KENTON, Ohio — The Ohio Soybean Association brought farmers together with other industry experts during its Hometown Tour stop at Layman Farms in Hardin County Aug. 25.
The event was one of several tour stops held in August around Ohio to bring farmers updates on the technology, policy and market opportunities that are affecting soybean growers.
Tech boom
Scott Shearer, professor and chair of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Ohio State University, told tour participants that equipment companies are continuing to introduce innovations in autonomous tractors and implements.
“We’re seeing a transition right now,” he said. Companies like John Deere, CNH Industrial, AGCO and Kubota used to be iron companies. “They’re becoming technology companies.”
John Deere, for instance, announced last year that the company would have equipment for fully automated grain production by 2030. The result would remove humans from the field environment, Shearer pointed out.
Shearer added that the price per engine horsepower is currently much higher for large tractors than for compact ones. He expects to see that differential contribute to a shift to smaller equipment as more farmers switch to autonomous machines.
For the last month or so, Ohio State has been working with Sabanto to test-run a Kubota M5 equipped with a Sabanto autonomy retrofit kit. Sabanto has sold about seven of the autonomy packages this year and they can be used on Kubota M5s as well as Fendt 700 tractors, Shearer said. “They’ll continue to build packages to adapt it to other machines.”
Andrew Klopfenstein, a senior research associate engineer at Ohio State, demonstrated the tractor during the tour at Layman Farms. They’ve been using it to mow part of the Farm Science Review parking area with a 15-foot batwing mower and they will be demonstrating it at this year’s show in September.
At this point, the autonomous system is not well-polished, Klopfenstein told the tour participants. “What I mean by that is there isn’t an app,” he explained. “We’re actually running this through an internet browser.”
To set the tractor up to cover a field, he drives the boundary, loads it into the server and creates a coverage map. A previously established field boundary can also be used. Next, he generates a mission, which sets the speeds, how the tractor covers headlands and other guidelines. The tractor uses RTK for guidance, running off the CORS network. One drawback is connectivity, Klopfenstein said. “If I have bad cell coverage it’s not going to work, it will instantly stop.”
Another issue with autonomous equipment is safety, said Shearer. “One of the things we feel that we’re going to need to do is post these fields just like you would if you were applying pesticides.” The Sabanto system includes collision avoidance, so the tractor will stop if it detects an obstacle. However, that avoidance system doesn’t currently extend to the width of a mower or other implement pulled by the tractor.
Eventually, Shearer said, systems will include decision-making ability for dealing with obstacles. “Artificial intelligence is going to be important as this automation evolves.”
Clean fuel growth
Tom Verry, director of outreach and development for Clean Fuels Alliance America, told tour participants that markets are rapidly expanding for soy biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel. As processing capacity expands, the demand for soybean oil will as well. “They are going to be screaming for feedstock.”
While soy biodiesel and renewable diesel can both be made from soybean oil, they are made with different processes, Verry pointed out. Renewable diesel is produced with a refining process similar to diesel made from petroleum.
If new processing facilities proceed as planned, annual production of renewable diesel in the U.S. could reach 6 billion gallons within the next year or so, Verry said. Biodiesel production is growing, too, with capacity expected to reach 2 billion gallons.
Initially, many producers of renewable diesel were not intending to use soy, but that attitude has changed, said Verry. “They do the numbers and reality sets in. They can’t meet their numbers without soy.”
Part of the growth comes from demand in California and other places that have established low-carbon fuel standards. Portland, Oregon, for instance, has passed regulations virtually outlawing petroleum fuels by 2026, Verry explained. Demand is also growing for renewable heating oil, railroad fuel and marine fuel for ocean shipping as well as shipping on the Great Lakes. Some retailers, such as clothing and houseware company H&M, are demanding carbon-neutral shipping, contributing to the shift in fuel demand, he added.
Cover crop incentives
The Nature Conservancy is working together with the Ohio Soybean Council and other ag organizations to promote cover crops through a program that offers farmers financial incentives and free technical assistance. Brent Nicol, an agricultural conservation practitioner with The Nature Conservancy, told the group that the program has funding for 60,000 new cover crop acres, plus 5,000 existing acres. “It’s a new program that’s just hitting Ohio.”
The project, Farmers for Soil Health, is a national USDA Climate-Smart Commodities Partnership project. It offers farmers three-year contracts that pay $25 per acre the first year, $15 the second and $10 the third. Farmers also receive free technical assistance for four years. Enrollment opened in August and is available throughout Ohio, although the program focus will be in the Miami and Scioto watersheds, Nicol said.
Agronomic advances
New soybean varieties being developed will offer farmers more options to match varieties with production environments. Shane Grime, a BASF sales representative, told the group one of the traits they’ll be hearing more about is VPI (Variety Profile Index). High VPI varieties put more seeds on plant branches while the low VPI varieties attach more seeds on the main stem.
Another trait BASF is developing is expected to help with the control of Soybean Cyst Nematode (SCN). That trait is expected to hit the market in the late 2020s, Grime said. In the meantime, BASF is conducting a SCN testing initiative to help identify fields with yield-limiting egg levels. That testing is best done after harvest by pulling soil from multiple points in a field, he added.
