BOZEMAN - Ten years ago, it was science fiction. Today, a company in Belgrade, Montana has six employees because of the science that grew from that fiction. They're designing and selling equipment with software that helps producers pin-point weed problems, map the way their fields yield, or plot the best course for a new road.
Fate and fortune sometimes take new headings from minor events, and it might be said that Springhill Engineering, now the Agricultural Division of Ashtech, grew from a student's suggestion.
After hearing Dave Tyler lecture in civil engineering at Montana State University about how satellites could pinpoint people or equipment on earth, a student told Tyler that he should talk with Jerry Nielsen, a member of MSU's plant and soil science faculty.
Dave Tyler
Tyler says he doesn't remember the name of that student, but he and Nielsen have been working along parallel lines ever since--lines laid out and recorded by satellites.
"Jerry and Bill Larsen (a MSU agricultural engineer) jumped on it," remembers Tyler. "They had been talking about site-specific management for years, but the missing element had been positioning." Knowing the exact position of a piece of equipment as it moves across a field allows producers to map information in useful ways.
When they first discussed the topic in 1986, there weren't enough satellites. Practical uses had to await the launch of more satellites so that positioning information could be obtained any time a user needed it. However, the trio was able to conduct one of the first tests of tracking a fertilizer spreader by satellite.
By 1994, MSU conducted its first field-size trial of yield mapping using what was by then known as the global positioning system of satellites, and the first Montana producers were trying GPS to see how it could help them. At almost the same time, Tyler and Doug Roberts formed Springhill Engineering. Roberts, then a graduate student at the University of Calgary, was one of the cooperating scientists on the MSU field-sized experiment north of Havre.
Doug Roberts
Like many companies, the early months were difficult, with both Tyler and Roberts taking second mortgages on their homes and putting everything they had into the business. Because of the lack of capital, Tyler says they began looking for investors, which led to their company being bought by Ashtech of Sunnyvale, Calif. this year.
At Belgrade, Ashtech designs and programs the "Ag Navigator," a portable tool based on a 486 computer that can help guide, map and collect data. It can be used to guide application of variable rates of soil amendments, map the pattern of yields in a field, or the placement and pattern of anything else--like weed infestations.
"There's a lot of more variation in yields than what is visible to the eye," says Bill Wright, who farms 14 miles north of Bozeman and has been working with Ashtech. "The real test of the game will be to determine what makes the difference in the yields. . . There's also a lot more variation in moisture content. That will help us look at diseases or weeds that change with moisture . . . The reason I first started was weed control. I mapped weed concentrations as we ran our combines over the fields. I'll map a couple of years and then adapt a sprayer for the weed on that spot."Mike Choriki is with B and C Agricultural Consultants south of Billings.
"I went to a workshop put on by MSU last winter, and that was the first time I had met Dave (Tyler). They got my mind reeling . . . about using GPS in ag, and I've been in contact with them over the summer and thinking about how to use the data. The consultant is going to come into play in how to interpret the data and how to use it."
In addition to Tyler and Roberts, the Agricultural Division of Ashtech now employs Jim Walseth, a physics and electrical engineering major; Andy Czymoch, who has computer science and geographical information systems background; Sean Hanson an MSU graduate from Cut Bank and Helena who majored in computer science and math; and Maurice Engler, a mechanical engineering and math major who is their national sales manager. The Sunnyvale plant has about 200 employees, with some processes taking place overseas.
"The nature of this business is that we need people with math, science and engineering backgrounds," says Tyler. "It's a tragedy that kids stop taking math early in high school. When they do, they close off many career opportunities. Even if they change their minds as sophomores in college, they're years behind the others in math."
Though there is no stronger proponent of using GPS in practical ways than Tyler, he also thinks there is a lot of "hype" going on that is creating unrealistic expectations of what the technology can do.
Personally, Tyler says he thinks the most cost-effective use of GPS will be for managing weeds, but perhaps the most satisfying use will be in developing yield maps.
Preliminary work at MSU supports the cost-effectiveness of pin-pointing, and then treating, small patches of weeds rather than treating whole fields. Bruce Maxwell, a weeds researcher at MSU, conducted simulations of controlling wild oats in grains. His work indicates greatly increased profits by treating patches of weeds rather than entire fields.
Producers' pleasure as they study yield maps, though, is something Tyler does not underestimate. As Tyler tells the story of a corn and soybean producer in the Midwest, the man said:
"My operation is so big that I haven't sat on a piece of equipment in a field in five years. But in January I can look at the yield maps, and it's as if I'm on that combine again. I can see that field in my mind's eye and see how it is reacting to our management."
Tyler sees in that producer's insight a strange twist to GPS.
"I sometimes think this technology will allow us to go backwards 50 or 100 years to when a producer knew every quirk of his land. This will give a farmer back the ability to know every bit of his land in detail, returning some of the very careful land management that they could do years ago when fields were much smaller."
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