The ‘Music’ of Ag Technology
January 1, 2025 Late last year, one of the agricultural equipment industry’s key pioneers, Al McQuinn, passed away at the age of 93. For many decades, McQuinn was known throughout the marketplace as the founder of Ag-Chem Equipment Co., originator of the popular RoGator brand of self-propelled sprayers. And although he sold Ag-Chem Equipment to AGCO Corp. back in 2000, McQuinn remained a fixture in the agricultural space well into the 2010s.
Besides being a pioneer in Big IRON, McQuinn was also known as an innovator in ag technology. He frequently integrated GPS technology, GIS software, and variable-rate applications systems into his company’s units. In total, McQuinn held seven patents for such products.
McQuinn had some very insightful views on ag technology throughout his lifetime. In fact, in an interview with Farm Chemicals magazine (CropLife’s predecessor) in November 1999, McQuinn compared the creation of new technology to making a musical composition.
“Technology today is like writing music,” he said. “There’s no limit to the songs you can write using the seven basic notes, and there’s no limit to where technology can take us.”
One wonders what McQuinn would think of all the new ag technologies “playing for customers” now. Over the past few years, market watchers and attendees of the premier ag technology show, Tech Hub LIVE, have witnessed first-hand all the new developments for improving/streamlining/monetizing today’s ag practices. Application drones, autonomous vehicles, and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered spraying systems are just a few of the new product innovations that have appeared in the market since the start of 2021, each playing their own symphonies for customers.
And many other ag companies are also looking at ways the industry can better utilize such “technology music.” Indeed, at a recent Nutrien Ag Solutions event, Paul Bonnett, Senior Director of Digital Agronomy and Data Services, talked about all the ways AI implementation might play out for agriculture and agronomists.
The first is providing human readable insights, translating data into contextual reliable insights to lower the cognitive load of interpretation. Another would be to accelerate training for new hires using specialized chat-like capabilities to enable self-learning. Also, AI can be used to enable crop consultants to access on-demand crop protection and seed label information specific use practices.
Finally, AI can be used to help solve one persistent ag data problem. “Right now, there are files, there are PDFs, multiple formats being used,” said Bonnett. “Using AI, we can convert these into one standardized dataset for use.”
In other words, AI can be used to create technology music that can be shared across platforms!
In his summation to Farm Chemicals, McQuinn believed tomorrow’s ag technology innovations would continue to “sing” for users. “Things are moving fast, but really, we haven’t seen anything yet.”
Based upon the evidence of the day, you were so right, Al. It’s nice to know “the music of ag technology” will continue to play loud and strong, for all to hear.
Godspeed, my friend! You will be missed. But it’s nice to know that the “technology music” you helped write will go on . . .
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