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Right through the growing season, digital agriculture
technology uses data and scientific modelling to
create agronomic, financial and operational decisions,
said Nauta, such as crop planning, scouting and
monitoring, and even harvesting.
He cited former boxing champ Mike Tyson who said:
“Everybody has a plan until they are punched in the
mouth.”
Although we can be sure that pugilist Tyson was not
referencing an “ear” of corn in his infamous adage,
the takeaway is that farmers always have a yearly
plan when it comes to how they want to farm—but
aggressive weather, such as droughts, wildfires et al
have a nasty way of throwing the best laid plans atop
the garbage heap.
It doesn’t mean that farmers shouldn’t plan, however.
Rather Nauta said that the use of digital agriculture
technology will enable farmers more of an advance
notification to enable them to react quicker to issues.
He said that farmers need to “get planning done as
early as possible to enable them to react better to
those punches” as the Granular tool works with the
farmer from the beginning to the end of the season.
With Granular’s software, farmers can plan a smart,
detailed and flexible crop. The tool will enable farmers
to input the type of crop in every field, the variety of
crop and the expected yield, noting via its algorithms
just how much of the planned harvest is, for example,
canola, lentils, corn, wheat or mustard, while also
calculating how much of the acreage has yet to be
accounted for.
It provides farmers with the knowledge to plan for field
usage, as well as how much fertilizer, herbicide, etc.,
is required.
The Granular tool combines information from multiple
sources, such as weather patterns, soil composition,
machine data and even land records to build viewable
data models of field analysis.
Via the software tool viewable from a phone or other
digital device, farmers can view imagery to determine,
for example, if crops should be harvested or chopped—
whether a field’s conditions are an anomaly or more
widespread viewing in-season changes or field
variability.
Nauta cited the example of early Granular adapter
Marc Hutlet Seeds Ltd., which used the system’s In-
Season Change tool to assess field value as a means
to monitor every acre to make confident proactive
decisions as needed rather than being reactive.
It’s all about collaborating and communicating, agreed
Nauta and Klompstra. By examining imaging, farmers
can see how a fungicide application, for example, is
performing. Or it enables farmers to see where there
is an issue and apply a fungicide when the imagery
recognizes a thin or spindly crop.
It may not be necessary to respray an entire field when
Granular informs you that it’s only a small area that is
in trouble. It helps save time and resources.
Easy to use and understand, the tool helps a farmer
make their own confident decisions after being
presented with the data.
THE GRANULAR TOOL COMBINES
INFORMATION FROM MULTIPLE
SOURCES, SUCH AS WEATHER
PATTERNS, SOIL COMPOSITION,
MACHINE DATA AND EVEN LAND
RECORDS TO BUILD VIEWABLE DATA
MODELS OF FIELD ANALYSIS.
