The Latest Tech to Help You on Your Farm This Winter
Work doesn’t stop on the farm during winter. Sure, you’re not growing or harvesting anything, but you’re probably still hard at work preparing for spring and ensuring your operation stays in tip-top shape. One way to make winter work easier is to use all the right technology, which is why Central Arkansas Mahindra has provided a list of some of the latest and most essential winter farm tech that you’ll want to check out this season. You can also stop by our location in Little Rock, Arkansas, to chat with our experienced staff about some of their tips, or to connect with fellow farmers in the area. We welcome all those from Sherwood, Conway, and Hot Springs, so stop in today!
Get a Weather App
You’ll probably see this in a lot of agricultural technology articles, but really, weather patterns are a primary factor in the health and productivity of your farm. Even during the winter, knowing exactly how cold it’s going to get can help you prepare for deep freezes, flood warnings, and other extreme conditions that can still greatly affect the state of your fields and farm.
Getting a weather app can also help you plan for the last frost date. For most of Arkansas, the last frost date will happen some time in late March to early April, depending on where you live. Being able to look ahead at the forecast for several weeks at a time can give you the green light for planting, or advise you to hold off on starting the growing season too early.
iGrowing
Before we get to the farmers who have stopped growing crops for the winter, let’s take a moment to address the ones who have not. While Arkansas soil won’t grow anything outside, many farmers build a greenhouse to continue the growing season throughout the winter.
If you fall into this category, then consider checking out iGrowing or other apps that’ll allow you to monitor the conditions inside your greenhouse without needing to enter it and measure the conditions by hand. This can include monitoring humidity and temperatures, all from your smartphone. This can also help you make changes to your heating strategy to create the best, most eco-friendly results.
The Business Side of Things
Winter is a good time to sit down at a task or the dining room table or even in your favorite chair to crunch a few numbers. Your days might start later and end earlier, especially given the shorter daylight hours. And where there’s business, there’s technology. Something as simple as apps and programs to help make calculating last year’s yield, previous years’ yields, and possible future changes can dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend crunching numbers and improve productivity.
For the next big thing in agricultural product tracking, you’ll probably want to start reading up on Blockchain. Blockchain isn’t specifically made for agricultural communities, but it is starting to change the way our economy and transportation industry tracks products and supply chain efficiency, among many other things. It’s essentially a decentralized digital ledger of transactions. What does that mean for you? You can use it to track where your crops go and how transportation could be more efficient. With perishable food on the line, this is going to be a game-changer, so make sure you’re ahead of the game.
Let’s face it, technology is going to dramatically change the agricultural sector and, in many cases, already has. Maybe now’s a good time to familiarize yourself with those tech features that have been confounding you. Whether you’re looking to better understand some of your precision farming features, or you simply need to get a little more familiar with your computer, take the time now to accomplish this, so you don’t have to struggle through it in the middle of growing season.
The key to choosing the right tech for your farm is to stay informed. Keep researching and stop by Central Arkansas Mahindra to let us know what you came up with. You’ll find us in Little Rock, Arkansas, serving Sherwood, Conway, and Hot Springs, so visit us today! We can also show you some of the equipment we have for sale right now.