When Mike Palmier started Max Ag Consulting as an agronomy consulting company in 2019, he never expected that SWAT MAPS would become the core of his business and his scouting work would be complimentary.
โI started an agronomy consulting company and now weโre more of a services company with an agronomic focus,โ said Palmier in a recent interview. โNone of this was in my five-year plan. Our partnership with SWAT MAPS has helped us grow bigger than we ever expected. SWAT MAPS is central to our business and our customers.โ
Finding value in VR
As a SWAT MAPS Service Provider, Max Ag Consulting works with farmers within 150kms of Plenty, SK. Four years into utilizing the SWAT MAPS technology, Palmier says he has seen many shifted mindsets in farmers. Farms in year three or four of using the technology are starting to see big differences after initially being hesitant to test it out.
โSome of our customers right off the bat said they werenโt interested in VR and didnโt believe in it. We continued with their scouting and once they started learning about the differences in areas of their field, the lightbulb came on,โ states Palmier. โWhat we can do with the maps starts to make sense to them. Farms arenโt doing whatโs cool. They want to see the results.โ
Palmierโs customer acre retention rate is now above 98% and customer referrals are generating significant business for him.
The mission of Max Ag Consulting is to help their clients make better decisions in order to maximize their field potential. โSWAT MAPS isnโt just a map telling us where the crop is better or worse. We analyze the data and learn from historic trends, nutrient responsiveness, and more,โ said Palmier. โFor example, we found we can get as big of a return on investment with adjusting seeding rates as we can with varying fertilizer rates. Weโre helping identify issues and creating strategies to improve crop production with VR.โ
Not pressing the easy button
Now consisting of six full time employees, Max Ag Consulting strives to provide honest and proven agronomic advice to their customers. โWe arenโt afraid to do the hard work,โ said Palmier. โIt would be easy to send a spray application without ever checking it, but is that the right thing to do? We donโt press the easy button with precision ag or VR.โ
โSWAT MAPS has changed our whole thinking of whatโs going on in the field. We analyze a lot of data with SWAT and weโre learning a lot about trends in historic data, nutrient responsiveness and more,โ said Palmier. โWeโre continually ground truthing our assumptions and improving our understanding year after year, while also learning how the crop is responding in different environmental conditions.โ
The challenge of precision ag
Understanding where precision agriculture has a practical application on farms is a top consideration for their team of agronomists. โWe continue to work with our customers on taking new technologies and ensuring they fit on the farm. The challenge of precision ag is the industry tries to build everything on a computer and they donโt have people in the field to validate it. Weโre constantly asking how we can make the machines and people work together seamlessly. Weโre in the middle helping our customers with the adoption of technology. We make sure itโs the right fit for them and will bring the results they are looking for.โ
The SWAT MAPS Team is proud to work alongside dedicated teams like the one at Max Ag Consulting. Stay tuned with whatโs happening in their area of West-Central Saskatchewan by following them on social media or visiting their website:
Twitter: @MaxAgConsulting
Facebook: Facebook.com/MaxAgConsulting
Website: www.maxag.ca
Farmers: visit https://wpstaging.swatmaps.com/partner-locator/ to find a SWAT MAPS Service Provider near you.
Service providers: Contact us for partnership opportunities.