Turning precision ag yields into profits

Jan 29, 2021

Precision ag maximizes yield, commodity marketing maximizes profits

Farmers use precision ag to maximize yields, but how can they maximize profits outside of the field?

“If you’re making efforts to maximize your yield with precision agriculture, you will want to maximize your profits, and commodity marketing is one way to do that,” explains Moe Agostino. “Precision ag is about growing your crops as effectively and efficiently as possible. Your commodity marketing should also be done as efficiently and effectively as possible.”

This was a message that Moe conveyed to attendees of the 2020 Farms.com Virtual Precision Agriculture Conference & Ag Technology Showcase.

He’s the Chief Commodity Strategist with Farms.com Risk Management.

Moe delivers a global outlook of soybeans, canola, corn, and wheat and discusses what farmers can expect in 2021 as a result of COVID-19, trade wars and the U.S. election.

To learn from the commodity expert himself, watch Moe Agostino’s video from his November presentation.

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.