Having an Ace up your sleeve in a card game might get your arm broke, but having one in the game of risk management might just keep you from going broke. The Ace in the game of risk management I am referring to is in-season satellite imagery. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) images from satellites [...]
As growers look at 2016, many are asking, “how do we make a profit?”. There are many ways to look at the issue. A former mentor of mine taught me that with any business; P= I-E. That is; profit equals income minus expenses. Many growers look to cutting expenses in challenging times, but that may [...]
Your Crop Quest Agronomist was a little tough to get a hold of during the beginning of November. We all attended our annual “CQIQ” (Crop Quest Information Quest) Meeting. This year’s meeting in Oklahoma City, highlighted a variety of agronomic topics, keeping us “up-to-date” on the latest innovations and research in the region. Tuesday’s general [...]
Many producers express frustration with the cost of seed. But not necessarily because of the actual cost of a bag of seed, but because regardless of yield goal, yield potential or length of maturity, the cost of the seed remains relatively the same. Unless you adjust population, a field that raises 180 bushel of corn [...]
Early detection is key - that’s what we are always told by doctors. After my summer internship with Crop Quest, one thing I learned is that early detection is key in agronomy as well. Within what seems like the blink of an eye, a small issue can go from hard to find to a yield [...]
We all have a perception as to the value of a product or the service we receive. Sometimes there can be more value in the service than what was originally stated or perceived. This is when we have to look at the bigger picture. Crop Quest Agronomists are part of a large network that covers [...]
One of the most common questions we hear is: “What do you think of this fertilizer? It is supposed to increase my yield by 20 bushel.” But at what cost? Looking at some of these specialty fertilizer analyses, household well water has more nutrient value. Now, we are not saying these products do not have [...]
What does it mean to offer a full service agronomy package today? In addition to traditional services such as insect scouting and irrigation scheduling, precision ag services continues to become more integrated into the package. At some point, today’s technology will likely no longer be viewed as “precision ag” but instead just another tool used [...]
As we begin a new year, we take time to reflect on what has been, and what may be coming. 2014 proved to be a pretty good year for producers across the country. A pretty solid wheat crop was harvested, despite some chronic drought conditions over the western high plains. The corn and soybean crop [...]
“Heads or tails?” demands the referee as the coin is tossed into the air. Every football game begins with a choice, heads or tails. We play a similar game in agriculture. It seems like with the flip of a coin, commodity prices are going up or coming down. Just like in football, we have to [...]
It isn’t a question of why would you use precision agriculture (PA) on your farm? It’s a matter of why wouldn’t you use PA? As Craig Koehn, Crop Quest Agronomist from Montezuma, KS sees it, utilizing precision tools can potentially save time and money on most farms. In fact, precision agriculture is becoming such a [...]
Imagery, UAVs, UASs, and big data are terms that you will see in nearly every farm magazine available. These terms have become such popular topics that they are even showing up in main stream media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Most articles portray UAVs and UASs as platforms for collecting [...]
A question commonly asked when discussing Precision Ag (PA) is, “How is Precision Ag going to benefit my farm?” Benefits can take many different forms depending on the precision tool and its use, from generating more money to saving time to business advancement. Attaining any of these benefits will involve setting a goal, building a [...]
Your planter may be smarter than you think! If you were capable of dropping seeds in the field exactly where you would like them, you could expect the plants to respond in a positive way and ultimately maximize yield in that particular spot in the field. Variable rate seeding is a major step to reaching [...]
These days, combines are capable of much more than harvesting grain. They can read fields like a book. Some of the most important information a combine can collect is yield data. Yield data shows everything from the most productive portions of a field to the least and every zone in between. You have all this [...]
