As we approach harvest this year, it is important to remember to hold on to your yield data. Yield data is one of the leading sources of information we have on the farm. It tells us what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong. It shows us problem areas in our fields as well as highly productive areas. In this article, we will discuss some of the main reasons to keep track of your yield data this year.
Check Strips
You may have participated in a test strip or trial this year to learn more about the effects of differing inputs. Agronomists, salesman, and farmers alike all use test strips to see these effects. You might use these test strips for differing seed hybrids, herbicides, fungicides, precision technology, and more. All of this becomes nearly obsolete, however, if you aren’t keeping your yield data. Yield data will be used to illustrate the differences between your tested variants. It is quite literally showing you the results of an experiment you conducted on your farm, so it is very important not to lose or discard these results. How else will you be able to improve your farming practices?
Fertility Recommendations
A more and more common practice using yield data is for fertility recommendations. Guessing how much fertilizer to add each year with little data to back it up is outdated, and most farmers will use more precise methods. Soil testing shows you your fertility levels at the time of the testing, but the time in between soil tests (usually 4 or 5 years) is still a question. How do you know how much fertilizer to add after each year, knowing that your crop has affected the nutrition in the soil? Yield data can help to give us the answer. By looking at yield maps and average yield for your farm, you can estimate about how many nutrients were removed as a result of your crops. With this knowledge, you can make a more accurate fertility recommendation.
If you want to take things even further with yield data in fertility recommendations, you can create an extra layer of precision by creating what is commonly known as a yield zone. Yield zones are areas in your field that illustrate how your yield is trending (i.e. average, above average, below average). These yield zones can be used as a map that is referenced when creating variable-rate fertilizer or seed recommendations. Considering the higher and lower-producing areas of your field, you can add more or less fertilizer to those areas respectively. This layer paired with your soil tests can bring you closer to a very precise variable-rate practice when it comes to fertility recommendations.
Drone/Satellite Imagery Comparison
Your yield data can also be useful in another type of experiment: drone and satellite imagery. Using satellite or drone imagery in-season can show you problem areas in your fields that you may not have caught otherwise. Comparing drone and satellite imagery to yield data can show you important trends between in-season effects and yield. Perhaps you had wind damage in part of your field that you detected early on with a drone. Comparing that to yield can show you exactly how that area affected your yield in these areas, and, therefore, your yield for that entire field. This information can be used when talking to the insurance adjustor if you are making a claim. This is just one example of a multitude of ways that drone and satellite imagery can be used with yield data to help your farm.
Conclusion
Your yield data is very important. It’s not just important to you, but to your agronomists, insurance agents, and future experiments that you conduct on your farm. Yield data is a huge insight into what is going wrong or right on your farm. You can learn so much from your data, so make sure to take extra steps to keep it.
As it happens, Service and Supply Cooperative can help you to decipher your yield data. We have precision agronomists on staff that are able to use your yield data to help create yield zones, muli-year comparisons, drone and satellite imagery comparisons, and so much more. Use one of the contact links below to get in touch with one of Coop’s finest precision agronomists today and take your farm data management to the next level.
