Jodi Boe and Sarah Lovas talk about GK Technology's new podcast, Ag Geek Speak.
Jodi Boe and Sarah Lovas talk about GK Technology's new podcast, Ag Geek Speak.
Sarah Lovas 0:00
And now it's time for Ag Geek Speak with
Jodi Boe 0:04
GK Technology's
Sarah Lovas 0:06
Sarah and
Jodi Boe 0:07
Jodi
Theme Music 0:09
In the fields again. I just can't wait to get in the fields again.
The life I love is spreading potash for my friends, and I can't wait to get in the fields again. No, I can't wait to get in the fields again.
Sarah Lovas 0:31
Well, I am so excited to be here today, Jodi. And first of all, I think it's really important that the world knows that GK Technology has hired its newest employee, Jodi Boe, with a robust background in agronomy. So welcome to the team.
Jodi Boe 0:48
Thank you so much for having me. And it is a pleasure to be here. I'm really excited to be a part of the team. And it is a landmark event today, in that we are recording our first ever podcast at GK Technology.
Sarah Lovas 1:02
We are so excited about this podcast. You know, when when we heard that you were coming on board as one of the team members, it just seemed like the right time to be doing something like this. There's so many people, I think out there in the countryside that just want to have good conversations about precision agriculture, from a very practical standpoint, as to how how precision agriculture can really fit into a daily farming operation or agronomy operation. And really how to make it all go.
Jodi Boe 1:34
Absolutely. Right. I mean, it's you go back to any sort of agronomy conversation, there's not only the agronomy aspect of it, but it's also the logistics of it. And a lot of what we do here at GK is figuring out okay, what is the software? What's the map that's going to make what you want to do in precision agriculture go.
Sarah Lovas 1:54
Yes. You know, we're really good at identifying, okay, what is the issue in the field? And how can we actually solve it? Yep. So, and doing all kinds of fun things with it, whether it's variable rate applications, or what else are we doing?
Jodi Boe 2:12
Designing tile, planning out, you know, doing watershed planning to figure out what your tile's gonna look like.
Sarah Lovas 2:19
Yeah, there's just, there's a lot of fun stuff that we're doing watershed planning, surface drainage, drain tile planning, variable rate, technology, or as far as prescriptions,
Jodi Boe 2:31
putting zones together so that you can go out and pull soil samples, whether that be for grid zones, or zone soil sampling, and then also having the technology there to help you go out and pull those samples out in the field.
Sarah Lovas 2:44
And you know, it's interesting, Jodi, I know, I know, this is literally what your third day on the job?
Jodi Boe 2:50
Yes.
Sarah Lovas 2:50
Okay.
Jodi Boe 2:52
Day three.
Sarah Lovas 2:53
Well, I've I've only been with GK for two years, this is about my two year anniversary here. So I'm still pretty fresh blood working for this company as well. It's been a great ride so far. But it's interesting to think about some of the background that I've had working in soils and soil sampling, and independent agronomy and how that's worked with, with GK Technology so hand in hand and how I think about some things may be a little bit differently now after the last two years from from before. And part of that is simply because of all the conversations that I've had a chance to have with a ton of customers. And so I'm just excited for you to have those conversations yourself. I know that you've had a lot of experience in soils, because you've had a chance to work in a lot of different areas in both the United States and Canada. Absolutely. So it's going to be really fun to, you know, bring that forward to this conversation here. But I but I do you think about precision agriculture a little bit differently. One of those things is zones and how we create zones. So I'm excited to have good conversations about how we make good zones putting data together.
Jodi Boe 2:56
Yeah, and I think about, you know, what does this podcast gonna look like? And I think a lot of it is going to be, you know, as a person, it's only been here for three days. A lot of it's gonna be me talking to customers and bringing on people that have used our software for years, and what kind of problems they've, you know, wanted to help solve, and then did actually use the software to solve what they were trying to figure out. And so I'm really excited to see and talk to folks about those practical applications. And, you know, what are people's different philosophies on putting those soil maps together? What are the weird issues that they've come across? And they've said, Okay, how am I going to deal with this? And then they go through and they figure out, you know, what, what the map is for that situation? So I'm super excited to dig in deeper with folks and have conversations about precision agriculture, and of course, bringing you guys along for that ride as well.
Sarah Lovas 5:01
Absolutely. I'm also excited to talk about how we export out prescriptions to different controllers, because that is a big issue. And those conversations take up a lot of my time, with different customers making sure that we can get those prescriptions into all different colors of equipment in all different kinds of equipment. So that's going to be a really fun thing to talk about. I'm excited about that.
Jodi Boe 5:31
Isn't it interesting, like you coming from or like being outside of or before thinking about, you know, how we're using these prescriptions? A person kind of thinks, oh, well, that's just a USB stick, right? I just take a file on a USB stick and stick it into my controller and it works. No, that's not how it goes. It's it's so much more complicated. But we're gonna talk about it. Yeah, talking about why that is, and and what we can do to get around some of these things.
