A Unique View of Planting with Fieldview

A Unique View of Planting with Fieldview

As growers are pulling their planters across their fields this spring, some are using new technology to get a whole new view on planting.  For Chad Dow, who farms near Paragon in Morgan County, the way he keeps field notes has changed, “I used to use a notebook and some printed maps, now I can bring all this information together on my iPad, and any time, anywhere do detailed analysis of my farming operation.” He said he has learned t ngs about his operation he had ever thought of before.

Dow uses the Fieldview system from Climate Corporation so he can track and analyze his crops and fields in a whole new way, “It allows me to breakout my crop by hybrid, by soil type, by population, even by elevation because on my farm we have a lot of elevation changes.” He added that he can track yield changes from the top of a hill to the low places in a field.

With the touch of a finger, he can mark areas on a map of a field he wants to watch carefully during the season and analyze carefully at harvest. Dow told HAT this allows him to make better and more profitable decisions when it comes to choosing hybrids, “Now I can see where certain hybrids are performing better on certain soil types.  In some cases, they were hybrids I had kicked out of my line up but now am keeping because they yield better in certain soil types than some of the yield leaders on the farm.”

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for farmers to maximize their yield potential by tailoring their management practices to address field variability,” said Sam Eathington, chief scientist for The Climate Corporation. “Farming at the zone level is the new reality. Climate is already delivering advanced seed scripting and zone-level nitrogen monitoring capabilities, and our robust research pipeline ensures we will continue to provide farmers actionable insights to help them operate more efficiently and sustainably, while supporting all of the key decisions they have to make each year to optimize yield.”

The system collects a good deal of data during planting that can be detected and analyzed during the growing season to spot and deal with problems as well as at harvest when this data can be crosschecked against actual yield data. Dow said being able to analyze data at the sub-field level is invaluable. He said the system is not only easy to use, but communicates well with other pieces of equipment and other platforms.