From Our Farmers: Brandon Brieger

August 03, 2017

I grew up around farming. My family used to farm cotton in Wilson, Texas, until my grand-dad sold the farm in 2012 due to health issues. Now, I work on our family friend’s farm, and I've been working on his farm for 3 years now. We farm cotton, corn, wheat, and milo on about 6,000 acres in the Wolfforth area.

I love farming. It’s a challenge and I enjoy the sense of accomplishment that I feel after planting the seed, seeing it come up, watering the crop all summer, and seeing the end product. Ever since I was a little kid, that's all I ever wanted to do— I just love it all, it's just the best job ever.

 

cotton harvest

Harvesting cotton on the farm

 

Using technology for more efficient farm management

We use technology a lot in our operation. It's really helped us be more efficient in everything that we do. We're able to learn what works and what doesn't and what we've done here and what we've done there.

We have maybe 2 or 3 full time guys helping manage 6,000 acres of farmland. FarmLogs helps me keep track of who's doing what and where—it's definitely saving us a lot of time.

 

One of our fields in my FarmLogs account

One of our fields in my FarmLogs account

 

One of my friends actually introduced me to FarmLogs. I downloaded the app and mapped out all our fields, and I really liked how easy it was to use. Now, I keep track of everything on FarmLogs. What I really like about FarmLogs is that it’s really well put together and it’s up-to-date on everything, especially rainfall totals. The weather stations around here just aren’t as reliable. The Recent Rain feature is really helpful with irrigation. We know how much rainfall is where so that we can turn the irrigation off or turn it on.

I also use FarmLogs to keep notes. I like knowing and being able to easily recall what I did, because there's a lot that goes into farming. It’s great to have a record of what we did, so in the future I'll know what works and what doesn't. It helps give us a better outlook on what the field's are going to produce.

 

Sunset on the farm

Sunset on the farm

 

Easier record keeping

We have to report sprayer records to the Texas Department of Agriculture so that they know what we're spraying and how much but other than that not much else.

With FarmLogs, we're able to log where we spray and how much fertilizer was used right in the app instead of having to physically keep it in the books. For the longest time my boss would keep a paper book in his truck and write it all down, but it's a whole lot nicer to be just throw them in FarmLogs and then show him what we’ve done.

 


 

Follow Brandon on Instagram @brieger34 to see more of his farm photos or ask him any questions you have.

 

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Brandon Brieger

Author

Brandon Brieger works as an assistant farm manager on a 6,000 acre operation in Wolfforth, Texas. He farms cotton, corn, wheat, and milo.