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) — A local farm cooperative is continuing to provide opportunities, and resources, for its customers.
“Ceres Solutions is a cooperative or an ag retailer,” said Digital Technology Manager, Matt Clark. “So we’re sellers of seed, fertilizer and crop inputs for farmers.”
Now, Ceres Solutions is currently testing new technology with the goal of making every day crop practices easier.
“We’ve got four different technologies out in our IOT innovation hub with varying technologies,” said Clark. “We have some that are monitoring nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium throughout the soil profile.”
Clark says right now they’re specifically testing new data sensors.
“We’re looking for new technology all of the time because we want to know what’s out there and what’s emerging,” said Clark. “We’re using the innovation hub to test these out and learn for ourselves.”
During this testing phase, the team is continuing to collect field data the traditional way.
“We’re doing a side by side sample, depending on what the technology is, we’ll take soil samples or tissues samples periodically throughout the growing season,” said Clark. “Those will be analyzed at a lab that’s much more traditional in agriculture and at the end of the season we’ll compare the results.”
The data will eventually be used as a comparison. They will compare results to determine if the data from the sensors is reliable and accurate.
“We’re using it to compare to traditional soil sampling models or methods,” said Clark. “Whatever the sensor may be advancing in technology we’re comparing it to current methods to see how it stacks up.”
Clark says the goal of testing the new technology is to make crop practices easier.
“Moving forward we’re evaluating this technology to try and find what’s next, what’s the next big things in agriculture,” said Clark. “What’s going to make our lives easier.”
News 18 go to see two specific sensors Ceres Solutions is currently testing.
“We have a pest monitoring camera that has a camera on a traditional insect sticky trap,” said Clark. “So you can remote view those pest that are in the area.”
The camera is high resolution, which allows the camera user to quickly identify the insects found on the trap.
Clark says another sensor they’re testing focuses on soil.
“This is a teralytic soil nutrient monitor and moisture,” said Clark. “So the sensor actually goes 36 inches into the ground and it monitors nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and several other micro nutrients.”
Clark says so far the testing phase has gone well. At this time they’re continuing to collect data the traditional way, while waiting for the end of the growing season.
“At the end of the year we’ll do an evaluation to compare how easy is this technology to implement,” said Clark. “Then also how accurate is it compared to traditional methods.”
With the labor force as it is, Clark says the technology they’re testing has the potential to provide many befits when it becomes market ready.
“Are we going to be able to leverage this technology to enable and empower our current employees to do more than they have been able to in the past,” said Clark. “Because we’re going to have to do that the labor market is at the moment.”