Challenges and Opportunities of the First Year Using of Agronomic Data
“It looks like something my five-year-old would draw!” the text message read.
It was from a producer I worked with, writes Erin Hightower at CropLife, who had just begun looking at his agronomic data in the data management system. And he wasn’t wrong.
It was NDVI imaging I collected from a Sentera sensor, a pockmarked picture of bright reds, yellows, and greens adorned an otherwise-pristine Google satellite image.
This was his first year using agronomic data, and both his initial and ongoing reactions lent themselves to a huge learning opportunity for both of us.
MORE BY CROPLIFE
Beyond Disruption: Earning Trust and Driving Impact in AgTech Through Grower-Led Innovation
The First-Year Struggle
I start out by sharing this story, first because it makes for a great one to illustrate examples of the key points I’ll discuss throughout this article, and second, because it’s a similar story I’ve seen with many growers – and, likely, every trusted advisor has experienced.
When a grower first sees the initial year of data, he or she might find that it is nothing more than a mess of colors and it may feel like no actionable or even usable information has been collected. Even if the grower followed the steps to set up a good system for data collection from the start (as outlined in an article by one of my colleagues), growers often find the first data set to look confusing – or worse yet, be disappointing.
Subscribe Today For
