B Y S E A N P. Y O U N G
arry Woolliams is the type of farmer that wants to yield a bumper crop every season. That’s not unique, every farmer wants a bumper (an exceptionally large harvest). But Woolliams leaves little to chance when going after his goal. “I’m always looking at what I need to do to take my business to the next level and technology definitely helps me do that,” he says. Woolliams is a fifth-generation farmer. His family homesteaded in the Calgary area in 1890 and he and his wife now run Woolliams Farms Ltd., a 9,000-acre plot in Rocky View County growing wheat, yellow peas, canola and malt barley. His family has a long history of innovation, whether by adopting new farming methods, dabbling in crop experimentation or seeking out technology. In addition to being a shrewd farmer, his dad was an astute businessman, looking to harness the latest technologies to improve his chances of success. “Dad was actually one of the first people in Alberta to ever use yield mapping and variable rate technology for fertilizer,”
“Farming used to be just farming. It was a lot simpler. But now you’re running a multimillion-dollar business. You can’t just go off on a whim anymore.” LARRY WOOLLIAMS, GRAIN FARMER
Woolliams says. “He had a big old computer that was bolted in the combine.” Farming has become a complex business, but the goal has always been the same: The more you can crop out of a piece of land (or “yield”) using the least amount of “inputs” (mainly seed, fertilizer, chemicals, water and labour), the more money you make. And technologies like yield mapping, a technique that uses GPS data to show precisely how fields are performing each season, is helping balance out the equation for farmers. It has evolved drastically since Woolliams’ father first adopted it in the mid ’80s. Woolliams now uses
a suite of precision agriculture tools that record his yields as they are being harvested. Sensors on his combines measure the quality and amount of grain along with the exact GPS coordinates where it was harvested. These data points autonomously produce yield maps, showing Woolliams’ high- and low-performing areas. “The long-term goal is better the ground for growing, or start saving inputs on the bad parts of the land,” Woolliams says. “You don’t want to fertilize or spray those low-lying areas or hilltops that won’t produce anything.” Woolliams uses these maps the next time he plants, feeding in more historical data for the software to use regarding his inputs. Every year he uses these tools, the stronger and more precise the analysis and predictions become. GPS technology and map data also help for more precise planting. A common money suck for farmers during seeding is overlap, when rows of seed are planted too close together, wasting a portion of a crucial input. Autosteer, as the name suggests, automatically steers the tractor along straight lines, curves or concentric circles to sub-inch accuracy, making planting, spraying and harvesting way more exact than a human driver could achieve alone. “I used to budget for 10 per cent overlap when seeding, now it’s down to two per cent. That’s a huge difference,” Woolliams says.
FUTUREPROOF 38
may/june 2023
