Jackson: On today's episode, we welcome Tyler Lund, an executive at Veris Technologies. Tyler
has a wealth of experience in on-the-go soil sensing and has been involved with
Veris Technologies since the company was founded. Samantha: Tyler's dad, Eric Lund,
founded Veris Technologies in 1995 during the onset of precision ag technologies for vehicle
positioning and variable rate application. In Tyler's current role,
he helps direct their business strategy and identify new opportunities for Veris to help
growers optimize their operations. Jackson: Tyler will discuss the history of Veris
and his role in more detail in the episode, but he will also break down on-the-go soil mapping,
the differences and types of sensors available on the market for soil mapping,
what exactly map soil data is useful for, and how users can derive their maximum benefit from the
technology. Samantha: There's a lot of great content in this episode for you to listen to,
so let's jump right in with Tyler Lund. Jackson: So I guess do you want to tell us a little bit
about your yourself and some of your background and what you do with Veris Technologies?
Yeah so my name is Tyler Lund. I'm the director of sales and marketing at Veris,
and I think if we were a Silicon Valley company or more progressive with their titles,
I think my title would be director of business development or something like that. Because you
know, I do try to help sell our equipment, but a lot of it is product design. Understanding what
sensors and what configurations are going to be most helpful for growers and their values.
A lot of my job involves helping people who buy our equipment make use of it and you know a lot
of people are starting businesses with this so an advisor would get our equipment start mapping for
customers. And so some of it's just helping them launch a business. But a lot of it comes down to
folks using this new high-resolution soil data for unique applications. And we've got
equipment in 54 countries right now, and so helping people you know who want to
improve yields improve probably more importantly profitability and a lot of different settings.
Because the soil varies in all these different countries where the sensors are being used. But
one of the challenges we've got kind of some textbook agronomy and we need to learn how
to apply it site specifically, and and with that comes a lot of neat opportunities. I think one of
the most rewarding thing in my job is when people can approach problems that have plagued farmers
for a while with a new twist by maybe new inputs, new products are available that didn't make sense
on a cost scale across the whole field. But now when we can target it in certain regions like.
I think you probably suffer from from some iron deficiency chlorosis.
I think they call them the Platte Valley yellows or something like that.
And these high ph, poorly drained areas you know throwing chelated iron there some
varieties of soybeans that they can just target with a multi-variety planter
or different population. So coming up with some of those agronomic solutions some my favorite
part of my job for sure. So that's a little bit about my role at Veris. Cool. Samantha: That's
awesome. Now can you tell us a little bit about the background of Veris and how the
company started, and where it's going. Tyler: Yeah Veris got started in 95 and then when we
first started kind of putting together some of the ideas first product was launched in 96.
It really all came out of this at that time this is the advent of precision aggregate gps was
just made available to public. And manufacturers were making variable rate equipment controllers
but the question was all right we now have the ability to manage these
different areas in our field, but how do we know where they are how do we digitize that.
And at that time the usda soil survey hadn't been digitized in the process of being in made
geo-referenced. And grid sampling was coming on but but farmers really wanted to better
understand where their soil changed. And so uh as actually my father started the company with some
some friends who had technology for understanding the soil deep in the ground for more geological
exploration. And he, my father, had cut his teeth helped him with Great Plains he was an executive
there and wanted to adapt some of that sensing technology into an agricultural setting, so he
launched his company Veris which means truth in Latin. Like veritas, verify and I wanted to be able
to help take some of that sensor technology with gps, with the ruggedness of farm equipment taking
lab quality type equipment into the field to be able to go measure where and map where out in the
field these soils change so that now we can really make the most of the gps technology, the variable
rate controllers, and put it all together. And that that's where we started you know it's evolved um
just as I think the industry's evolved in and wanting to do a better job with managing.
I think a lot of it started with fertility. How do we put fertilizer in the right places in the field?
To see population corn population, nitrogen management we were talking about yield you know
understanding yield well it's usually driven by the soil and so understand where the soil changes
in those relationships. So where Veris has shifted and grown is helping map other properties. So we've
developed additional sensors and more advanced applications with kind of some multi-layers
management zones to help with that. So we've tried to add sensors and and and kind of help farmers
more with the actually putting the data to use. That's kind of our evolution over the
past 25 years. Jackson: Very cool thank you for that in-depth explanation. I love the name and where
it came from. I did my undergrad at Harvard kind of a quick aside that will probably clip but
I did my undergrad at Harvard and our our motto was veritas and you know we always saw it as you
know verify and truth. And uh yeah I love that. I saw the name and I was like there's got to be a
story behind that. So it's good. Well we just don't like when people confuse it for virus. And they're
like yeah once you get it you just can't get rid of it. and that's right. Hopefully people don't
describe our equipment like that. That's a huge pr blow right now. Especially. Yeah yeah exactly.
Jackson: So what different sensing technology units does Veris offer right now on the market?
Yeah we launched with measuring soil electrical conductivity which if to the uninitiated can
often be confused with the ec or the electrical conductivity that's measured in a laboratory.
This is the what's called bulk apparent electrical conductivity. This is really measuring the physical
characteristics of the soil. The soil texture, the particle size whether it's a sandy soil
silty, clay and those variations throughout a farm field. And that's that's the physical
property we're measuring. We also have a organic matter sensor, which is an optical sensor that
measures soil color, solar reflectance soil ph. And those are the main agronomic productivity type
sensors that the soil type soil organic matter and soil ph. We've recently come out with a moisture
and temperature sensor, and that's more used for equipment control. How we're doing our improving
our tillage strategy, our planting logistics. So that we're getting that seed off to a good start.
We also have a compaction sensing on a on a vertical probe that's inserted into the
ground. And we would actually also consider our elevation our altitude map when we convert that
into slope and curvature to be another sensor. Because it obviously impacts water movement
and a lot of different things in a field. So we add that together to say you know we're mapping
the most physical most important physical, biological and chemical properties. And some
of those sensors down to a depth of three feet. So those are the the sole properties we measure.
Samantha: Awesome um why did Veris decide to focus on these specific soil properties the ones that you just
mentioned. Was there initial focus on measuring the properties that were most agronomically
important, or that were easily measurable or you know what was kind of your thought
process behind? Tyler: I'd love to say that we went for the just the most agronomically important
instead of care for the farmer. I mean I think some of the sensing technology that we
understood at the beginning, the best was easy. And so that was a good place it also happened to be
probably the most important contributor to yield in terms of water holding capacity. If you drive
across the farm field, and yields go you know in the combine the yields go up and the oats go down.
It's hardly ever due to I mean fertility unless someone's doing a real poor job managing. It's
usually due to soil texture, it's due to you know water holding capacity and if it's not driven
completely by water holding capacity that soil texture is contributing high yields or
pulling it down from a lot of different factors. Compaction changes with soil texture. Think about a
planter going across a field well if if that last tillage pass was done when it was wet and clay
it you know you're gonna have big clods, and the planter's gonna bounce and you're gonna have poor
singulation and space and you're gonna have bad emergence. So yields can go down in those clay
parts of the field because of that we see that a lot with cereals which don't get as much attention
in precision agriculture but doing variable rates seeding of wheat based on germination that it's
harder to get a good stand in certain soils. So let's jack up the population there and so yes uh
we went with it because it's a it's a foundational soil property. But it's also a technology we we
knew about. The other the challenge some of the challenge when I think people are introduced to
soil texture, soil ec mapping is I can't change it so why would I map it. And you know this kind
of takes a little perspective change that no we're not changing the soil we're changing the
way we manage it. We're changing you know hopefully the outcome on it and we're not
we're not going to change that and we're probably not even ever going to
raise up the you know poor yields to the high yielding areas. We're just trying to reach
the potential of each soil. And so that's why we got started with ec. After that, ph was
a soil property that you know I think a few studies have shown that better management of
ph is the most profitable payback in precision agriculture because it doesn't matter you know
a lot of the the challenge with precision ag is is it a wet year dry year, did I choose
the right hybrid.how Well low ph always needs lime and a neutral ph never needs lime year in year
out. It's just a pretty established fact and so that ph sensor, which we actually worked with
a professor from University of Nebraska, that's Viachelslav Adamchuck, to develop the the ph sensor that we we
license and add on to our sensor. So that was another one just because instant payback for
the farmer. And now we're actually probably getting as much attention from that ph sensor
being used on the high ph side of things with we talked about with iron deficiency chlorosis and
adding chips into fields and kind of managing some on that side as well. Organic matter
really that sensor was developed out of a desire to understand more about carbon, I think in the
early 2000s there was a bigger emphasis then. And it's growing back about how do farmers benefit
themselves by storing carbon in the soil and how can they maybe possibly monetize that and help
with climate change. And so we developed a really advanced robust viz nir with a photo spectrometer
many wavelengths of optical sensing to measure carbon for a trading program and uh we used that
technology, simplified it and made an organic matter type sensor, which is probably not used
much for carbon management right now. But is an important strategy for for folks who are wanting
to do uh improved nitrogen management and and they also use that om layer for variable rate seeding
and other inputs. Those are that's kind of the genesis of those different sensors we've had.
Samantha: That's awesome uh we had a speaker uh last week about he was a crop consultant and said
really similar things you're actually though like putting it into practice- so you're saying like of
course ph is you know the one thing you can really control go control it um so yeah that's awesome to
hear you say it and how you're putting it to use find it to work. Jackson: Yeah there are three things you
said there I thought were really good, so we can't change the soil but we can change how we manage
it and we can get the maximum productivity out of those regions. Number two the immediate roi with ph
and then finally getting some added value out of out of data and different cultural practices
for farmers. That's something we've been talking about we've heard from a couple of our farmers
that they're really looking into that carbon sequestration piece. Tyler: Yeah it's uh it's interesting,
whether it's soil health or soil carbon just understanding the spatial variability. I mean
that's when we sit down to talk to people about soil sensing it you know it's it's kind of like a
I don't know a Tesla pitch you know it's not like any going by in any other car you have to sit down
and learn about it and you know get on board with the cost and what all it provides. But you know we
need folks to start thinking about soil and so understanding soil matters that that's you know
it's at the foundation of everything we grow. But then thinking spatially I know you had the
Space Plowboy, Terry Griffin on weeks ago yeah and just thinking about our farm fields is not just
spatially. Oh I've got the west 80 and grandma's you know quarter section over here as the you know
inside that field farmers do that they understand the variability but
but also just thinking about how can I micromanage that variability. And then last is a fusion
is we need people to think for fusion multi-layers because it's not one property that's
probably should determine our management zones and and Veris has the benefit of a long history in
this industry but we often, I'd say we get judged by our yearbook photo in that ec is all a lot of
people know about us because that's what we had on the market first and for a long time. But if
we want to get into some of those more you know value-add how do we advance you know get involved
with some more advanced properties or advanced management practices we need to not just use ec.
We need to use ec and typography and sometimes we need to even throw in organic matter
depending on what we want to manage. And that's one of the unique things we've
done lately is what we call application specific management zones because the same zones that are
justify where I should put more nitrogen it's not necessarily the same set of zones of wash but more
lime. And so having uh the flexibility and choosing uh zones based on what we want to manage.
Jackson: It's super interesting and talking about kind of the the fusion of multiple
layers thinking about this in the context of soil sampling particularly grid sampling how exactly
does on-the-go soil mapping like what Veris does complement what you would get out of a traditional
grid sample to kind of create that fusion of layers. Tyler: I think that on-the-go scanning is
needs traditional sampling for fertility. I mean we really need to have a lab help us understand
certain certain properties that we're not we're not measuring. So I think that there's
a good complements there, and I think we just have to understand what each map is used for whether
it's grid sampling or Veris map they just use it for its its purpose. Even the soil survey I mean
it can be kind of a nice reconnaissance tool for looking to buy ground or something like that. But
if you go on the website to download the sergo map it says there's a warning do not use this for
precision ag pretty much what it says not to be used at this scale. And uh and yet and so I'd say
you know bad maps have cost farmers more than good maps have benefited them over the years.
Because you know when we get lost driving it's it's usually because of a bad map it's not because
oh we had the wrong car or put the wrong fuel in the car well that would cause a problem too but.
So understanding what each map is used for it can be helpful I think that grid sampling is
especially useful for uh as a a way to identify any if there's a potential for hot spots with
uh you know if there used to be an old hog lot and you know phosphorus is out through the roof uh and
so you can look at the results from a grid sampled map and say all right I've got some highs and lows
and I need to manage that but what happens when you do get that sample that lands on the hog lot
and that hog lot was right here in that zone and I know we're doing a podcast and this might all
be video but if you think about some of the the challenges is when you get some of those hot spots
how far are you applying that knowledge from that one sample. Because if you're doing two and a half
acre grid sampling that's you know out to 330 feet based on that one sample and um and thinking about
what happens in between those samples and then interpolating in between and so I like the idea
of getting a lot of lab data from the field but then just choosing what map to then apply
that information from more and and so some people have adopted that kind of a
targeted grid or a shifted grid type type basis or they use a zone map maybe a Veris map
or a yield map and shift where they take their samples so that they're getting representative
places. Kind of like a doctor has diagnostic spots it takes your temperature in certain places
and listens to your breathing and others then just randomly do it across your body on a you know
a pattern that you know we go to certain places because we want to get certain information. And
I think zone maps can be especially helpful for for for stuff like that and then last you know
if we're trying to do things like seeding rates, nitrogen management we really have to get the map
right in those because you think about fertility. If we if we're off a little bit on our p and k,
it's probably not going to show up in the first year right. Second year, third year,
unless you're right on the cusp. So you know if we're just kind of slinging out enough
fertilizer that's probably okay there's a there's a nutrient bank there with population with seed.
If you under populate your good soil it's going to show up in the first year
there's no seed bank well unless someone's from left last from last year. And same with the the low
yielding- when we are the the low potential zones when we're putting high rates there
immediately we're wasting seed, we're causing additional stress on those plants
by overpopulating it and same with nitrogen. You know especially if you're an advisor if you get
it wrong it's going to show up. That yellow corn is going to stick out like a sore
thumb so having the right spatial map for those inputs is incredibly useful. And grid sampling well,
it's very helpful I think for getting a baseline of p and k. When we look at some of those other
applications, it might not yield the best results for growers.
Samantha: Someone mentioned to me once about how much like the moisture really influences the ec
maps and so they talked about potentially sampling for moisture to calibrate the sensors.
Are there any other things like that like maybe with ph that you're kind of calibrating
these sensors based upon samples? Tyler: Yeah that's one of the, I think best developments when we came out
with the organic matter sensor was we started to encode the data so and we created a process
where maps can actually come back to Veris and we can review them for just quality control type
measures, but also users started providing us lab samples and we were able to do a validation or
calibration where where we would take that ec reading and be able to calibrate it to
cec or cation exchange capacity. Take that infrared reading from an optical sensor and
shift it or use it you know just a regression calibration to organic matter. And same with ph
because ph is nice but most people want to have a buffer ph and so we would use a lot you know
some targeted samples about four samples from a field to do a calibration. And so the additional
benefit of just having a lab number and having it validated is now any effect of moisture. You know
I'm at this field when it was dry and this field over here one is wet and because it's a relative
sensor it can't really compare you know the unit of measurement with ec as millisiemens per meter.
