4 Ways Launch Pad Reduces Farm Costs

Start this spring with accurate inputs, less driving and fewer hours in the field

Farming is a game of margins. It involves generations of knowledge, land stewardship, and a skill set that few lifestyles and occupations can match, but at the end of the day, success comes down to getting the best price possible for yields while doing everything to minimize spending on seed, fertilizer, fuel, and labour. 

Reducing seed and fertilizer poundage per acre is counterintuitive to growing a better crop, but there are ways to reduce input costs while also planting for optimal yields. 

Launch Pad by Verge allows farmers to trim their spring seeding inputs through precise and visualized path planning and optimized in-field movements. The interface provides farmers with the tools to tweak input parameters, compare and adjust in-field plans, and evaluate the impact of seeding across all in-season operations. Launch Pad provides a platform that ensures there are never any wasted passes, which translates into massive savings over time. 

1. Improve in-field movement

In-field operational planning is essential to running a profitable farm year after year. Verge has proven that by planning and optimizing the movement of equipment in the field, farmers are able to maximize their return by cutting bigger, better crops, faster. How does Verge’s technology improve the in-field movement of their machines? By utilizing a series of algorithms, topography and geospatial mapping in connection with information already stored inside the equipment; Verge is delivering optimal guidance lines to each piece of equipment before it even enters the field. This translates into full application coverage through both partial pass and point row reduction, allowing operators to seed the same field using fewer inputs. 

In addition, farmers who are looking to purchase new land, upgrade or buy new equipment can leverage the tool to assess their land management needs. In some cases, farmers are finding that by leveraging Verge’s farm logistics software, they are able to farm more land using the same set of equipment they’ve already been using.

2. Reduced fuel consumption 

Fuel costs are an unavoidable expense, making up 6.7% of overall Canadian farm expenditures, on average. Extra passes add up over thousands of acres, burning fuel (and profits) from every farmers bottom line. By modelling a field’s entire path plan (including non-working maneuvering time), Launch Pad can help farmers reduce working and non-working time spent in the field, resulting in less overall engine runtime, and a savings in fuel. Verge’s customers have seen savings as high as $1.00 to $1.20 per acre, a significant amount when multiplied across every acre, during seeding alone. 

3. Get more from your resources 

Utilizing Launch Pad’s precision ag platform to set up each piece of equipment with their own set of predetermined guidance lines, based on current field boundaries, speeds up the time it takes to work a field. By trimming hours and expenses that were otherwise spent on unnecessary field movements or confusion in the field, Verge’s customers are seeing major improvements such as finishing harvest up to 9 days faster. Optimized in-field operations also increases the average acres for each machine, while reducing movement-related confusion. In other words, as Janel at Delage Farms puts it,  “Launch Pad allows us to just do our jobs”.

4. Extend machinery lifespan 

As we stated in a previous blog, machinery has eclipsed nearly all other farm expenses as the number one expenditure and the cost inflation of both purchase and repair isn’t expected to slow down. The only way to truly maximize machinery both new and used is to reduce unnecessary movement and run-time hours. Launch Pad by Verge can do both, effectively extending the lifespan of farm equipment. 

Verge can get you set up and proficient by the time you start planting. Take a look at our value-based pricing program, book a free demo, reach out to one of our sales representatives or sign-up today for a 30-Day FREE Trial today. No credit card necessary. Bring the Launch Pad advantage to your farm.