A walkthrough of the Field Analyzer Beta tool for understanding what affects crop yield. The video covers seeding rates, soil types, elevation, and drainage as key factors farmers can use to boost productivity and make better management decisions.
Many factors contribute to yield performance and understanding which ones are affecting your fields can help you prepare for the future. Field Analyzer Beta has the tools to help you identify those factors. Let's begin by looking at Field IL9 and compare the dry yield to our seeding prescription rates. As we can see, the majority of the field was planted at 35,000 seeds per acre shown here in purple. The next largest acreage was planted at 36,000 c acre shown in blue. As we look at the left half of the field on our yield map and then look at the same area on the prescription rate map, we can see that the increased yield appears to follow a very similar shape with the increased prescription rate. However, if we look towards the right half of the field that had the same 36,000 CPA prescription rate, we see that the same correlation is not true. We want to figure out why this difference occurred, so we will begin to look at other factors that may have caused this. Let's start by looking at our soil map. As we can see with the light blue sections of osco silt loam, there aren't any major differences in soil type that would cause this yield difference. Next we will pull up our seeding quality map to show how accurately the planter was able to plant according to the prescription. We see that the planter accuracy to the prescription rate was slightly over 98%, meaning that the planter followed the prescription rate very closely. If we go back to our yield map and move the opacity to zero, we will then look at the area of the field with the yield drop on the right. In this section we can see that there is a zone in the field that may indicate some issues. The farmer has flagged this in Land Manager and we can view that line flag by selecting the show flags button here. Now let's look at the elevation map. As we look at the right half of the field, we see that there is a change in elevation indicated by the closely spaced contour lines. We can see that each contour extends north on both sides of the depression shown here. Additionally, if we move the opacity to view just the satellite imagery, we can see that the contours align with the depression. This indicates that there may be some issues being caused by the change in elevation, ultimately causing drainage and potentially erosion issues. This analysis gives the farmer the tools to investigate water management practices that may increase the yield in this part of the field. Lastly, we will go into the overview map of the 2017 Corn Harvest Dry yield map and then into the data analysis drawer we will then evaluate the dry yield based on the seeding prescription by selecting the 2017 Corn Seeding and prescription layer in the operation Drop down. Here we can evaluate how our different seeding rates correlated with yield. We can see here that the higher rate of 36,000 seeds per acre yielded an average of 12 bushels an acre more than the field average. Based on this information, the farmer may consider increasing seeding rates for future planting seasons. Because of the tools available in Field Analyzer Beta, the farmer now has a better understanding of the factors affecting yield and can use this information to make farm management decisions that will improve the operation. Now you can too. Thanks for watching.
