My Visit to the Prairie State Technology Center

In last week’s enews I ran an item about a new precision ag technology training facility, the Prairie State Technology Center, just outside Champaign, IL. Since I was at the Midwest Ag Industries Expo less than an hour away in Bloomington, I decided to make a side trip and see what these folks are up to.

I sat down with the two guys that have been responsible for driving the project thus far, Jeremy Wilson of the crop consulting company CropIMS, and John Fishel, director of operations for the technology sales company PrecisionAg Equipment.

I was pretty impressed … these folks are truly dedicated to education on precision technology, and have basically turned an abandoned seed research outpost into a cool training facility in about five months’ time. The facility is being used by precision companies SST and AutoFarm, which have provided assistance and support of technology at the facility and who are using it for training their dealers and growers.

What’s nice is the facility allows for classroom training using actual equipment and software the trainees will be using in the field. After an hour of basic training, the trainees are dispatched to the field in fully equipped ATVs to gather data. They then return to the indoor training room to learn how to work with the data.

I’m not aware of any other facility like this providing training on precision technology … but if you’re out there and doing it, I would love to hear from you – and about you. You can send me a private message by clicking on this email address link, or post in the blog below.