2021 is a wrap, and so is another season of the Agriculture Technology Podcast.
Host Tony Kramer looks back on the year's episodes and highlights some of his favorite episodes - which would you add to the list?
Learn more about precision ag solutions from the team at RDO by visiting us online.
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You can find past podcast episodes by visiting our Podcast website.
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View the entire transcript here:
Tony Kramer: Hi. I'm Tony Kramer with RDO Equipment Company. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Agriculture Technology Podcast.
Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This is episode number 159. Today, we are going to be wrapping up the 2021 season of the show and talking about a few of my favorite episodes.
Like I said at the beginning, we are wrapping up the 2021 season of this podcast. That's right. We put out a whole another year that marks six years of producing, and putting out this podcast, we put out another 25 episodes. For those of you that have been with us from the beginning in 2016 when all of this started, if you would've asked me if we would still be going this strong six years later, I don't know what I would've told you.
If you would've told me that we'd be still doing this, I would've told you you're crazy. There was no way I thought that this was going to be able to be long-term, but it is. It's here, and it's because of you. It's because of all of you listeners. Back in 2016 when we started this show, we were averaging 200 listens an episode, 300 listens an episode. Here we are six or five years later, and we're getting 3,000 listens per episode, and we're tickling with the number of 4,000 listens per episode.
Thank you very much to all of you listeners. We hear at RDO Equipment Company and Agriculture Technology Podcast, we greatly appreciate everything that you guys are doing to really help us continue to thrive with this podcast, and continue pushing forward with great content, good guests, episodes, topics, all of that fun stuff. Some of the stuff that I wanted to talk about in this episode is just a few of my favorite episodes that we covered this year in 2021.
Starting off going all the way back almost to the beginning of the year, episode number 136 with John Deere AutoPath. I had a fellow coworker of mine here at RDO Equipment Ben Hilde, had him on the show to talk about AutoPath. I highly recommend you go back and listen to all of these episodes that we're going to talk about. The AutoPath episode, it's an awesome technology that John Deere came out with.
There's no more having to look for guess rows or count rows when you're trying to cut in a land with the combine, or the beat lifter, or whatever it may be, any row crop situation. You're not having to guess rows or figure out where you're at. It does all of that for you. Go check out episode 136 AutoPath with Ben Hilde. The next episode, John Deere is really pushing the boundaries when it comes to technology, autonomous technology, and all of this stuff.
Artificial intelligence, AI technology, John Deere released the See & Spray Select system on the sprayers. That technology is huge. In all parts of the United States, all parts of the world, See & Spray Select is meant for burned down applications, or fallowed applications where you're driving the sprayer down. You don't want to cover the entire field with chemistry, but you're able to go out and the cameras on the boom will spot spray weeds as you're going across that fallowed or burned-down type ground.
Again, episode 143, Erin Hightower, RDO Equipment Agronomist out in the Pacific Northwest had Erin talking about that, really fun episode. The next thing when it comes to John Deere and the amount of technology that they are just pushing into the agriculture industry, a lot of you heard the news. Back on episode 153, I got to interview Daniel Carmichael from Bear Flag Robotics.
Bear Flag Robotics was purchased by John Deere, and what John Deere-- what Bear Flag is doing is they have an autonomous solution when it comes to driverless tractors. They're still monitoring those tractors. It's not 100% autonomous, but they're able to run a fleet of machines with one person as those are going throughout the field being remotely monitored.
I really encourage you to go out again, listen to all these episodes, but that's episode number 153. On that same note, the autonomous and just having driverless machines and being able to monitor them remotely, it brings me to episode number 157. On episode 157, we talked about GUSS. GUSS it's an autonomous sprayer. I got to talk to Gary Thompson and he told us all about how GUSS started.
GUSS started as more of a kind of service. It was a service they were going to offer and people came to him and said, "We would like to buy this for our own an operation." One of the really unique things I think about GUSS, and in that episode 157 we talk about is that GUSS, the autonomous sprayer is not just for large-scale operations. In that episode, Gary tells us about a gentleman that's just an owner-operator, a one-man show that he was interested in purchasing an autonomous sprayer because it would make him and his operation more efficient.
