Every day, soybean farmers pour over data that helps to determine everything from what to plant to when to plant; from measuring plant growth and health to projected profit per bushel.
The information farmers must regularly obtain, digest and analyze is staggering, and keeping track of all that information is a daunting task, even for the most tech-savvy farmer. There’s no doubt, using data to make more informed decisions about your farm operations can help increase crop yields and serve as a guide to using resources more efficiently.
“Data on the farm is vast, complex and difficult to collect, analyze and archive each growing season and over growing seasons,” says Daniel Barker, Ph.D. in the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Department of Agronomy. “It’s important to find efficiencies through data analysis and accurate, timely record keeping.”
That’s where many farmers have found value in farm data management software. Developed by familiar names like Syngenta and AgData, software titles include Granular, FarmLink, Trimble and Farmers Business Network Analytics, among many others.
“Farms have to keep getting larger to stay in business, and to do that, we have to be able to quickly and easily identify areas of opportunities or issues,” says William Layton, a Maryland soybean farmer and United Soybean Board (USB) director. “We have to treat our farms like a real business, and data management and digital record-keeping is a big piece of that.”
Data management systems can help make sense of all the numbers, allowing you to more easily and clearly identify projections and patterns, helping you to prepare for changes in your harvest. Doing so not only helps determine opportunities for protecting the bottom line but as Barker says, can make it easy to retrieve information needed to comply with federal and state programs and access farmer benefits.
Greg McGlinch, a soybean farmer in Ohio, relies on data management programs to maintain records that could be required on short notice.
“Data management has been best for tracking herbicide application and general record keeping,” says McGlinch. “It helps to prepare for auditing when we can easily and accurately track the amount of fertilizer or herbicide applied, along with important data like time of day applied, wind speed and direction. As farmers, we get second-guessed a lot. Data software is a great tool for validity.”
While the benefits of implementing farm data management software are many, Barker, Layton and McGlinch all agree that getting started is certainly not an easy task. With so many programs on the market — and more being developed and introduced each year — it’s easy for farmers to get overwhelmed before even choosing the right software. Not to mention, what to do with all that information, and how do you ensure you’re using it to the fullest potential to help grow your business and increase profitability.
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