TerraClear’s Director of Product, Don Scribner interviewed by AgNews890 at the Commodity Classic discussing TerraScout, Rock Maps and more. Read the full transcript of the interview here:
0:00: , joining me now, we got a big announcement, that we want to share from TerraClear, although we kind of cheated a little bit.
0:05: joining us is Don Scribner.
0:07: Did, did Jeremy fess up like last week?
0:09: We, we just got a little information, a little teaser out there.
0:12: Nobody’s listening.
0:13: Tell us what’s going on.
0:14: you guys visited the unveil of TerraScout?
0:17: Was that this morning or is that yet to come?
0:19: That is today, so it’s about ready to come at, about 21 hour and a half from now.
0:24: OK, that’s classic.
0:25: How did you guys get an orchestra in here?
0:28: OK, maybe not.
0:29: I knew a few people.
0:31: Music’s just blaring over there.
0:33: All right, so tell us about.
0:34: , let’s start with TerraScout, and then we’ll get on to TerraClear and the work that you do.
0:39: Now, first of all, you’re a director of product, but you’re based out of Idaho.
0:44: what’s kind of life like for you on a daily basis?
0:46: I guess maybe we’ll start there first.
0:47: Yeah, so I cover everything from our future R&D back to our stuff that’s in the market.
0:52: So rock maps, the app, the whole software suite.
0:55: So working with farmers kind of across the, we, we cover the Midwest, Canada, Idaho, all the way up to the East Coast, so.
1:03: OK.
1:03: Working with different folks and just trying to understand what’s going on in the market and looking where we can plant our products.
1:08: Yeah, absolutely.
1:09: Is it always changing?
1:10: I mean, you can’t stay stagnant in this business, can you?
1:12: You can’t.
1:13: It’s just, it’s the same problems with a lot cooler technology to not try and go address them.
1:18: Yeah, absolutely.
1:18: Well, you guys, I think, have taken a, major step forward.
1:22: when I saw a picture, I think it was maybe that I didn’t see, but I saw of your, tear scout.
1:29: I’m like, it reminded me of.
1:31: Star Wars and those walker, the Imperial walkers, you know what I’m talking about.
1:34: It’s not that bad.
1:35: The legs don’t run yet.
1:37: It’s pretty cool looking though, and it’s actually much smaller than that.
1:40: So tell us about Terra Scout, and is it, I realize that it’s got mapping technology, but is it kind of a, a branch a little bit further because it has some work to do with weeds and other things?
1:50: Yeah, so it, it, it offers a lot of opportunities with the chassis, but Terror Scout just kind of in general, it’s, it’s a full field, real-time data collection scout, so.
1:59: It’s a tool that can work with farmers, with agronomists to just get out there and actually map every square inch of your field.
2:05: But so it does our rock maps today.
2:07: It does weed detection so it can build real-time weed prescriptions to import in your sprayer as a shape file.
2:13: And then it has a lot of opportunity to go kind of throughout the growing season to go out and look at plant health and look at all these different aspects.
2:21: So question number one, when would this be available for, I guess, mass production or for people to purchase?
2:26: Yep.
2:27: So we’re gonna be doing some kind of limited trials this spring and summer, and then this fall we’ll be doing a, a limited release and then really kind of going full swing in the spring of 27.
2:36: So I know your business is, you know, mapping fields and, and really trying to work around the rock aspect, but will this change the dynamics?
2:44: I mean, would this be something that somebody would purchase to have to go out and, and also, I mean, it’s also from the get-go, it’s been no also, but will the weed component of it also.
2:53: So be maybe a sales force for you, yeah, and it’ll, it’ll kind of allow both, both avenues, right?
2:58: So the, the farmer themselves could own it and also we work with a lot of third parties that are doing custom work so they could have it and be using it as a service opportunity as well.
3:06: So, OK, so when it’s detecting weeds.
3:10: Is it detecting everything?
3:12: I mean, and how do you unload that?
3:14: So yeah, so it’s a ton of data.
3:15: So the, the TerraScout, the kind of the secret sauce to it is it has a full onboard computing system there.
3:20: So it’s looking at weed species, weed height, and also the density on a 1 square foot basis.
3:26: So as it’s going through the field, it’s looking at a square foot, every square foot of the field, and it’s saying what’s in the, what’s in that square foot?
3:32: How many of those plants are there, and then what’s that relative height, you know, come from 0 to 12 inches.
3:37: But it’s not a sprayer.
3:38: It’s not a sprayer yet.
3:39: Yeah.
3:40: , but you do have booms on there, and I think that’s something else, or at least you can, does that come with the, the booms are a part of it.
3:47: So what it does is it gets us a 60-foot mapping array and we can go up to 50 miles an hour.
3:51: So it allows us to be a super highly productive machine.
3:54: So, you know, a couple of hours you can be through a quarter and have a spray prescription ready to go.
