Video Transcript
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hello everyone its Aaron Bremer with
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Veritas farm business management this
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video is designed to answer a question
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that we get a regular basis at Veritas
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and that is is precision AG right for my
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farm to answer this question we need to
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look at what we consider to be the
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backbone of precision AG at Veritas now
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most people in the industry are going to
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tell you it’s all about data and
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although data plays an important part
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let’s face it Veritas is dedicated to
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looking at data analyzing data and
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creating insights from data however we
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don’t believe data is the true backbone
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of precision AG it’s important but the
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big question that we have to answer is
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this variability do you have enough
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variability on your farm that precision
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AG technology and the concept of
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precision AG is going to make sense so
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this video we’re going to talk about a
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tool that we’ve built to be able to
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answer that question how much
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variability do you have and is it enough
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that you’re going to have to consider
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precision AG to truly get the most out
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of your production system so with that
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in mind most people in the precision AG
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space are gonna tell you the most
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important layer the layer to get things
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started is a good soil test layer so
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let’s talk about soil tests there’s a
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whole bunch of different systems out
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there we’re not going to go over all of
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them but we’re going to go over some of
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them and how Veritas looks at these
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different systems in order to be able to
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determine how much variability is
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actually there
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so the basic approach on soil sampling
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is what’s called bulk sampling in
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Ontario this is one sample every 25
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acres I know in Western Canada it’s very
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common to do one sample for every
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hundred and sixty acres really doesn’t
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matter what your scale is that you’re
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using
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what bulk sampling is doing is taking
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the field and sampling in very large
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sections and the samples are collected
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mixed together and sent off to the lab
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it gives you a good idea as the baseline
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of what’s going on in your field but it
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doesn’t do a whole lot for capturing
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variability you can see the example I
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have given it here above is a forty acre
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field split into two samples below it in
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case you want to have a little better
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understanding as to what’s going on is
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an imaginary 100 acre field and we’ve
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split it into four different samples you
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can see towards the north end the top
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part of that imaginary field there’s two
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samples the east and west that are a
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little later in color so maybe not as
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much organic matter maybe a little bit
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sandy R whereas further to the south the
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bottom on both the east and west things
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are a little bit darker so that is been
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the standard for soil sampling in fact
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in Ontario one sample every 25 acres is
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considered the best management practice
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starting in B I’m gonna say the early
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1990s we started to do grid sampling and
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what grid sampling is is basically
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subdividing the field into smaller
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samples and then each spot is sampled
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separately the data comes back from the
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soil lab and there is software that
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takes all this data and attempts to
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interpret it and overlay what the
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software what the computer thinks your
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field is going to behave so this is
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called grid sampling now there’s some
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variations and you can have different
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sizes of of grids
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the next SAP up and this has become a
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little bit more common zone sampling
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now what zone sampling does is instead
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of taking those samples every two and a
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half acres it takes the samples based on
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predefined zones maybe based off of
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yield maybe based off of imagery
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whatever the case may be and those zones
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are then sampled now sometimes you could
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combine the zones so you can have a
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whole bunch of hilltops all combined
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into one or you might soil sample those
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hills separately it completely depends
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on how intensive those says zones are
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gonna be when you take all of that data
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you plug it in you can see our imaginary
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hundred acre field we’re starting to see
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a little bit more detail than what we
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did with the grid or the bulk that’s not
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always true but in this case it is the
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most recent in you’re probably starting
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to recognize a picture at the bottom but
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the most recent soil sampling system is
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the soil sensing there’s a bunch of
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different systems on the market you have
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soil optics you have s is from Trimble
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you have varus you have SWAT box there
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is a lot of different systems out there
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and they do an incredible job of
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capturing detail to the point where you
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can start to see my imaginary 100 Acre
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field at the bottom probably looks very
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familiar
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so when you look at the total amount of
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variability of that field you can see
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each system captures a different amount
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of variability that doesn’t mean that
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one is necessarily better than the other
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depending on what you want to do with it
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and how much that variability is going
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to impact you
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so the question we get yes I have some
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variability in my field or I don’t think
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I have that much variability in my field
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I don’t think it’s gonna pay I don’t
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want to make that investment help me
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understand
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if I should make that investment and
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that’s what the rest of this video is
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about because we’re going to show you a
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product that well maybe not a product a
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tool that we have built to be able to
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capture that amount of very building
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so we’re gonna start with this field
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this field the picture on your left the
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red to green image is a field that has a
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lot of variability so that variability
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can be from an image it can be from
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intensive soil scanning it can be from
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yield what it is is it just shows you
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the total amount of variability in that
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field the graph I call it a graph my
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data scientist Brett is probably going
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to dispute whether that’s a graph she’s
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probably gonna tell you that it’s a
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histogram what that shows is to the
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distribution of the different data
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points so how far apart are they so you
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can see you’ve got data points that are
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running from a number of five all the
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way up to 20 so you have a significant
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variation and you can see there’s
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different peaks across the field so you
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the closer that those Peaks are together
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or combined into one the less variable
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you have are the more spread out it is
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the more individual Peaks the more
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variable it is so what what does it mean
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to your field well what we did was we
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took that total variability and we it’s
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about 100 Acre field in this case and we
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split it up using that Ontario best
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management practice concept of one
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sample every 25 acres and then we
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gridded it or average by polygon and
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what you can see is when you do that and
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you measure the amount of variability so
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basically what you’re doing is you’re
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comparing the histogram of the total
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variability to the histogram of the
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25-acre sampling and when you do that
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you capture 19 percent of that
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variability I told you this field has
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nice bit of variability as a farmer I
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would not be happy capturing only 19
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percent of the variability so what else
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can we do well we could go to a 10 acre
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great approach and you can see we’re
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capturing a little bit more of the
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variability in fact we’re capturing up
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to 45 percent like I said this is a
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great approach so you may be say you
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know what I want to use a 10 acre
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so what does that do for me well in this
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case you can see the grids are a lot
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different than the zones
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there’s your zones there’s your grits
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back to your zones but in both cases
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you’re capturing 45 percent of the
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variability it’s a different 45 percent
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I’ll give you that
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but in both cases you’re capturing to a
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45 percent variability so maybe you’re
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gonna say you know what 45 percent I’m
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not convinced that that is enough
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variability to capture for this field I
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want to catch more all right let’s go to
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that five acre grid Wow we’ve just gone
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from 45 percent to 80 percent by going
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from that 10 acre um whether it was grid
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or zones to a 5 acre grid you’ve
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captured 80 percent of the variability
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that’s pretty impressive now you could
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also do it a five-acre zones once again
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74 percent so you’ve dropped a little
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bit of that variability by going to the
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zones and that’s just because of how the
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zones are made depending on how you make
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your zones you might be able to capture
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more of that variability that’s the cool
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part about this tool is you can start
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figuring out what is the best way to
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make money on your farm or invest on
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soil sampling do you want a soil sample
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every 25 acres do you want to the soils
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have what every 5 acres do you want to
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use grids or do you want to use polygons
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/ shares owns this is a really cool tool
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you can send us your field boundary and
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we can start doing this what it’s your
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yield data or with imagery even before
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you make that investment on soil
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sampling so before you make that
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investment you can decide how much
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variability you want to capture now if
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you want to spend a little bit more
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money you can go up to the two and a
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half acre grid that’s gonna give you a
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little bit more variability captured
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you’re getting it up to 81% but like I
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said obviously twice as much many soil
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samples the price starts to go up so it
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depends on your operation and how much
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variability you want to
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if you were comfortable with capturing
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only 19% of that variability perfect go
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with the bulk soil sampling if you want
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to capture a little bit more you can
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start to become a little bit more
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intensive so there’s our two and a half
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acre grid our two and a half acres zone
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so these zones were obviously drawn a
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little bit better than our five acre
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zones but we only captured an additional
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1% of that variability still not a whole
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lot of difference between the two now
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the cool part about a two and a half
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acre grid and two and a half acres zone
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they’re probably going to be about the
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same price but yeah our two and a half
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acres zones have been more accurate then
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maybe we would have been up to the high
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eighties and you’d say hey that’s the
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one I want to go with it’s completely up
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to you that’s the cool part about this
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tool your fields your variability you
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get to decide how you want to capture it
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or if you want minute don’t want to
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capture no if it is super uniform field
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run it through this tool and yet might
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come back that bulk soil sampling
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catches 80% of the variability all right
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then if that’s the case I’m doing a
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precision egg that would be my question
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to you so that’s a pretty cool thing now
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if you really want to spend start
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spending some money you can get
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intensive England’s what a one-acre grid
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that’s gonna capture 91% you know grid
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and in the zones like I said the zones
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are maybe not as good as it could be
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you’re at 85% here’s my thoughts if you
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want this level variability captured
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it’s time to start investing in that
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soil scanning sampling that technology
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whether it be soil optics or swath box
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or verus or any other system like sis
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from Trimble whatever your system wants
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to be because that’s gonna be a little
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bit more expensive so now when you want
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to be a little bit more expensive you
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can take advantage of that for your farm
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but like I said maybe you don’t want to
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invest to the highest level maybe you
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want to be a little less expensive
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that’s the cool thing about this
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variability capture tool
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you can decide how much variability you
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wanted to that capture in your farm and
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then you can make smarter decisions on
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how precision AG works for you if you
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don’t have that much variability
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don’t go precision egg but if your
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answer to should precision egg work for
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my farm and is you don’t know how much
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variability you’ve got on your farm or
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how you’re going to be able to capture
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it what a cool way to investigate to
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determine if it’s the right decision for
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you or not if you have this type of
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information you can make better
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decisions on where you want to invest on
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your farm thank you very much for
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listening
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hopefully you’ll check out a few more of
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our videos