It’s a weekday afternoon in mid-March, and farmer Jeff Heepke is putting the finishing touches on last year’s crop of corn and soybeans.

Behind his tractor, he’s pulling a 48-foot-wide field cultivator, churning up dust and scrambling harvest remnants into the soil in preparation for spring planting. This particular patch of land — 20 acres off Route 3 south of Interstate 270 — is a small piece of the 4,000 acres, between Granite City and Rockbridge, Ill., farmed by the 33-year-old Edwardsville grower and two younger brothers.

Just like last year, Heepke is optimistic about new technology he’ll be using this year, his second with Monsanto’s fledgling FieldScripts program.

Like everything else falling under the precision agriculture umbrella, FieldScripts aims to help farmers squeeze as much production as possible from every inch of their soil.

The iPad Heepke carries in his cab displays a map of this 20-acre tract. The multicolored graphic shows how much corn he’s supposed to plant in each section of the plot.

The strongest, most fertile areas will get up to 40,000 seeds per acre, while weaker areas might get less than 28,000.

Before this? He’d just spread 32,000 seeds across every acre and hope for the best.