Ferrie: Consider Yield Maps as Highly Valued Game Tapes to Review
NFL coaches and their teams routinely review game tapes to scrutinize opponents to identify weaknesses they can exploit on the gridiron. Such information put into play during a game can mean the difference between a big win or a heart-breaking loss.
The same is true for information that yield maps from your fields provide, says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist and owner of Crop-Tech Consulting, Inc., based near Heyworth, Ill. The information you gather and then review in end-of-season yield map meetings can give you the insights you need to go out next season, make valuable adjustments to your cropping plans and improve your growing season and yield outcomes.
Yet too many farmers don’t see value in yield maps or in meeting with their team end-of-season to review the information the maps provide.
“Poor-quality maps are the No. 1 reason farmers do not value a yield-map meeting,” Ferrie says. “When you must convince yourself the map is telling you something, or contoured to find any zones, most likely it's a poor map.”
A common cause for this is having poorly calibrated yield maps that don't show any spatial differences.
If this describes your situation, you can still improve your game plan for the 2021 season by using the information you do have available and reviewing it with your team to get their input and buy-in. Two practical steps Ferrie recommends are:
1. Gather available data and information for review. Things to include are the original plan you put together for the season as well as any details that changed as the year unfolded. Planting and tillage records, varieties and hybrids used, fungicide, insecticide and fertilizer application records as well as any aerial pictures or drone imagery are valuable to the review and decision-making process.
“Include any notes scribbled down in your pocket notebooks as well as any memories of what happened during the growing season,” Ferrie adds. “Include invoices for any products you purchased, which can often tell you the total amount of what went on the field.”
2. Assemble your team to review the yield maps and accompanying information for at least one full day. The team includes everyone you relied on to get the 2020 crop in the field, through the growing season, harvested and then in the bin.
Everyone’s role and work impact the farming processes and outcomes—even if you and individual team players don’t fully realize that at this moment, because you’re new to the yield-map meeting concept, Ferrie notes. Usually, during the discussions and review of data and information, individual team members and the collective group begin to understand how important each person’s role is on the farm and the results they contributed.
If possible, Ferrie encourages, make the meeting mandatory for all players and managers. The reason: “If people are missing when we're viewing the game tapes, in the next game, team members will not be pulling in the same direction,” Ferrie explains. “Too many times some very powerful data comes out of the yield-map meeting but does not get implemented, because the farm manager was too busy to be in the meeting,” he adds.
If you’re the farm manager and too busy to lead the yield map meeting, Ferrie says to delegate that job to someone else. “And be sure to give that person the power to implement the things learned in the yield map meeting,” he encourages.
In this week’s Boots In The Field podcast, Ferrie details how to use the information from yield maps and team meetings to start building your cropping plan for 2021. These are don’t-miss-instructions to get your 2021 season on a winning path. Listen to the details here:
