Sense Your Soil, On The Fly
You’ve fine-tuned your planter to perform just right, you’ve invested in the right seeds for each acre and you have the right starter program to give this year’s crop an early boost. Now your furrows are about to hold all your potential for the season. The question is: Are they ready? Do you have uniform moisture below the surface where your seed is being planted? Is the soil temperature adequate to drive quick germination? Is last year’s residue out of the furrow and away from the seed?
With SmartFirmer you no longer have to guess.
Put eyes inside every furrow with a seed-firmer sensor that measures organic matter, moisture, residue and temperature. Now you can optimize hybrid selection, population, depth, fertility and row cleaners in real time.
Soil Moisture Sensing
Soil moisture is a critical component for seed germination and uniform plant emergence, and ultimately crop yield. SmartFirmer gives you row-by-row visibility to soil moisture in the seed furrow, allowing you to choose the right planting depth as soil conditions change.
Soil Temperature Sensing
Sufficient soil temperature is a critical component for rapid seed germination. As an example, the time for a corn seed to germinate will dramatically increase as temperatures drop below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. SmartFirmer gives you row-by-row visibility of soil temperature in the seed furrow, ensuring that you are planting in favorable conditions.
Furrow Uniformity
A consistent environment is essential for uniform seed germination and plant growth. SmartFirmer identifies any irregularities along the furrow, such as soil clods, air space and dry soil falling from the surface, so that you can have the insight to correct row unit performance and solve these yield-robbing problems.
Residue Sensing
In-furrow crop residue has well-known negative impacts on seed germination and growth. SmartFirmer allows you to measure the quantity of in-furrow residue and adjust row cleaners accordingly, thus ensuring residue won’t limit seed moisture uptake or transmit disease.
Organic Matter Sensing
In any field, there are multiple yield environments that are determined by soil type, organic matter, topography, drainage and dozens of other attributes. To better manage these yield environments, the SmartFirmer high definition organic matter map is a key input for developing precise prescriptions for planting population, seed hybrid and fertility applications.
What if you could make automatic adjustments based on this information? You can. SmartFirmer provides automatic, on-the-go control of planting populations or hybrids based on organic matter measurements.