An algorithm that can save big money on the farm

Sunday, March 8, 2015

This Parkhill cashcropper developed 'a pretty long equation' that helps him save up to $50,000 a year on fertilizer costs and shared it with a computer expert at Niagara College

by DON STONEMAN

Necessity is indeed the mother invention in the case of the algorithm that Parkhill cash cropper Rick Willemse has invented to deal with his fertilizer cost "problem."

In 2006 and 2007, with commodity prices low, Willemse cut back on fertilizer applications in his 1,300 acre cashcropping operation. In effect, he was "mining" his soils and crops were taking away more nutrients then fertilizer applications were returning. Then came the commodity price boom, with high grain and oilseed prices setting the stage for dramatically higher fertilizer prices that didn't fall when grain prices did. With fertilizer costs at $1,500 a tonne, Willemse realized that he had to cut $100 an acre from the $250-$280 he was facing with all nitrogen, phosphorus and potash included. "I had already cheated and robbed my fertilizer reserves and I really couldn't cheat anymore," he says.

Willemse's solution was to develop an algorithm to run a variable rate fertilizer spreader. An algorithm is a mathematic equation or series of equations that direct a computer-guided device to perform tasks. Willemse describes his development as "a pretty long equation."

It was based on 15 seasons of yield data from his fields. The program directs his fertilizer spreader to spread nutrients where they are needed. "On 500 acres of corn, I knocked 50 grand out" of the fertilizer bill.

In 2008, Willemse used a one-compartment dry fertilizer spreader, making one pass for potash and another of phosphate. Three years later, he bought a computer unit specifically for the fertilizer spreader and it ran a converted three-compartment spreader, but the implement's usefulness is limited by its size. "It only carries five tons. It needs to be about 10 or 12," Willemse says, noting that a suitable spreader costs $60,000 to $80,000 or more. "The rubber (tires) alone cost $10,000 or $12,000."

The payback on the original investment was fast – $100 an acre when fertilizer cost $1,500 a tonne. Today, fertilizer costs about half that and the savings are halved as well.

As for that algorithm, Willemse says he "threw it into a drawer" until he eventually developed a trusting relationship with Mike Duncan, National Science and Engineering Research Council chair at Niagara College in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Willemse says Duncan, a computer programmer, confirmed that the variable rate algorithm was working as designed. Both are keeping their lips tight on how it works.

"We are trying very hard to keep it under wraps," Willemse says. "I'd like to be able to make a few bucks out of this."

While there are existing programs that direct variable rate fertilizer applications, "to my knowledge, there is nobody doing it like I am doing," Willemse says, directing Better Farming to speak to Duncan. The NSERC chair was also reluctant to say much about the computer program, saying "I am tired of talking to Rick's lawyer."

Willemse says the algorithm was possible because of all those years of yield data. He stubbornly refused to start the combine until he had the early balky and less functional yield monitors operating properly. "Sometimes I spent half an hour on the headlands trying to make them work."

Some data from the early days was stored on long-outdated Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) cards. Willemse keeps an old laptop to access that data.

He says the Real Time Kinematic (RTK) technology he now uses isn't cheap. An annual subscription is $1,500 each for two units, plus $10-$15 a month to connect and another $250 a year to upload information to the cloud server where it is stored. On the plus side, "I can plant wheat at 3 o'clock in the morning."

Last year, Willemse planted and sprayed a corn field twice, always after dark, without running over the corn rows. "Autosteer is addictive," he allows. BF