Seeing red helps farmers grow green
Des Moines Register
Infrared technology lets farmers know just how much nitrogen plants require.
By JERRY PERKINS
REGISTER FARM EDITOR
July 18, 2004
Photo: Tester: Don Vos talks about the GreenSeeker system on his farm near New Sharon last month. The system helps monitor nitrogen in corn plants.
New Sharon, Ia. - The corn on Don Vos' 80-acre field east of here has become part of an 1,100-acre test of a new product that measures the nitrogen in corn plants in order to meet the plants' fertilizer needs.
Use of the new technology is intended to allow a more precise application of fertilizer, boosting corn yields while cutting down on the application of excess nitrogen, which has been blamed for polluting Iowa's waterways.
Six infrared and near-infrared sensors mounted on a 12-row tool bar of a Hagie Manufacturing high-clearance spray rig "read" the leaves of the waist-high corn and relay the information to the spray rig's controls, which then inject liquid nitrogen fertilizer into the rows as food for the fast-growing corn plants.
Ted Mayfield, vice president of NTech Industries Inc. of Ukiah, Calif., monitored the trial from the cab of the Hagie "high-boy."
Mayfield, whose family owns NTech with other investors, said the company hopes to have its GreenSeeker product ready for sale next year for use in corn. A similar version of GreenSeeker for wheat fields has been on the market for about 18 months.
The units cost about $12,000 to $15,000, Mayfield said.
"Based on the field tests we've done, we're learning that GreenSeeker seems to be addressing the fertilizer needs" of corn plants, Mayfield said. "We won't know for sure until we see the yield results" following harvest.
Field trials in cornfields like Vos' have been done in Illinois and Missouri. More testing is planned for Nebraska, Minnesota and North Dakota.
In wet years like this one, fertilizers, especially liquid nitrogen, can be washed away in a short time.
Tracy Blackmer, research director for the Iowa Soybean Association, said that as much as half of the nitrogen applied in Iowa recently may have been washed away by recent heavy rains.
"Studies from Iowa State University and the Integrated Farm and Livestock Management program conducted by the Iowa Soybean Association suggest that if more than 2 inches of rain fall on a field where nitrogen was applied in the 24-hour period preceding the rain, losses could be as much as 60 percent," Blackmer said.
Managing the tests is plant physiologist Jerry Hatfield, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Soil Tilth Laboratory at Iowa State University.
"I've worked in the remote-sensing area for 25 years using a number of tools to measure nitrogen-use efficiency in cornfields," Hatfield said. "But GreenSeeker brings together sensing and controls into one technology that could open a dramatic window of opportunity for side dressing corn plants up to seven feet tall."
Don Vos, 56, said he only wants to apply enough nitrogen to help his corn plants reach their maximum yield - and no more.
"If we can cut the amount of nitrogen we are using to grow the crop, that's what we want," he said. "We're concerned about runoff, and if we can cut that, too, then it's a double."
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