Are You Gaining the True Value from Your Agronomic Data?
Presented By Proagrica Understanding the necessary components for success is critical to achievement in any business. As the ag industry dynamics continue to shift, and competition increases, growers have reached a pivotal point where they must leverage the knowledge and insights available in their data to make smarter, more profitable decisions. “Growers do all this work throughout the year: selecting hybrids, fertilizing the crop, and continually managing things to make the crop profitable,” says Bryant Boyer, Proagrica Southwest Territory Sales Manager. “Being able to see how the different decisions played out in terms of your performance is bringing all those pieces together and understanding how the field and crop practices performed. It validates your farming practices and gives you a full picture of performance at the end of the season.”
Crop yield is highly complex and determined by multiple factors, such as genotype, environment, and interactions. In order to create a more strategic approach and more predictable results, many growers are now utilizing yield validation. The process of validating yield data involves using the information from agronomic data tracking to help drive decision-making. This could mean tracking how many bushels or pounds come off a certain field, then using technology, like Proagrica’s Sirrus platform, to break down data related to the field and how the results were produced.
Before developing a yield validation plan, it is important to have the right tools and strategies in place. Key items to consider include:
- Make sure you are utilizing a tool that can capture crop data and have a plan for how to utilize it.
- When creating a strategy for tracking data, think in terms of agronomic performance and financial performance.
- Ensure your technology platform provides opportunities for integration and supports your connectivity needs.
Today, at each step of the agribusiness supply chain, there are more data points available than at any other point in history. The data is both agronomic data, backed by science, and commercial data, such as describing which products agricultural retailers sold to which growers to be applied on which specific fields. The vital step moving forward will be to not only collect this data, but to successfully analyze it and utilize it in decision-making.
Establishing long-term strategies for maximizing data and building supportive partnerships can enhance the value of your analytics program over time. The right system strips out the noise and the mess to surface actionable insights from clean, reliable data. When dashboards are easy to use, multiple roles across the business can answer their own questions rather than having to rely on a handful of super-users. “Because data can be difficult to pull together and make sense of, it is quite often used reactively when a problem occurs. However, if organizations have access to up to date insights on an on-going basis then they can become proactive in their decision-making and strategic planning,” says Marie Kennedy, Senior Product Manager for Proagrcia.
To learn more, listen to a podcast with Bryant Boyer as he talks about yield data validation and read the full whitepaper: