In today’s world, it seems the standard answer to most questions is, “Look it up on your phone.”
I don’t have a SmartPhone or an iPhone. (Is there a difference?) I have an Android, though some people have raised the question: Why?
I am apparently more technology challenged than I realized. I still use my phone to call people and sometimes text, but no paying bills, banking, making reservations, copying QR codes, email or Facebook.
Maybe I am just stubborn about changing from my comfortable old Android or from doing business using my age-old home computer.
At any rate, I am quite willing to concede technology really is important to communication, business and the advancement of society in general. It also plays a vital role in the efficiency and advancement of agriculture.
Technology has made it possible for dairy cows to walk into a milking parlor when they decide to give milk and to be fed automatically.
It has produced tractors that drive themselves, weed and insect sprayers that quit spraying when they start to overlap previously sprayed ground and hay balers that lay a platform of 16 to 20 bales to be picked up by another machine for transportation to storage.
There are drones that cannot only spray crops, but can also determine weed types and insects present so specific sprays can be directed to solve the problem.
One of the latest uses of technology in agriculture I have found quite interesting is in the use of virtual fencing being used on pastures in the west. The fencing has been tested largely on farms and ranches in Wyoming, where there are vast areas of pastureland and where it may take 20 or more acres to support each cow. Building and maintaining good fences in these large areas is a major cost, but it is needed to keep track of the cattle and manage the grazing and water on the range.
A virtual fence can be moved by one person from a central location according to weather, grazing conditions and other factors while eliminating the need for building and maintaining many miles of fence. It is not a danger to the indigenous wildlife since these animals will have no collars to buzz when they step across the preset lines. At this point in its development, however, the cost of virtual fencing is a major obstacle to its wide-scale use. It requires a tower to transmit from, plus a transmitter collar for each animal.
One thing we are sure of in agriculture is there will always be change as those working in this area use technology to make things new and better.
And this carries over to the general society as well. I’m thinking maybe it’s getting about time for me to step up and try out one of those new, advanced iPhones after all.
Chuck Bell is a former 4-H Educator for Muskingum County.
This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Chuck Bell: Even the hay baler Is smarter than my phone use
Reporting by Chuck Bell, Special to the Zanesville Times Recorder / Zanesville Times Recorder
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