Watching my uncle's farm go from guessing to sensors, 3 seasons in
My uncle runs 200 acres near Ames and back in 2022 he was still walking rows with a clipboard to decide when to water. Last month I visited and he showed me a setup where soil sensors feed an AI model that texts him which zones need water and when. His corn yield went up about 12 percent over two seasons and he says he uses way less water now. The wild part is he is 68 and was the guy who swore he would never trust a computer with his fields. Has anyone else seen older farmers actually come around to this stuff, or is my uncle just an outlier?