VIDALIA — Space age technology has taken its next step forward and come back to earth. More specifically, to the farm.

More and more farmers are beginning to use satellite technology to plan — and plant — their fields.

Using a Global Positioning System, a device with location data streaming from a satellite, farmers can program a computer in their farm equipment to essentially drive itself.

This means the machine can return to the same longitudinal or latitudinal point when planting rows.

Adams County Farmer Ross McGehee, who farms in both Adams County and Concordia Parish, uses the technology.

Some systems just display a map and direct a driver where to take a tractor, he said.

“(But) there are systems that run themselves,” he said. “They take over when you let loose of the steering wheel.”

Likewise, using a Global Imaging System, a device with a satellite feed connected to an electronic map of an area, farmers can program their equipment to perform certain functions in specific areas of their fields.

For example, they can program equipment to only fertilize a 10-acre section of a much larger field.

That computer also draws a map of the field while work is being done and shows farmers where they are in the field in real time, McGehee said.

“It shows you exactly how much you have done and how much you have yet to do,” he said.

At the end of the day, a computer card can be removed from the tractor, and maps of the day’s work can be downloaded on a home computer, McGehee said.

The reason to use the technology is to become more efficient, he said.

A system attached to a spray rig can adjust the rate of spray so it is consistent with the driver’s speed across a field, reducing overspray or the waste of expensive chemicals across the field.

“That $2,000 toy can save you a lot of money pretty quickly,” McGehee said.

Using satellite guidance systems also allows farmers to work after dark or in areas where visual markers cannot be used, he said.

“That eye in the sky will keep you straight,” he said.

McGehee said he isn’t worried the technology will eliminate the need for farmers to operate a farm.

“Those systems are still completely dependent of you,” he said. “You still have to input the information.”

The systems aren’t very complicated and are worth the expense, McGehee said.

“(I took) a few minutes to read the owner’s manual, and it’s paid for us time and time again,” he said. “I’m not a computer wizard by any means.”