PTI features agronomics in action

PONTIAC, Ill. — Planting technology in action is on display for U.S. and international visitors to the Precision Technology Institute throughout the summer.

Precision Planting’s Summer Sessions began July 24 to showcase in-field agronomic research, planting and application equipment operating in the field.

When AgriNews visited on July 25, 11 states and two countries were represented, including a group from Australia.

“We open the doors up for this facility throughout July, August and September. This is our third week of having agronomy tours on this farm. Every day is a little different. We have different groups in,” said Jason Webster, Precision Planting commercial agronomist and PTI director.

“This is our second day of our first public week where our Precision Planting premier dealers invite their customers in.”

Education

The 400-acre research farm on the southwest edge of Pontiac opened six years ago and has 150 to 160 research trials this growing season. Sharing results of those trials and seeing in-field practices is a primary focus of PTI.

Demonstrations during the summer sessions included planter optimization and furrow creation with visitors able to get their fingernails dirty checking different freshly-created furrows.

Chris Segelhurst, Precision Planting region manager in northern Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota, was among several region managers across North America conducting the planter presentation.

“We’re going through not only furrow creation, but planter optimization as a whole, setting it up tip to tail, working through planter maintenance and then how to evaluate the planter as you set it and get it to perform properly in the field,” Segelhurst said.

“After that, we move into evaluating the actual stand and furrow creation that we get on the backside and then evaluating baby corn plants, not only placing them in their growth stage, but evaluating how we did on emergence and conditions that we set for that plant based on that planter pass.”

Highlighting the demonstration was all of the Precision Planting products and planter maintenance.

“We’re looking at things including our newer pieces like the DuraWear parallel arm, looking at our new gauge wheel arm that we have and then downforce control is a big one on furrow creation,” Segelhurst said.

“We’re controlling how much force we’re using to create and build our furrow so that we can get a seed to the bottom of the trench where we want it to be before it collapses back in.

“We also look at adjusting not only our row cleaners up front with Reveal frame mounted row cleaners, looking at the amount of residue we’re cleaning and how we’re building that runway for our furrow to be created in, but also looking at our closing system with FurrowForce.”