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Illinois farmer sees benefits of ag technology on his farm

Central Illinois Farmer Jim Hedges is using ag technology on his farm to ensure he’s investing in the right inputs that are going to have the highest return on investment.

Hedges, who is also vice president of seed marketing with WinField United, says he uses the company’s field forecasting tool to help make on-farm decisions.

“It’s been able to help me on my nitrogen use efficiency so I’m actually spending less money on nitrogen and driving much higher output, so my cost per bushel has went down dramatically and those savings on the per acre basis I’m putting back into things like fungicide,” he says.

He says the technology has benefited his farm in challenging growing seasons like last year when there was a lot of rain.

“By using the field forecasting tool and that tissue sample, it told me the investment I was going to make, which was going to be about $22 dollars for the nitrogen and the application fee, was going to return one added bushel,” he says. “That’s a terrible investment of time and dollars.”

Advice he has for other growers is…“make sure that whatever you’re investing in if you’re trying to drive that optimization of yield that it’s actually giving you a return on your investment,” he says. “It has to be data that’s relevant that causes action and then secondly talk to somebody who is using it.”

Hedges grows corn and soybeans on 3400 acres in central Illinois.  

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