2009 Ag Leader Technology Scholarship Wade Sohm 2009 Ag Leader Technology Scholarship

Background From small farm Graduated high school May 2005 Danbury, IA Gained general farm experience Almost no precision agriculture experience Graduated high school May 2005 Attended ISU from August 2005-Present Worked on three internships

Cyclone Harvesting Second summer on the wheat harvest Summer of 2007 Small custom harvesting company Harvested wheat, canola, & field peas from southern Oklahoma to Central North Dakota

Duties Combine operation Machinery maintenance Logistics planning Customer focus

Iowa State University Summer and Fall of 2008 Worked for the ABE department under Dr. Stuart Birrell Biomass harvester project Joint project with John Deere Development of a biomass / cob collection system

Duties New part design Fabrication Testing Machine operation and maintenance Data collection

Ag Leader Technology Summer of 2009 Worked in the mechanical design department Worked mainly on development of harvest related products

Duties Yield monitor testing Test stand fabrication Data collection Technical documentation Problem resolution

Precision Ag Huge implementation Necessary for future of agriculture Efficiency VRA, autosteer, section control, data collection High input cost Seed, fertilizer, fuel, equipment hours Environmental concerns

Future Plans Will be graduating in May, 2010 Looking for full-time career in ag equipment or precision ag industry Looking at some ground to rent and farm in the next few years

Questions?