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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Something Not Just Anyone Gets to Do:

By Randy Darr, President, Soil-Right Consulting Services, Inc.
     In our travels in the consulting business we encounter some really interesting opportunities.  This past season at Soil-Right we were involved with a research project with the University of Illinois-Chicago that involved us as ground truth coordinators in an aerial imagery project.  Aerial imagery is the practice of taking aerial pictures in infrared to discover the healthfulness of the corn crop.  We were the ones that went to pre-selected fields to verify what the satellite was telling us.
     With the infrared imagery we can tell by the colors as to how healthy a crop looks.  For example, dark green is very healthy, lighter greens to yellow is less healthy and red is bad.  In this project the aerial imagery is taken by satellite every couple of weeks through the growing season.  The information we obtained was then given to cooperating users of corn.  Cooperators last year happened to be ethanol plants in northern Illinois and Iowa.
On January 17, I had the fortune of speaking at the Chicago Board Options Exchange showing the program to grain buyers and traders at the Chicago Board of Trade.  We received a very good reception, and look to have more cooperators for the coming season.  Below is a picture of me speaking at the meeting.


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