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Autonomous robotic systems may replace status quo single-pass destructive harvest with two or more passes. Multiple-harvest systems avoid production and quality penalties from non-optimum harvest timing. Interperiod carryover penalties for perishable crops reduce physical production available for harvest. Reduced quality adversely affects sales price. In addition to maximized returns to fixed costs, optimum timing for each multiple-pass harvest event was reported. Multiple-pass optimization models are useful for forestry and logging, fresh produce such as berries and tomatoes, orchard crops such as apples and pears, field crops such as cotton, and other high-value indeterminate crops. Here, cotton, a high-value indeterminate field crop with specialized harvest equipment was the example. Results are pertinent to farmers, researchers, and equipment manufacturers developing the next generation of machinery to perform their own what-if analyses using interactive web dashboard tools.

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Griffin, T. W., Yeager, E. A., Rains, G. C, Griffin, T. G., Raper, T. B., 

Lindhorst, C. 

Harvesting
Graphs

Farm data valuation has been an emergent topic across the agricultural sector for several decades. Previous analyses focused on estimating damages from misappropriation, although no existing estimates of valuation within the farm gates for data, especially inaccessible data. Based on actual events when yield monitor data became inaccessible to farm operators, damages were estimated in anticipation of litigation. Valuation was estimated given how yield monitor data was intended to be used in the decision-making process. Specifically, valuation was estimated within the context of conducting farmer-managed on-farm experimentation. Farmers implicitly value on-farm experiments given the financial and non-monetary, i.e. human capital, investments. Key outcomes included 1) farm operators must be perceived to use data and 2) data must be treated as valuable. Each on-farm experiment was valued at over $40,000.

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Griffin, T. W.

Farm operators consider financial and non-monetary factors when investing in technology; however, economic analyses usually ignore important non-monetary factors while focusing on only monetary factors. Non-monetary factors such as human capital costs and quality-of-life benefits explain adoption rate deviation from industry expectations. Six technologies examined include automated guidance, automated section control, imagery, precision soil sampling, variable rate, and yield monitors. Rather than exclusively relying on financial analyses to model technology adoption decisions, a holistic economic perspective replete with joint utility maximization within the household is proposed. Future generations of digital technology are likely to be developed with less reliance on required human capital investment while improving quality of life.

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Traywick, L., Nilsson, T., González de Cosío, A., Griffin, T. W.

Agriculture Drone
Athlete with Net

Sport-related concussions are a prevalent issue, affecting up to 3 million individuals annually and often impacting the visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive systems. The Y-Balance Lower Quarter (YBT-LQ) is a movement screen where an athlete must utilize these three systems. It can be used to assess an athlete's risk for injury and dynamic balance. This study aimed to determine if student-athletes with a history of concussion perform worse on the YBT-LQ, due to the impact of concussion on the sensory systems, compared to healthy controls. The researcher’s hypothesis was that athletes with a history of concussion would score lower on the YBT-LQ compared to healthy controls.

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H. LoganJ. BradshawA. Bartis, P. HallT. W. GriffinL. S. Traywick

D. James, A. YoungW. ConradD. R. Curtis

Corn planting progress was already behind schedule for several weeks prior to the Gannon event on weekend of 10 May 2024. Midwestern farms were unusually vulnerable to a GNSS outage due to terrestrial weather delaying planting. Estimating regional losses due to GNSS outage is a multiple-step process. The first step estimates foregone production for a representative farm due to delayed planting. Analysis of a representative farm was necessary because no other method was feasible to arrive at the intended metric of number of acres affected by downtime. The second step determines the number of farms adversely affected by GNSS outage. Third, state-level production losses are calculated then summed into national estimates. Data sources included publicly available USDA statistics and university publications. A range of estimates are provided including yield sensitivity to delayed planting, effective planter capacity, and percentage of farms susceptible to outage such that the reader can follow the logic of calculations and arrive at their own conclusions. UPDATE WITH FINAL ESTIMATES One of the leading corn-producing states, Illinois, serves as a demonstration into how the analysis and calculations were conducted before reporting across 12 Midwestern states. The representative GNSS-reliant corn farm in Illinois experienced foregone revenue of $16,000. Summing across all susceptible farms in Illinois, state-level production decreased by nearly 35M bushels valued at $138M due to GNSS-outage delaying planting into later weeks. Applying this logic to the remaining Midwestern states, 280M bushels valued at $1.15B were foregone compared to if GNSS-enabled navigation technology remained operational during the weekend of 10-12 May 2024. REPORT LOWER BOUND AND MIDRANGE in addition to UPPER BOUND?? Early warning of GNSS-outages may be useful for many practitioners but not likely sufficient to prevent production losses due to the complex timing with respect to the biological and climatic implications of agricultural systems. However, a now-cast informing practitioners of regional or global GNSS outage may be useful to prevent frustration and 5 working draft efforts running local diagnostic tests on equipment. The events of 10 May 2024 are not likely unique such that future GNSS outages are expected to occur during the current and future solar cycle maximums. Results are of interest to farmers, commodity traders, grain handling facilities, policy makers, space weather enthusiasts . . .

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T. W. Griffin, D. J. Knipp

Roasted Corn
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