Olds College of Agriculture & Technology is nearly through one of its busiest times of the year as staff wind down field preparation at the Smart Farm for research projects that will benefit everyone from farmers to equipment manufacturers.
“It’s been like a beehive around here,” said Roy Maki, who is the Research Project Manager at the Smart Farm. “There’s several projects going on now that have to be finalized, which is crop plot work, so there’s many moving parts.”
The Olds College Smart Farm is a high-tech, living laboratory for crop, livestock and agricultural technology research spread over 3,000 acres.
Field preparation started on May 2 and finished in early June, thanks to partners like SeedMaster Manufacturing Ltd. The company, aided by Alberta Ag Centre, signed a 10-year agreement in 2023 to supply advanced seeding equipment every two years for the Smart Farm, said Maki.
“It’s a wonderful arrangement. They donate the use of a seeder, Alberta Ag Centre donates a tractor, and we get to use them on the Smart Farm and do research projects, so it helps us tremendously.”
Some of the research that is being made possible by the donation involves the planting of canola for potential use in a project involving Raven Industries, which is part of CNH Industrial.
The proposed research grew out of Raven’s previous partnership with Olds College studying the company’s OMNiPOWER platform, which was a pioneering effort to advance the use of autonomous farm equipment in agriculture.
The company is looking at a two-year project that will study the effectiveness of its Raven Augmenta Field Analyzer this fall at the Smart Farm.
Desiccants are sprayed on crops in regions such as Western Canada with shorter growing seasons to aid in harvesting by promoting even ripening of the crop, primarily for straight cutting, or direct combining, rather than swathing or windrowing.
“The current situation is you make a variable rate map for spraying depending on what part of the field you’re in, and it’s all predetermined in advance,” said Maki.
“What the Field Analyzer does is in real time. It records imagery of the field, and by using computer algorithms and artificial intelligence, it determines, ‘OK, we don’t need to spray as much chemical here,’ so it’s happening as it is travelling.”
SeedMaster’s donation of its UltraPro II 550 air seeder metering and conveyance system includes the SeedMaster Toolbar, which has a dual-knife opener for precise seed and fertilizer placement. It uses side banding to deliver fertilizer as well as seed in one pass while keeping them separate, minimizing the risk of damage to the seed.
It not only reduces the amount of work needed to plant crops by eliminating the need to fertilize fields using different equipment, but it also optimizes fertilizer placement for better crop yields while reducing input costs, said Maki.
Alberta Ag Centre also donates a new CLAAS Xerion 4500 Tractor each year over a five-year period to pull the seeder, he said. “It smells like a new car when you go sit in the cab, so it’s kind of cool.”
The Smart Farm is working towards providing producers with real-life applied research to help them make informed decisions about implementing technology in their own operations.