I can't compare those two, and I can't create a strategy based on millisiemens per meter
on those two fields. But, once I get it to cec I can say hey every area that's 15 to
20 cc, I want to put 100 pounds of nitrogen. Whatever that formula or strategy might be
you can start to apply that across your farm, across your trade across, your trade territory.
And it's also been useful when as folks are moving towards models growth models, nitrogen
models having a fixed number and so moisture can play an impact does impact the Veris readings.
But it's just a background relative measure you know element of it as as long as it's a consistent
moisture across the field there. We need to in your area with pivots we need to map the corners
separately from the pivot and then use some statistical methods to to bring those together. But
moisture and trying so that's the direction we would like to go is calibrate it to a known
property where there's a lot of research already done with advice on om, cec, ph and even sand
cell clay we can calibrate the ec to sanso clay. We'd rather go that direction than using moisture
readings to normalize and make a normalized ec map which you know it does some of the benefit,
but I think there's more benefit in calibrating it to a lab lab number. Samantha: That's interesting, good
to know. Jackson: that's good to know so obviously we we want to keep talking about exactly what Veris does,
that makes Veris unique. But, would you mind telling us a little bit about what other on-the-go
soil sensors are out there on the market and maybe what the pros and cons of these different sensing
paradigms are? For example like with Veris um as far as I understand it, it's an intrusive sensor
so it's actually going to break the soil surface to take some measurements whereas there are some
sensors out there that are basically just you know glide over the top surfacial type sensors so would
you mind kind of explaining the difference in those and talking about the pros and cons for us?
Tyler: yeah yeah definitely uh there is probably more that have come on the market in the last few years
than by the first 15 years of Veris's existence and so we we really are actually excited about it
because I think like I mentioned it one of the biggest things we're preaching is soil and so
the more folks who are out there saying that soil matters we need to map it we need to manage it the
better. And the thing we have pushed because we're friends with a lot of people in this industry that
a lot of people who are developing these sensors and promoting them is using them right.
Because when our technology is used correctly and when their technology is used correctly they make
good maps so the other ec sensor is it's also called em is electromagnetic sensing and that's
a way of measuring the same soil property uses the same unit of measurement they just instead
of directly injecting electricity into the soil which is what Veris does they use in a a magnetic
field and so it's a non-intrusive way and it has that benefit of not breaking this soil surface.
That would be the benefit from it and like I said when it's used correctly it makes a good
map. Veris, I think what we like about the fact that we're touching the soil is that when we're
touching the soil there there's no interference. When you're using any type of sensor that's above
the ground anything between this field can can cause that reading to shift and so over the day
as moisture or humidity changes, temperature changes, if you go under power lines there's a
change in magnetic field. If you're in a vineyard and there's magnetic or metal objects around that
can cause interference. Good operators know how to manage around that and still make good maps.
You know poor operators don't. The other reason that we're okay with
touching the soil is it allows us to add additional sensors on that need to engage the soil.
And because those other sensors engage the soil they're typically have metal in them, which does
not allow or historically hasn't allowed the em sensor to be around that. I think there's some
ways now you can have metal around an em sensor. So uh that would be you know the em technology
it uh like I mentioned it only measures soil texture just like Veris only so measure soil
texture. I think there are companies out there that would like it to measure other things that
like compaction and while soil texture does relate to compaction it's not a compaction measurement.
The other one that's gaining interest is gamma sensing which should be a passive ready
measurement of isotopes and this is it's kind of a it sounds star trek-y and and
new and innovative but we actually looked at the sensing technology in the 90s
and have we still have some sitting on the shelf.
It's a similar what we found is it is a similar reading to ec that what's happening
is it's measuring decaying isotopes and you go across the field and it measures the quantity
counts of those you know that isotope where you have. What we found is where you have
clay smaller particles more particles you have higher readings there and in sandy soils you
have less and you have lower readings there. And so it really just ended up being expensive ec map and
but we're very excited that there could be potential for it to be more. But really what
what we've found in a lot of university research, actually Adamchuck who is at University of
Nebraska is now at McGill University a college in Canada did a really uh a comprehensive study with Veris.
All of our sensor suite the em and gamma and and users can or listeners can can look up
that study but it really found that our three technologies are measuring soil texture primarily
and there might be some correlation of nutrients that that correlate to the soil texture you know
map but it's not actually measuring soil nutrients in the soil. So those are the that would
be the main technologies on the go that we see out there. Ph the precision planting has a technology
that they put on their firmers of planter firmers that has an optical sensor and that optical sensor
they're using to estimate moisture, organic matter and temperature. I think temperature
think the temperature might be a little different sensor but it's yeah it's all on there. And I think
that they're uh I do know they're they're attempting to estimate cec from from that
same sensing technology, which it's in it's a it's a you know a neat place to put the sensor
really really impressed by the the the embodiment with the mechanics of the sensor.
