Implementing precision technology on a family farm | Field Trials E8 PART 1

Autonomy and precision application practices can be more than just agronomically useful tools. For Dustin Burns, a cereals, forage, and beef farmer from Wynyard, Saskatchewan, autonomous tools can help expand his farm’s market opportunities while achieving soil improvement and greenhouse gas reduction goals.

The latest episode of Field Trials, Burns discusses how he and his colleagues see working with – and improving – autonomous platforms as an effective means of bettering the agriculture sector’s wider social and environmental impact.

In segment one, Burns provides and overview of his farm business, the priorities guiding his and his colleagues’ business model, and how precision technologies play a role in achieving those priorities. This includes four years of experience with Raven’s OMNiPOWER (formally called DOT) platform.

“We believe we have a role as producers in the industry to help progress the development of different systems,” says Burns. “There’s talk of big agriculture and what it contributes to carbon and nitrous oxides. We use lots of delay release fertilizers and believe strongly in placing it at the right time in the right place. We use prescription maps – all these things because we see benefit for ourselves as a business but also because we see that as where things are going to go.”

“We are passionate about ag and want to get involved where we can make a difference. One of those places is in autonomy.”