Tennessee Farmers Are Using Top Technology

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technology inside a tractor

Tennessee farmers use a variety of technology from robotic milking systems to GPS-guided tractors to be more efficient and sustainable. Photo credit: Karen Pulfer Focht

Like many farmers across the nation, Crockett County row crop farmer Steve Bailey, 64, has implemented new technologies in recent years that have changed the way he produces cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat. His son Drew, 37, has helped usher in new technology on their sixth-generation farm to help it become more productive, efficient and safe.

“We began using auto-steer technology with our tractors in 2004. For planting, we started using Variable Rate Technology around 2007, mostly with our corn,” Drew says.

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Variable Rate Technology (VRT) allows farmers to apply seed, fertilizer and chemicals in different quantities across a field.

Steve Bailey standing in an early-season cotton field

Photo credit: Karen Pulfer Focht

Science of Farming

“We use a yield map from previous years to identify where the most and least productive spots on the farm are,” Drew explains. “Our agenda is to save as much money and resources as we can on those spots by putting fewer seeds and less fertilizer, minimizing our expenditure on those areas. On the flip side, on our best ground we can put more seed and more fertilizer. Variable Rate Technology has driven our yields higher because we’ve been able to maintain our yield in our low areas and increase our yields on our best ground.”

Using auto-steer technology on their sprayers and planters has helped the Baileys reduce their costs by not overusing pesticides and seeds.

Steve Bailey in the cab of his tractor

Steve Bailey is a row crop farmer in Crockett County. He and his son, Drew, use advanced technology to assist them in precision planting. Photo credit: Karen Pulfer Focht

See more: Growing for Generations: Family Farms Preserve State History

“Even though that tractor is going through the field driving itself, there’s a lot of prep putting all that information in,” Steve says. “Drew does all that on the computer. You write your own prescriptions, tell it what seed to plant and what population to plant, and then you send the file from a laptop to the machine.”

The Baileys grow cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat in a continuous rotation.

“We are nearly 100% no-till, and the soil erosion control from that is amazing,” Steve says. “Since we are in a continuous rotation, our soil is more productive now than when I started farming, partly because our soil is healthier.”

Steve Bailey opens an early cotton boll

Photo credit: Karen Pulfer Focht

Sweetwater Valley Farm

Sweetwater Valley Farm is an East Tennessee dairy farm known for its cheese – but it’s also a solar farm. The dairy requires a lot of electricity to keep the cows cool and to run its cheese production, and solar panels generate approximately 25% of their electric power needs.

Harrison family stand in front of their milking barn

Photo credit: Mary Lyndal Harrison

“We have four solar installations, so on a beautiful day, we are producing the majority of our electricity,” says John Harrison, owner of Sweetwater Valley Farm. “Solar panels are uninvolved. We don’t have to work with them – they just sit there and work.”

In addition to solar, in 2019, Sweetwater Valley began using robotic milking technology to milk 500 of its 1,500 Holstein cows.

See more: How One Sweetwater Farm is Focusing on Sustainability

aerial view of Sweetwater Valley Farm

Sweetwater Valley Farm in Loudon County, a dairy known for its cheese, uses solar panels to generate about 25% of their electric power. Photo credit: Mary Lyndal Harrison

“We had an older facility and knew we had to do something different to stay in the dairy business,” Harrison says. “We now have one-third of our cows milking on the robots, and we’ve laid out infrastructure to double that if we decide to in the future. The robots are more labor efficient, but there’s also a higher cost with repairs and keeping them running.”

At his two facilities that don’t use robotic milkers, Harrison plans to replace their old cow ID systems with the same hi-tech ID system the robots use.

“It’s a better system for managing our cows because it gives us information like rumination and real-time data since they are checking in every 10 minutes on Wi-Fi,” he says. “Using this new software, the robots drop data into it, so we manage the breeding and milk production out of that software.”

hands pulling a grilled cheese sandwich apart

Photo credit: Mary Lyndal Harrison

Farmspace Systems LLC

Lt. Gen. John Castellaw grew up on a Crockett County farm producing cotton, corn, soybeans, cattle and hogs. After getting his degree in agriculture from the University of Tennessee at Martin, Castellaw entered the Marine Corps.

“The Marines asked me what I wanted to do, and I said, ‘I drove tractors on the farm, so give me something big and green that runs on diesel and makes a lot of noise.’ So they put me in armor, tanks and amphibious vehicles,” Castellaw says.

After serving in the Marines for 36 years and retiring as a lieutenant general, Castellaw came home to his West Tennessee farm in 2008 – only to find much had changed since he had farmed in the 1960s.

man using drone in a field

Veteran-owned Farmspace Systems LLC uses military technology to improve farming. Photo credit: Farmspace Systems LLC

“I saw how precision agriculture allowed farmers to manage down almost to the square foot,” he says. “I remember stepping into the cab of a self-propelled sprayer for the first time, and it was like the cockpits of the aircraft I flew. The machine incorporated many technologies I was familiar with in the military – sophisticated sensors, artificial intelligence-enabled programs and satellite-provided GPS.”

See more: Tennessee Community Colleges Help Rural Residents Keep Pace With Changing Technology

Along with another retired veteran, Derick Seaton, Castellaw launched Farmspace Systems LLC with the goal of bringing more military technologies from “the battle space to the farm space.”

High-Technology Farming

The veteran-led organization applies the science of spectral imaging to the agriculture industry with drones, advanced sensors, GPS guidance and artificial intelligence-enabled programs. For example, Farmspace can fly a drone fitted with a multispectral sensor over a field to capture plant data, and then produce a sheet with each plot named and the number of live plants embedded.

Tennessee farmers use a variety of technology from robotic milking systems to GPS-guided tractors to be more efficient and sustainable. Photo credit: Karen Pulfer Focht

“This shows which variety of plants provided the highest survival rate in specific conditions,” Castellaw explains. “At the same time, the sensor and program measured the amount of chlorophyll in the leaf indicative of plant health.”

Although Farmspace began with a focus on drones, it has evolved into a broader technology company.

“Farmspace is unique in that our technology can be applied across such a wide spectrum. With increases in outbreaks of coronavirus, avian flu and other diseases, the danger exists that mutations will occur resulting in human-to-animal and the reverse with the increasing danger of a much more deadly pandemic,” he says. “Farmspace is continuing to develop our technology to provide a rapid, noninvasive capability to detect threats to animal and human health, as well as to continue our work in precision agriculture for plant health.”

Corn is harvested into a grain cart

Photo credit: Karen Pulfer Focht

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