Sarah Lovas 5:55
Yeah, it's, it's all fun and dandy until you didn't get that prescription exported out correctly. And now there's rain in the forecast, and there's a tractor sitting on the end of the field.
Jodi Boe 6:05
I'm getting like secondhand anxiety over here.
Sarah Lovas 6:08
Oh, you're gonna be fine, don't worry, it's gonna be good. You export out a few of them, and you end up knowing the right questions to ask It's good stuff. So and I'm also really excited to dig in a little bit deeper into some of the drainage side of things. You know, we've got this really robust side of, of GK Technology, with the surface drainage. And we actually have some pretty big experts on our staff. With surface drainage, when we, when we start thinking about guys like Paul Fuller, man, that guy knows a lot about how to make water run. And so I'm, I'm really excited to have some conversations around some of that as well.
Jodi Boe 6:48
There's a lot of things to talk about. It's gonna be good.
Sarah Lovas 6:52
It's gonna be great. And, and I also think it's going to be really important at one point in time, I don't know if this should be together or separate. But Darin, and Kelly, we're going to have to have both of those gentlemen come on, and talk a little bit about their history. You know, their career history, and how they got to where they are with GK Technology today. You know, quite frankly, Darin Johnson really is a pioneer of precision agriculture. And it's pretty neat to have an opportunity to work for him and his company, and the things that we can learn. And it really is Kelly, that is the person that was able to get the company off the ground and kind of a marketable product. So I'm really excited to have those conversations as well.
Jodi Boe 7:44
Absolutely. I mean, here, we're being in the Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota, you don't realize until you're kind of in it for a couple years, like how many important innovations have come from this area. And getting the opportunity to talk to those people that have put together those innovations and have thought about these problems for a long time and put together solutions. It's It's really exciting. And hopefully, it's a privilege not only for us to talk to and get those including those conversations from Darin and Kelly and others. But hopefully for you guys as well to learn from those conversations, and then take something with you as you go.
Sarah Lovas 8:20
Absolutely. Another thing that I think is really important to think about is a lot of the work that we're doing tends to be pretty imagery based. And we have some pretty big experts in the world of imagery and imagery as it pertains to how we can make great precision agriculture decisions. So hopefully, we can dive a little bit deeper into that as well.
Jodi Boe 8:42
I'm excited to jump and dive right into that. I mean, it's so funny, like I think about myself as an agronomist. And like what I thought I would do as an agronomist, going from like a high schooler to now. And I never thought that I'd be at a point in my career where I would have to worry about new satellites going into space. But that is that is absolutely. So much of what we work with is imagery collected by satellites. And so now we have to worry about space, which is such a cool thing as an agronomist and a geek, like how cool is it that we have to worry about satellites? So we'll talk more about that some of the science behind it. I think, Kelly use a term with me yesterday, oh, he's gonna be disappointed that I've already forgotten it. But when you think about it, right, all this imagery has to be collected so that shadows are consistent or non existent when they collect that imagery. And so that's something that you don't think about, but it is absolutely something that these companies that run the satellites and collect your imagery, that's something that they think about. So we'll talk about those kinds of sciency terms.
Sarah Lovas 9:43
And we actually have experts that right here on staff that do that work, Clint is is a huge expert with imagery so it's gonna be it's gonna be a lot of fun to visit with him about that too.
Jodi Boe 9:55
Do we call him our aerospace engineer? We can. I think we should do that. Surprise Clint!
Sarah Lovas 10:01
We're going to, we're going to start giving everybody new job titles on our podcast. So now we've got our own aerospace engineer.
Jodi Boe 10:10
The sky is now the limit.
Sarah Lovas 10:12
The sky is NOT the limit anymore.
Jodi Boe 10:14
You're right! We're already in space and here I'm limiting us at the at the sky.
Sarah Lovas 10:18
No, we're going way beyond that. Anyway, it's going to be a fun ride. We are so excited to do this podcast, we're going to just explore everything that we possibly can and right down to different agronomy ideas, things that we can try to, to do at the field level. You know, variable rate, fertilizer seed,
Jodi Boe 10:41
IDC management, IDC management,
Sarah Lovas 10:43
acidic soil management, maybe some pesticide conversations and there, it could get really fun. So anyway, we are just really looking forward to it. And I guess, I think it's going to be fun.
Jodi Boe 10:59
It's going to be so much fun. What I hope you take away is that you know that GK has a map for that. And please come along with us as we go on this podcasting ride.
Sarah Lovas 11:09
It's going to be fun! GK technology we've got a map and an app for that.
Theme Music 11:14
In the fields again. From the land that needs re-feeding after harvest. With N P and K, greater crops that keep yields turning your way In the fields again. I just can't wait to get in the fields again. The life I love is spreading potash with my friends. And I can't wait to get in the fields again. No, I can't wait to get in the fields again.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai