A new report can help farmers analyze their crop risks and opportunities. Pattern Ag uses analytics to help farmers optimize their spending on crop protection, seed selection, and fertility inputs while improving the long-term productivity of their land. Daneille Watts, VP of Data at Pattern Ag, says the 2024 Predictive Ag Report is backed by a large amount of data.
“We analyze more than 200 billion genetic reads from soil samples taken across the Midwest and they form a soil meta genomics database, which is the world’s largest soil meta genomic database. We put all of that information together and package that into our Predictive Ag Report. One of the key ways in which we really drive our understanding of what’s happening in these fields is through a large research program we have, it’s called the Pattern Ag Growers Initiative, where we’re working directly with commercial growers to understand the impacts of their field management on the soil biology as well as what sort of links there are between the soil biology and their yield outcome.”
The Soil Productivity Index provides benchmarks of yield potential for farmers to compare their fields against.
“So, what we’ve done is taken years of grower information, including yield as well as all of their soil biology and chemistry and put that together in a way that really helps explain how far off are you from the potential yields that you could be getting? Are you pretty much maximizing out the yields through your management practices of the soil on your farm, or are there opportunities for you to dive in a level deeper and really increase your soil productivity potential?”
The report can help growers make crop input decisions for the growing season.
“We produce an almanac every year where we’re pinpointing the regions with the highest risk of pest and pathogen outbreaks. And these are really detailed maps that are going to look at pathogens as well as what sort of upcoming risks we’re seeing in terms of bio fertility, and then diving a layer deeper this year, we’ve also released a bunch of foliar insights. So, where are we seeing regions of high foliar pathogen loads? We’re also providing a lot of insights about where we’re seeing significant yield differences based on the pathogen loads in the field. And so, this year is a sort of new release around that we were able to say, here’s where we’re seeing significant yield losses.”
This is the second year that Pattern Ag has published the Predictive Ag report. Watts offers an example of what growers can expect.
“We saw something really interesting going on in north central Iowa in particular, where we were seeing between 30 and 80 bushels per acre lower corn in fields that were really high risk for fusarium root rot, northern corn leaf blight, tar spot and anthracnose of corn. Since the average yield for corn in this region is around 200 bushels per acre, our growers in that region where we saw low fusarium, they were upwards around 240 bushels per acre. And in contrast fields really high fusarium were averaging about 150 bushels per acre and 2023. What that tells us is that there’s a really significant opportunity to be a little bit more aggressive in the management of some of these group routes to achieve that top end yield that’s possible in that region.”
Copies of the 2024 Predictive Ag Report can be downloaded online at www.pattern.ag