That same research that I think was done at McGill and others have found
that in some research we've done is optical sensing is a wonderful technology for estimating
organic matter that the soil color is largely driven by that you know it's dark because of
the carbon and soil and the other thing that can make soil dark is moisture where there's
more or less it's going to be darker and using the same sensor for both those to you know
for both those properties can be challenging and especially also than estimating cec from
an optical sensor. It's asking a lot of one sensing technology. Samantha: just think along the lines of
the intrusive versus the ones that are just on the soil surface, does the increased adoption of
no-till and cover crops does that influence how some of these technologies work as well or is it
not make a big difference. Tyler: there there's some hardcore no-tillers who might object to it but
our family farm we've been no-tilling for 25 years and we don't object to it there .You know the
footprint is about six inches wide for our organic matter sensor every 60 feet
and so it's a small percentage uh that would be touching soil. I think Samatha: I was actually going to say
like the accuracy of the ones that don't aren't intrusive yeah that was like the opposite way. Tyler: okay
uh there there was a study done in Portugal actually that studied using Veris
direct contact or intrusive versus non-intrusive and that the changes in vegetation uh on
on on the field did influence that and made it more of a challenge yeah. Jackson: good to know.
So, let's see where do we want to go here?
Samatha: well that's going to ask, I think you hit on this earlier. But I just want to ask
this question because I really like it. So what has on-the-go soil mapping like the Veris units
that you've mentioned sensors enabled that was previously unattainable in agriculture?
Tyler: uh profitability. Let's see I think the the neat things are pretty obscure in different markets
uh there's a thing called the root not nematode in the south that is a big problem in cotton fields.
And to manage it there's a product called Tellown there might be one other and it's it is extremely
expensive the application I think is upwards of a hundred dollars per acre to kill this nematode. And I think that the real problem is not the cost of the product but availability. It's
a byproduct of carpet manufacturing something unique like that and so even just getting your
hands on it is challenging so what happens though is the the populations of the root not nematode
are elevated or only present in the sandiest parts of farm fields. So people use the Veris map go out
there and find the sandy parts of their field and only apply teleon at the fumigant in that area.
Which saves them lots of money enables them to grow a crop that otherwise wouldn't be
possible because of the damage by the nematode. And they they're able to conserve the product
for only the fields that absolutely need it. You know there there'd be ideas like that in other
other places one is gaining adoption in Western Europe and I think is going to come here in the
U.S. K-State has actually been researching it is the use of variable rate herbicide based on
soil applied herbicides as we're finding that it's growing more and more important to move back and
as our options are limited is that on every almost every label of soil applied herbicide
is different rates for different soil types yet we go out and put the same rate
and either we're not getting efficacy in certain areas or we're over applying in some areas and
you know think about Atrazine and what what damage can be caused by over application.
So carryover so using the ph map too you know the properties they they care about that label is ph,
organic matter, and cec or soil texture and those are three properties where
soil scanning is is capturing. So some of those those are kind of I don't know more unique.
I think irrigation probably another one we haven't seen vri variable rate irrigation
become ubiquitous but at least moisture probe placement to to kind of do scheduling knowing
where to put the soil moisture probes multiple or putting one in a kind of an average soil type
is that enough you want some more? Samatha: those are awesome examples very specific that was awesome.
Jackson: Yeah I really like hearing about the niche uh kind of the niche markets that are potentially
coming to the U.S. and that a lot of people may not think about out here in in the land of corn
and soybeans right now. Samatha: yeah the herbicides one interest is interesting because everyone wants
to skip to the like the sight and spray type of thing, but I think what you're talking about is
a much more attainable and reasonable step and yeah I think that's really fascinating.
Tyler: yeah it really you know getting the problem taken care of before it emerges out usually is a better
way of doing it and a lot of that research has already been done by the companies about you know
what rates are best in different areas. Another application that I think would be more profound on
a broad scale for agriculture is something we were talking about before we got on is is how we do our
trials. You know whether it's simple on-farm trials is understanding the underlying soil properties is
important because if you put one treatment on good soil and one treatment on poor soil
you're not testing your you know your test you're testing soil and uh and that happens from
unfarmed trials to hybrids to understand you know where are we making sure that we either have
uniform soil that we're testing on and that's good for just finding out which hybrid
variety is you know needs to be promoted. But then after that as we move to characterizing
hybrids, varieties we see this with you know trees in California. Vines grapevines is that
certain varieties like certain soil conditions they can tolerate low ph they can tolerate high ph
they like wet feet they can you know this is drought resistant well being able to go now not
avoid variability and that some of the testing is avoiding variability the next more advanced step
is exploiting it let's go test in some of those areas let's get on the side of that hill and put a
bunch you know put a trial there and just see see what survives. And that I think could could really
help get some improved and tailored products for certain conditions and a lot of our breeding is
done on ice cream soils as they call it and really you know with the hopeful adoption of more multi
hybrid multi-variety planting capabilities we're not just looking for the the highest performing
you know hybrid on good soil. We want what's the best you know leaf structure on side slopes what
does really good in um you know areas with poor drainage because that's what we have in our farm
fields. We don't all have those flat nice places to farm. Samatha: you hit it on the head. Jackson: yeah you bringing
that up just frustrates me so much right now because the research that I do is sensor based
fertigation so right now we're stuck with full pivot links that we have to make treatments out of
and they're 15 degree sectors in the field and it's it's really painful because we can't put
our treatments you know where we have uniform soil types within a certain rep and so there
are certain treatments that just end up you know just because of that ec limitation some of those
natural soil limitations out there just do not yield as well. And so some of those treatments just
do not they get the short end of the stick you know it's like this isn't a fair test of
what we're doing. Tyler: yeah that that is challenging and then the challenge will be even if you had
a perfectly pie shaped field to do your testing on, no farmer has that to apply
that information based on but right you need to have it controlled for your testing
and then you know the next step is helping them understand what the major soil type in that wedge
is however it might be. Jackson: yeah that on-farm research is it's just such an important concept. I think
almost every interview we've had for this podcast so far people have said that that is
probably the number one immediate application of precision ag technologies right now. Tyler: yeah
yeah going back to Terry Griffin, he and I served together on the board at the Kansas ag
research technology association just a bunch of farmers get together and do research and
geek out about it. But it doesn't have to be you know people who love gis applications anymore
I mean just trying different things in whole you know field strips instead of small treatments is
going to probably benefit farmer more than you know reading I don't know uh some some
farm magazine at times. Jackson: absolutely what are some considerations for a potential customer of yours
to make when trying to decide what the right type of sensor is for their operation?
