Precision agricultural technologies provide farmers, practitioners and researchers the ability to conduct on-farm or field-scale research to refine farm management, improve long term crop production decisions, and implement site-specific management strategies. However, the limitations of these technologies must be understood to draw accurate and meaningful conclusions from such investigations. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to outline the limitations of several precision agriculture technologies (automatic section control, variable-rate, yield monitors, on-the-go sensors and GNSS receivers) to help insure these tools are utilized properly to conduct research at the sub--field scale. Selection, calibration, maintenance, and management of precision agriculture technologies are important factors to be considered when minimizing management and data collection errors thereby maximizing benefits for practitioners adopting these technologies. Delay times for control and measurement systems exist and can vary between technologies. In some cases, delay times for control systems are long enough (several seconds) to limit management resolution such as grid or zone size. Delay times can also impact the application performance of on-the-go sensing technologies. Further, incorrect setting of the harvester delay time(s) within yield monitoring systems to account for material conveyance before arrival at measurement sensors can significantly impact the precision and accuracy of yield mapping data. In summary, users must be aware of the limitations of precision agriculture technologies such that performance expectations do not exceed systematic capabilities thereby producing data that are dubious at best. This paper provides suggestions for practitioners who design and conduct investigations that rely on precision agriculture technologies.