Planting Season 2.0: Moneyball on the Farm

Since I was a young boy, I’ve looked forward to April because it brings the return of baseball season and the excitement of once again cheering on my beloved hometown teams (growing up on a farm in central Illinois, it was the Chicago Cubs; now, after living more than three decades in St. Louis, I can’t help but root for the Cardinals). As a kid, the joy I felt as April approached was unfortunately tempered by the knowledge that for my dad, it was crunch time.

At that time of year, my dad, like all farmers across the Midwest, faced dozens of key decisions. Which hybrids to use, when and where exactly to plant the corn and other crops? At what population rate? Which weed and insect management practices to apply? When to fertilize and how much? All of these decisions, along with the impossible-to-predict weather, would help determine our farm’s (and our family’s) success or failure that season. And many of them had to be made over the winter or heading into spring.

I remember my dad sitting around the dinner table at night trying to make the best calls he could based on his experience and gut instincts, along with the advice he got from his seed supplier and his agronomist and maybe a tip he’d picked up from a neighbor. He’d weigh all this together and come up with his answers…for better or worse.

Thinking back on it now, I see how similar my dad’s process was to the one the Cubs’ and Cardinals’ managers were using all those springs ago to make their decisions about each team’s roster for the long season ahead. Like my dad, they were relying on history, on their personal observations, on their gut.

But of course, that era in baseball is now gone. With the advent of video and computers and advanced analytics, managers now rely on terabytes of data they didn’t have before to make more informed decisions – much like it was depicted in the 2011 film based on a true story, Moneyball.

Farmers, now, can do the same.

The modern agriculture tools now on the market help farmers make decisions based on the kind of precise data my dad only dreamed of having. These tools also help farmers bring all that data together with imagery and field data maps so they can instantly visualize the data and analyze crop performance in ways that help them make the best input decisions for their fields. Each one of a farmer’s decisions (in recent years, I’ve added up around 40-50 from pre-plant to harvest) – can be made based on field and seed insights, and precipitation estimates for individual fields. As a result, each decision is at least a little better.

Add up 40-50 decisions that are at least a little better (or even one decision that is significantly better) and you have a result that is, without a doubt, a lot better.

A great example of this remarkable new capability is the FieldView? advanced scripting tool, which The Climate Corporation (a Monsanto subsidiary) introduced with last year’s spring planting. With this tool, a farmer’s historical field data is combined with product field testing results to provide scripts on any seed brand in the industry. And instead of taking between a day and a week (or more) to produce these scripts – which is what happens when they’re created and edited manually – it typically takes less than 10 minutes. Farmers can then edit the prescription, add test strips and execute using compatible equipment of their choice.

Last year, farmers using this tool in their corn fields saw an average increase of five bushels per acre* compared to users who wrote their own scripts.

Think about it this way:

Yield is a product of genetics, the environment, and farming practices. The 2017 National Corn Yield Contest winner topped out at 542 bushels/acre. Last year’s national yield average was an estimated 176.6. For soybeans, the world yield record is 171 bushels/acre and the national average last year was 49.1. So, with corn there’s a delta of about 365 bushels per acre and with soybeans it’s about 122.

Data science can narrow these gaps. 

Our average customer plants more than 50 million corn seeds in a single season. With the new digital tools, every one of those seeds can be:

●    Selected to be the best fit for its environment

●    Planted at the optimal seeding rate for the season ahead

●    Planted with prior identification of both the threats to its health and strategies for resolving those threats before any yield loss takes place; and

●    Fertilized and watered optimally.

All these decisions – and more – can be customized to match the variability among and within the nation’s 30 million fields. And all of this can be done in a connected way, so that each decision is made in a manner that reflects a sensitivity to the other decisions – and the whole set of decisions is therefore optimized.

 As we go forward, our company will be working to make all these capabilities in data and technology even simpler for farmers to use. We’ll provide farmers with practical new tools to help them manage variability more accurately by zone with next-level analytics. We’ll provide enhancements to seeding and fertility tools and we’ll expand connectivity. All of this will not only help them maximize yield opportunities, but also help them use natural resources – land, water and energy – more efficiently and sustainably.

 In baseball, the results of the new digital tools and analytics have already been astonishing, as any fan of the once-woeful, now World Series-winning teams like the Cubs and Houston Astros can tell you. My dad would have been amazed.

 But he would have been even more amazed about what these tools can do for farmers like himself – helping them close the yield opportunity gap and maximize profitability, efficiency and sustainability – all while giving them more confidence in their decisions and taking away some of the sleepless nights filled with worry.

 That, he’d have said, would be like winning the World Series all by himself.  

*Assumptions:

●    Comparing 281,000 ac in 4,179 fields

●    More than 25% of field had script

●    Products maturity ranges between 95-115 range

●    Limiting comparisons to the same county; represents 79 counties 10 Midwest states

●    Minimum of 3 Advanced & DIY Seed scripts in a county to be compared