3:59: So whether you’re doing a pool-type sprayer, a newer sprayer, as long as you can ingest, shape file as a prescription.
4:05: You could go turn that sprayer into a spot sprayer.
4:07: OK.
4:07: What do you need for manpower then to run this?
4:09: Nothing today.
4:10: You gotta, you have to get it to the field and get it in there and hit go.
4:14: And you’re supposed to download the like the maps and everything.
4:16: How do they get the maps?
4:17: Yeah, so the map will be just like a rock map.
4:19: It’s through the app.
4:20: So there’ll be an interface.
4:21: So when you go to a sprayer standpoint, there’s kind of a two-step.
4:24: You’re gonna use our.
4:25: App to actually kind of decide here’s what I want to do with the information and then you’re gonna send that shape file over whether it’s, you know, case deer, somebody else.
4:33: I think this is super cool and it comes in a track system, right?
4:36: Is it, do all of them come in a track?
4:38: So right now we have tracks.
4:39: We’re also gonna be having tires.
4:40: So just depending on the environment, what you want to run, there’s a couple of different options.
4:44: Why would you not want track.
4:46: You know, it was like, I think it was like 567 years ago when we had that we’re just, everything was wet.
4:51: It was always wet.
4:51: It was a lot of wet last year too, but I think most guys now and gals are just like, yeah, we’ll just buy it with the tracks.
4:57: Yeah, so we, we wanted basically the two things is this thing runs day and night.
5:01: So those, there’s a lighting array on there.
5:02: So we wanted the ability that when you want information on your field, the machine would go through the field, so.
5:07: Now, the data that you get, is it then compatible with people’s sprayers and you just upload whatever data it gives you, or maybe you’re having a company do it for you too?
5:17: I don’t, I don’t know.
5:18: Yeah, right now we’re just generating a shape file that you can upload into whatever spray it may be.
5:23: So you need a, you know, an ISO display with task controller on there, but as long as you have that with Some sort of section control whether it’s all boom or individual nozzle, you can take advantage of it.
5:32: Then the million dollar question is people are listening to this and we’re gonna keep promoting it, but, where can people find this?
5:38: Where can they, can they read the press release and find out the details?
5:41: Yeah, so if you go to terralear.com, all the information on the Terra Scout, is out there where we’ll be as we kind of go throughout the season.
5:48: , we’ll start putting some blog posts on there just to kind of keep people informed.
5:52: So if they’re in the area, please stop by and chat with us.
5:55: Will, will there be a lot of those, or these out, out there?
5:59: I mean, this summer, there’ll be a few out there this summer and then really start to ramp up into the fall and in the spring next year.
6:04: Yeah.
6:05: Are you doing a show?
6:06: I’m assuming you’re probably doing a lot of egg shows.
6:08: Yep, we’ll be out probably on the fall.
6:09: Circuit as well, I, we’ve got, are you going to farm progress?
6:13: Are you hauling all the way down there?
6:15: We’ll see where we’re actually at and what we’re how much money we’re making first before we commit to that.
6:19: TerraClear, tell me about that as well.
6:22: Obviously you guys have been around for a little while.
6:23: What’s the, what’s the age of TerraClear?
6:25: So we are going on to our 7th, 8th year now, so.
6:30: , since 2018, so it’s, it’s really a tech company.
6:33: So we started in the rocks and really it was kind of how do we build this foundation around being able to detect certain things, really high resolution data and bring that into something that’s usable for farmers.
6:42: So started with rocks and now taking kind of all that knowledge and skill set, moving over to weeds, and then some of the next things are gonna come after that.
6:50: It’s gonna do my laundry for me?
6:51: No, not yet.
6:54: That is pretty cool.
6:54: If you get a chance, we do have folks that are coming down here from.
6:58: , North Dakota.
6:59: So if you come here to commodity Classic over the next, we haven’t even started yet and we’re already talking about product, but, if you come down here, you guys are right, door number one.
7:07: Like you got, how’d you get such a prime position?
7:10: Holy cats, who do you know?
7:12: Jeremy got us in there.
7:13: Got you a good spot.
7:14: 09.
7:15: Well, I am super excited about, your product.
7:18: and I don’t even probably get to drive one, but, it’d be, so can you drive it manually or like the scout or you use a remote control, just like load it and unload it off of a trailer and move it into a field, and then after that it’s all on its own.
7:30: OK.
7:30: How many cars did Jeremy hit so I can find out before.
7:33: Yeah, we haven’t given him the remote control yet.
7:36: website one more time, Don, before we let you go.
7:38: TerraClear.com.
7:39: Awesome.
7:40: All right, well, it’s great to meet you.
7:41: And then are you guys doing anything like special?
7:44: Is it like this afternoon or is it?
7:46: No, we’re just gonna be around talking to everyone, so feel free to stop by.
7:49: Very good.
7:50: Don Scribner again, director of product for TerraClear.
7:54: We’re gonna take a break.