Today as I write this we're heading home from a softball trip to Florida. It's been a nice week away with the family. Some 15 or 20 years ago this trip would have been nearly impossible this time of year. But now technology makes all the difference.

If your recall, our farm is highly irrigated. Some people call them irritators, others equate them to the demands of having livestock. Either way it's a necessary resource for us to utilize.

Every major irrigation manufacturer (and a couple independents) have remote monitoring and control platforms. We have been using them for more than 15 years. Over time, reliability has increased greatly. Today more than half of our systems have them installed.

I can start/stop and see real time rainfall from the desktop or an app on my phone. I can change rates remotely and even build VRT application maps. I pretty much have full control, plus additional features become available when retrofitting older control panels. I'm also alerted in the event of an equipment malfunction or power loss.

Though the systems are not integrated yet, we also have deployed eight moisture sensors and various fields. We're able to monitor what the soil reserve is and we are provided with an estimate (including forecast precipitation) of when soils will be depleted.

It takes me a few minutes to bounce around between three apps and check operations at home. The downside is when something goes wrong you still have to have somebody physically ‘go there’ to check things out. Fortunately dad is home this week and there have been few issues to deal with.

Speaking of home, here’s a drought update. We had a little bit of rain last Saturday. Dad completed fertigation applications on cornfields earlier this week. The last couple of days, we have been starting irrigation for the purpose of supplemental moisture. We are pretty much in full tassel and working to schedule airplanes for corn plant health applications, which start Monday.