Tyler: yeah it really depends on what the grow or the agronomist or researcher wants to accomplish but
you know we've really tried to we're a precision ag only company we're not adapting or
geological or environmental tools and just hoping it fits the ag market we're really trying
to understand that farmers are going to use this agronomists are going to use this so we've created
models that hopefully fit their operation so typical maybe agronomist or consultant model
would be our our utility vehicle model the u3 it can be pulled by a John Deere gator a
Kawasaki mule can be transported easily you know that's measuring all those soil properties ec, om,
ph, topography can be used for a lot of different applications. A grower on the other hand might be
interested in our iscan model which is able to be mounted to a tillage tool, a planter
a side dress bar a lot of different applications or ways you can mount
that and you can passively be collecting that data while you're doing another field operation.
And that's probably one of the more exciting avenues of where rovers is going is
a lot of our focus has been on inputs. How do we better manage inputs. When we start putting
sensors on tillage tools and on planters it's we're yeah we're getting that data we'll be able
to use that in management zones but man a lot of these tools now have on-the-go adjustments.
Vertical tillage especially we've got gang angle which is you know throwing more or less dirt
more you know more or less aggressive we can go deeper you know same with cultivator even now we
can we can change depth on the go without tipping the machine back and forth. All that happens you
know we have those adjustments because we want to accomplish different things on our fields at
different times of the year but also in different parts of the field. I'm thinking about the areas
that you know when we talked about earlier when you get into that heavy clay if you're to have
the same tillage setting that you did on that nice loam soil you might be going too deep and you're
going to be bringing up clods you're going to be making a washboard and so when that planter comes
back it's going to have a challenging time getting a good seed bed or the seed planted right. And so
getting sensors onto those tools is going to allow us to enable the farmer to
do a better job managing each part of those fields.
And and even you know if we put on our you know looking into the future glasses and trying to
to see what what's going to come that is what I'd say is the first step towards automation
autonomous farming is you know we can have an autonomous tractor pretty easy we already have it
but we need autonomous implements too because right now it's a you know someone in the cab
deciding what's which what changes need to be made back there and our tillage and planting
sensors can really help provide the information about the ground conditions and what's happening
to optimize that. Those those settings and and feed it into a system to allow automation.
Jackson: that is brilliant. I recently heard some more stuff about you know kind of John Deere
and some of those places really starting to look at automating their implements and
I had not thought about how Veris could tie into that and kind of provide the sensor backbone
that's that's needed to create those control systems for those type of units. Tyler: yeah yeah I mean
it's, I've been skeptical of ai and I don't know some of these buzzwords you know big data. But
I was, I've been doing so we're no-till farmers but we recently had a lot of floods and we had
to do some vertical tillage on on some fields and um going across the landscape. I just really
it was just hard to imagine wanting to do the same thing on each you know on the side slope
on the depressions going through these different contrasting environments. I got introduced to
to soil variability by my grandpa when he was teaching me how to plow and disc a field
and there was a far part of the field he said that's a that's an alkali spot and when you
get there you're going to have to downshift because it's real hard on you know.
You know I was a rebellious kid instead of downshifting I just lifted the machine out
of the ground to plow the disc out of the ground so I could keep going faster.
Well that was you know that's the realization that there's differences in these fields and we need to
manage it. And so Veris can help put gypsum in that alkali area and help flocculate the clay
and improve the soil. But also we can help with the making sure that all the implements that go
across it are smart too. And not a teenage field operator like here.
Samantha: uh this could be getting way off topic but I was just thinking we also have some skeptical um
thoughts about on the go like you're saying about some new technologies and some of these things
you know we do work with active sensors that are on the go sensing technologies and there are
challenges with that as well lag time you know the noise and the data so it'll be interesting
how all those are overcome as well with some of the new technologies you're talking about.
Tyler: yeah noise and bad data is like I mentioned the bad maps is a big problem but but
noise and stuff like that is and that's one of the reasons why we set up that
quality control process on our maps where the data actually comes to Veris and we have a team
of individuals who look at the maps review it give report card call people up make sure that they
are operating the sensors well and because we need high quality data. There's gonna be expensive
decisions based on this since we need to get it right and we've seen the market and the
industry react to that and so we've actually had users of those other sensors I was talking about
begin sending their data to us for us to review and so we can now ingest em data.
We've worked with gamma data from the U.S. and actually around the world
and uh providing that same quality control review so that they and then management zone creation
so that you know that it actually has that stamp of approval and they have that confidence
moving forward that they have a good map. Samatha: that's good to hear we talk about data quality a lot
which uh actually I was going to ask you this. Are you guys thinking about making a or maybe you
already have a software that will do management zone generation? Tyler: yeah again I think we've uh we
people know Veris for ec. The users of our more advanced platforms and more recently be more
familiar with some of the the tools we have we have a cloud-based platform called field fusion
and that's where the upload of our maps and where we do our feedback and quality control happens.
But beyond that that's where we the namesake field fusion is we're fusing together those different
layers into management zones and so we do have a cloud-based software platform and that really came
out of this you know user experience of I've got all these maps what do I do with them? And really
stepping in and helping people make those like I mentioned application specific management zones.
So on that service we've got a seating prescription map we don't tell you what
population we don't know from sign of Kansas what what farmer in Ohio should and but we do know
that these are different soils they've got different water holding capacity they like
have different yield potential and this is where we would say and we can change rates. Here's a map
of we go back to iron deficiency chlorosis this is where we see a high risk it's got high ph,
it's a heavy soil it's the depressional. This is where if you're gonna you know one of the ways you
combat it is changing uh increasing soybean population because they're at risk for idc.
This is where you should check the rates the highest here's the next medium zone and this is
you know ph's and the sixes that type of tool we make the management zones we give you the
tools to put in prescriptions and download it send it to some of the major platforms
or download it put it in your own gis software. But yeah a lot of those tools from mapping
to prescription, Veris now offers. Jackson: very very nice so is that kind of the uh what's on the horizon and
kind of the direction that the company is moving now or are there also some exciting developments
in terms of sensing technologies that may be on the horizon? And you can tell us about a
little bit more. Tyler: well the the bat the white board behind me may be blank but we do have some ideas
uh in the hopper. No I think you know we we really are it's fun because we're a
25 year old startup company we've got electrical engineers, mechanical engineers
farm kids and we this is we just love this stuff. And we're I think we're developing on
multiple fronts sensor development for sure um a lot within implement control
and then the other side would be on the agronomy
and how do we use this data more intelligently. One of the things that we
would love to see more people make use of you're talking about yield analysis is
how do we look at the soil and the yield together and one of the more advanced ways we see it is
that the soil uh you know if some people say well my my yield map doesn't look like my Veris map so
the Veris map what values it provided me well that's probably a good thing if you know
to some degree because if they look the same then actually well that would be the best thing because
it means your limiting factor is your soil. If your poor soil yielded poorly and your good soil
yielded great well you didn't make any mistakes. I guess you could say I mean maybe you could have
brought everything up but what we like to analyze is to look at okay here's my poor soil and here's
some areas part of that that's yielding even lower. And here's my good soil and I've got some that's
you know high yielding and some that's yielding a medium level well how do I go in there do I
have a drainage problem uh fertility problem did my neighbor drift onto my field. But I've got
this is my good yielding soil let me look at my yield data and see where I have divergent yields.
And I can fix some of those problems especially the missing middle I mean we like pat ourselves
on the back for our high yielding areas and you know kick ourselves for the low yield.
But that middle area how much of that middle area is good soil and could be raised up by by
some sort of management change. And so using those advanced analytics where we look at
similar soils but divergent yields- I think can really help especially crop consultant scouts
to understand what's going on go there and figure it out because um we've seen you know same soil
but 20% yield difference that that's some big dollars that you can fix that
you don't have to fix the soil you have to fix some outside problem that's probably manageable.
Jackson: 100% I couldn't agree more. Looking at fields where I can actually
see that the ec map matches the yield it's super exciting because I'm like okay well this this
really explains a lot of it we may be able to say okay you've got a compactionary in this particular
this particular area of the field because it's a soil type that's very prone to compaction.
I actually just had a conversation with a grower yesterday where we were talking through the ec
map and saying hey these are these are your most likely factors either water limited during the
year we didn't have enough irrigation in this particular area or you know it was a compaction
issue we've gone over the field too many times especially after having a lot of rainfall last
year maybe this area was especially prone to compaction it's it's it's fantastic being able
to kind of pare down what those issues might be. Tyler: yeah yeah that's exactly right I mean if you
if your yield map and your soil map look the same then all you have to do is manage those different
soils you know as a whole and and find out what the optimum strategy is for each of the soils.