That's another really cool one. The GUSS sprayers are meant for specialty crops, so orchards, vineyards, that type of stuff. It's a blast sprayer. It looks like a-- I don't even know how to explain it. It looks like a silver bullet. It's a really neat design. Again, episode 157, GUSS where we sit down and talk with Gary Thompson. The last one talking about specialty crops.
This is a bonus episode that I also really enjoyed just because of my love for the sugar beet industry, but we talk about specialty crops. A lot of what we do on this podcast is talk about solutions provided to the commodity crop industry. That's the corn, soybean, small grains, what everybody is generally doing across general agriculture. Now I know there's lots of different stuff out there, and that's why I wanted to bring this one in which ties into GUSS. GUSS is meant for orchards, vineyards, crops like that.
The Amity, episode 155, I got to sit down and talk with Michael Anderson from Amity Technology, and my love and interest of the sugar beet industry makes me want to keep this one close to one of my favorites this year. Amity Technology has done a ton when it comes to bringing technology into the sugar beet industry. Even today, majority of sugar beet operations, it's a very-- aside from John Deere AutoTrac or any other auto-steering system, the sugar beet world or sugar beet harvest is a very manual process.
There's not a lot of technology involved, but Amity Technology and their line of sugar beet equipment is really taking it to the next level by adding in these different types of technology that are making sugar beet growers more efficient, more productive, and able to harvest a better crop. Check that one out as well, episode 155. Those are just five of my favorite episodes. Of course, they're all amazing episodes.
We go back to episode 141, sat down with Nick Horob with Harvest Profit. Most of you heard Harvest Profit was purchased by John Deere as another solution, as a financial solution for growers. Check out episode 141. I could really list the entire 25 or 24 episode menu from 2021 but just wanted to touch on a few of my favorites for any of you to go back and listen.
If you're just joining us, you're just finding the Agriculture Technology Podcast, go back and listen to all of them. Like I said, at the beginning of the show, this is season six, we are now moving into season seven. We are in our seventh year of production. 2022 is going to be fun. Now, this is the Agriculture Technology Podcast, so of course, most of what we're going to do is going to focus on agriculture technology solutions but we like to mix things up a little bit. Here in 2021, we had some construction stuff on the show. Looking forward to 2022 just for different opportunities. Just to get information out there in regards to the egg industry as a whole. Our focus is still going to be agriculture technology, that's going to be the forefront of this show. Hoping to get some new guests on, get some new topics, all of that stuff but also have a lot of fun with it.
I've enjoyed doing this for the past six years. I hope all of you listeners have enjoyed the information that we are sharing. Hopefully, this stuff is useful to you, beneficial. Whether you're in the industry as a professional or you're a farmer or a grower yourself, or maybe you're young kid interested in moving into the egg industry or being a part of agriculture technology or whatever it may be. Hopefully, this podcast is reaching all of the different avenues when it comes to listenership and what you guys do. Again, I want to thank all of you listeners. It means the world to us here at RDO Equipment that you guys are listening.
The listenership continues to grow more and more and more. Pass it on to your friends. It is so cool as the host of the podcast to be at an Ag expo or a farm show and someone comes up and says, "Tony Kramer. Hey, aren't you the host of the Agriculture Technology Podcast?" It's like, "Yes, that's me." They'll recognize my voice from something. We've had different dealerships compliment us on what we're doing. Whether that be other John Deere dealers or we’ve even had some case dealers reach out and say, "Hey, you guys do a great job.
We really enjoy listening to your show." It means so much to us to hear that feedback, those comments, read the reviews that you guys are putting out there. If you haven't done that yet, I really encourage you to do it. Share the podcast with your friends. Make sure they're all listening. It's awesome to see this thing grow. We are very excited to watch it continue to grow in 2022. I don't really know what else to say other than thank you to all of you listeners.
With that, this is the last show for the year of 2021. Thank you again for listening and we will see all of you in 2022. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode. If you have questions about the technology and products discussed or have ideas about future episodes, please leave them in the comments below. You can also subscribe to RDOs YouTube channel and be in the know about each episode or tune in on any streaming service. Thanks again for listening.
