PrairieLand Partners’s Agronomic Outlook

As I am writing this wheat harvest is wrapping up across our territory and after harvest soybeans and sorghum are being planted. The wheat harvest moved along at a decent pace and with less headaches than most expected. There were still tracks cut in fields and mud holes to go back and clean up, but most have caught a window to get field work done. It hasn’t been just grain farmers who have faced challenges, it has been a very difficult year to get any king of quality hay put up. As always, the ag community is resilient and finds a way to battle through weather adversity.

As planting for 2019 is coming to an end, preparations are already beginning for the 2020 wheat crop. At PrairieLand Partners we have a program called Field Command that can help you with planning for the upcoming season. There are many levels to this program from grid sampling to a complete data analysis package. Now is the time to be scheduling your grid sampling needs for the 2020 wheat crop. It isn’t unusual to pay for the cost of a grid sample with savings on a lime application. Then after your pH has been corrected you can apply your remaining nutrients variably to give you the best opportunity for a successful start to the 2020 crop year. 

Some of the other levels that we offer within the Field Command program are new recommendations on existing grid samples, basic reports with yield maps, more comprehensive reports across each field, crop and farm. We have to ability to create spatial cost per bushel maps so that you can see what parts of your fields are the most profitable and the least profitable. Once you see this you can begin to make decisions based on this information. The other thing that we offer with our upper level program is called Enhanced Learning Blocks (ELB’s). These blocks can be built right into your current prescription so that it doesn’t slow your operation down. These are typically fertility trials or seeding trials but can be on/off trials with many other inputs. We have been doing these for several years now and have provided our customers with a lot of important information about their operation. 

At the end of each season we aggregate this data anonymously to look at trends across our territory. Those that participate in the program have access to this data. Usually in January or February we bring Field Command customers in to look at this data as a group. This gives customers an opportunity to interact with other customers that are in the program.

If you have questions about any of these programs, talk to you local Precision Ag Specialist. PrairieLand Partners now has 3 CCA’s on staff to help with your agronomy needs.

Rob Meyer – Precision Ag Agronomic Specialist & Certified Crop Advisor.