Olds College Centre for Innovation Focused on Practical, Industry-Driven Applied Research

SMART AG APPLIED RESEARCH — WORKING FOR PRODUCERS RESEARCH AREA

The Smart Ag Applied Research team is also contracted by companies who need support in validating a recently developed innovative product or technology.

The Smart Ag Applied Research team’s mandate is to evaluate, demonstrate and validate agriculture technologies, tools and practices. This provides manufacturers and users with information on functionality, accuracy and value of technologies — particularly in Alberta stubble, soil and climate conditions.

Will this product or service save producers time or money, improve efficiency, or reduce environmental impact? The research team is working to answer questions like these with industry-driven applied research related to smart ag technologies such as application maps using satellite imagery, in-bin monitoring systems, soil moisture probes and weather stations. In 2021, several projects provided interesting results and the continued opportunity to build new partnerships and programs — especially with continued support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Prairies Economic Development Canada, and Alberta Innovates.

The team worked on a proof of concept with Alberta Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) to see if using drone imagery in hail damaged fields can assist the assessment process. Promising initial results showed that drones could provide a good overview of the extent of damage. The mutually positive experience executing this project helped turn the working relationship between AFSC and the Smart Farm into a longer-term partnership. In the coming year, the team will be visiting fields after real hailstorms occur to see if the drone can accurately identify damage, and if this could be a tool that might help adjusters speed up the assessment process. Weather station comparisons helped audit the data collected, options for add-on utilities, user platforms, and pricing between numerous stations and technologies. This comparison allows producers to better compare “apples to apples” when making choices and identify the equipment that would work best for their farms. The team worked with several different disease models learning about functionality and ease of interpreting the information; however, disease risk was low to non-existent during the 2021 growing season which provided limited learnings. The research team is working with TELUS Agriculture on an interesting area — variable rate technology. At what level of variability does it pay to invest in variable rate technology? Is it worth investing if you can reduce 10 per cent of fertilizer used on a third of your acres? The measures of success include savings, improved yield and reduced environmental footprint as the key variables impacting the return on investment. So far, results indicate that if producers can capitalize on the reduction in environmental footprint, variable rate technology should be included as part of normal operations on the farm. The Smart Ag Applied Research team is also contracted by companies who need support in validating a recently developed innovative product or technology. The Spornado Sampler, a wind trap that can collect airborne spores to identify possible disease pressure in the field, is a current project example. The team is working with Spornado to evaluate how the product will assist producers in making good fungicide application decisions.

BEYOND AUTO STEER WITH AUTONOMOUS AGRICULTURE EQUIPMENT

RESEARCH AREA

The Raven OMNiPOWER™ platform represents a significant first-step towards autonomy applied to agricultural operations. Olds College is conducting future-focused research on the evaluation and improvement of economic, environmental, and logistical benefits of autonomous agricultural equipment for broad acre crop production. The Olds College Smart Farm made substantial progress in two years of autonomous operations with OMNiPOWER due to a dedicated and expanded team (which includes current and former Olds College students), increased data capture with new electronic data collection technology, and increased “hands-off” time.

During the 2021 growing season, the team collected data from autonomous agriculture equipment on a total of 60 missions seeding, spraying, spreading and training across 5,408 acres in partnership with Carlson Ag, Gatez Farms Ltd., and Pattison Farms in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Smart Farm now uses two methods of data capture for OMNiPOWER: observational data from the team in the field and real-time digital data from Somat-eDAQ — a device installed on OMNiPOWER which electronically collects location specific data (GPS) and equipment data (CAN bus). This data comes in at a rate of two times a second including starts, stops, distance travelled and fuel consumption rates. While OMNiPOWER operates on its own after a mission is programmed, it requires supervised autonomy which means it must stay within line-of-sight of the team. Some of the most important information comes when the unit stops unexpectedly in the field. The team maintains a close partnership with Raven Industries to address technical issues if any arise. One identified issue is inconsistent cellular coverage which is being closely evaluated. The team is confident stating that autonomous technology is available and mature enough for broad acre farming.

2021 GROWING SEASON HIGHLIGHTS ON THE OLDS COLLEGE SMART FARM:

Seeding 497 acres

Spraying 2,158 acres

Spreading (granular fertilizer) 1,895 acres

Longest hands-off operation 5 hours 16 minutes

2022 GROWING SEASON — SNEAK PEEK

The confidence gained from two years of operations has led to the Smart Farm relying on OMNiPOWER to perform seeding, spraying and spreading duties in the 2022 growing season. At the beginning of June 2022, the team calculated the missions and acres completed for OMNiPOWER so far this growing season. OMNiPOWER had already completed 21 missions, spreaded 1,115 acres, seeded over 635 acres, and sprayed over 325 acres. The team looks forward to compiling the grand totals after harvest. Team members are also performing comparable autonomous data collection in the 2022 growing season with the Somat-eDAQ. The device is being used in conventional equipment to collect data, such as measuring field efficiency and route efficiency, that can be compared to OMNiPOWER for evaluating autonomous versus conventional equipment. And this might be a first in agricultural history. OMNiPOWER was part of synchronous operations on Antler Valley Farm in May 2022. One operator controlled two seeders: a traditional one (60') and Raven Precision OMNiPOWER (30'). Olds College OMNiPOWER with its SeedMaster DSR 30' Air Seeder implement completed 30 per cent (43 of 142 acres) during a regular seeding mission on Antler Valley Farm to improve efficiency.