When they're different then that's when the complexity comes in
even an additional layer you just have more things to explore but there's also probably more upside
that you can explore through some good agronomy some good scouting.
Samantha: is there any other questions are you ready for the last one? Jackson: I want to get his advice.
Samantha: okay so what is one piece of advice that you'd offer to our listeners out there
um whether those be crop consultants, researchers or farmers what would you like to tell them. Tyler: oh of
all the questions I probably should have thought through that one ahead of time.
I mean we talked about on-farm trials I think a lot of this comes down to validating it yourself.
There's just here's a farm magazine right here you can read
a lot of new things are coming out and maybe it's slow down a little bit maybe the silicon valley
you know angel capital and you know is coming down our venture capital. So we're getting a
little less vaporware out there and vapor products but just trying it trying it and validating it.
I think one of the things that we've benefited from is a lot of scientific review
as your grad students you've used our equipment a lot of the students have come through UNL have.
And while it's been a challenge to have a rigorous scientific review of our products.
Once they've been validated now the pivot is less from do these sensors work to
how do we get these sensors to work? And so I would encourage growers, consultants to apply their own
rigorous review of products that come out. Demand that of their extension agents their
universities to to try things and help understand it. And not to be skeptical or
reject all because there's a lot of new things that are coming out to probably have value. But
not not jumping in without doing some research ahead of time.
Jackson: Every time that we get to the end of the season and I start looking at data and I start looking
at all these different layers that we've collected. I'm always asking myself or tell myself I really
need to learn geostatistics or I've got to learn how to use this stuff better because
there's so much stuff out there it's like how do we use all of this to improve what we're doing
is it's such a challenging and exciting problem. Tyler: yeah and I not to plug our software but one of
the things that I like about field fusion is it's user friendly it's I even I can use it because I
think for a long time the keys of the castle to precision ag have been held by the you know the
computer nerds. I don't know how to use arcgis or you know r or some of these advanced
how am I supposed to do it I don't want to go to any you know some time and do a software class for
a week and so finding tools that are on one hand easy to use but we don't want to over simplify it
and then you got you know farm management tools that you know help with accounting and marketing
and marriage advice and you know just everything. Where is it this is just something that I can
look at maps and start analyzing and and making some decisions without it having to be everything
or so simple that it's nothing you know that's that's kind of a challenge and
I think growers will respond to that when they start to see it.
Samantha: we've seen a lot of examples of our management zones are very much trying to be simplified
they're you know only trying to use a couple of layers or they're always using three zones
they're not really thinking it through um so yeah it's very interesting what you guys are doing and
I'd love to see that platform. Tyler: yeah it's uh it's a challenge uh for everybody to try to do
it right we can just use one satellite image and really screw up or we can use
you know even a Veris map and uh just try to make it so detailed that even like a little like
inner point shows up as a big blip I mean there's things we can do wrong and so
that's where we talk about that quality control method and management zone creation by people
who understand soil sensor data and then giving that to the local folks who know what inputs what
varieties make sense and apply their knowledge on top of that is a is a pretty powerful combination.
Samantha: we'd like to offer a big thank you to Tyler Lund for joining us on the FarmBits podcast.
It was great to have someone who has been so involved with the on-the-go soil mapping since
its inception provide some detailed information about the ins and outs of the technology.
Jackson: There was so much content in that episode so as happens really too often I had two favorite parts
of this episode. One was when Tyler said that we can't change the soil but we can change how we
manage it to get the maximum potential and profit out of different areas of the field. It was such
a clear description of what we were trying to do with site-specific crop management in digital ag.
My second favorite part of the episode was Tyler talking about some of the
important factors to consider with intrusive soil mapping implements
and non-intrusive soil mapping implements. There's a lot more nuance there than you might think too,
the pros and cons of each different soil mapping paradigm or way of going about doing things
including tillage practices and rotational practices. Samantha: I thought that was great as well. I thought
the discussion on how sensors and management zones are not the same for all different applications.
The management zones and how we react to soil variability is different for whether we're doing
a seeding prescription or a fertility recommendation or even site-specific pesticide
applications for some of these things we need to be a lot more precise and utilize different layers
such as topography and organic matter. Jackson: again that's a piece of nuance that a lot of people don't think
about some people think a zone is a zone but that's not always true. So that's a wrap for
this episode and we look forward to you joining us next week as we hear a discussion with Dr. Trenton
Franz about how exactly measurements from these soil sensors and from soil sampling are converted.
Thank you for taking the time to join us today on the FarmBits podcast, if you enjoyed this episode,
please subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Youtube or wherever you listen to podcasts
to be informed about the latest content each week. Samantha: We welcome your feedback so if you have
comments or questions for us please reach out to us over email, on twitter or in the review section
of your favorite podcast platform. Our contact information can be found in the show notes.
Jackson: We would like to thank Nebraska Extension for their support of this podcast and their
commitment to providing high quality informational material to members of the agricultural community
in Nebraska and beyond. Samantha: The opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast
are solely their own and do not reflect the views of Nebraska Extension or the University of
Nebraska- Lincoln. We look forward to you joining us next week for another episode of FarmBits.