10 Easy Ways to Take Your Crop-Scouting Practices to the Next Level

As you evaluate corn and soybean crops this season, stay curious in the process. Thoughtful observations can provide valuable information you can use to improve crop growth and performance.

Farm Journal’s Smart Farming Week is an annual week-long emphasis on innovation in agriculture. The goal is to encourage you to explore and prioritize the technology, tools and practices that will help you farm smarter. Innovation today ensures an efficient, productive and sustainable tomorrow.

When it comes to scouting corn and soybean crops, Dan Luepkes likes to use a mix of tried-and-true tools along with new technology.

“We’re always looking for things that will take us to the next level, make life easier or that will help us do a better job,” says Luepkes, who farms in northwest Illinois, near Oregon.

Even so, he's quick to note that old-school practices almost always pay their way, especially in a year when margins for corn and soybeans are razor-thin, at best.

“My initial start to the crop-scouting process is walking fields,” he says. “I'm trying to put my emphasis on what is realistic and how to get the most done for a dollar in today's market, especially with grain prices the way they are.”

As the 2024 cropping season ramps up, here are nine additional agronomic tips, tools and recommendations Luepkes, other farmers and agronomy professionals offer for your consideration.

TAP INTO TECHNOLOGY WITH A FOCUS ON ROI

1. Consider your goals. Wading through the technology options available today and identifying those that make sense to use continue to be an ongoing challenge for farmers.

"You have to look at what will really work, and you don't really know that until you try these things on your own farm," Luepkes says. "With the cost of some of these technologies, you can’t wholeheartedly just throw dollars at them."

panel discussion — Dan Luepkes, left, uses a variety of technology on his Illinois farm, such as portable soil moisture probes and tissue testing. This season, he's evaluating a new on-demand leaf tissue analysis tool. The handheld device scans crop leaves in the field for nutrient content and measures for 12 micro and macro nutrients. With Luepkes is Caleb Traugh, an independent crop consultant based in Georgia, and John Brien, division agronomy manager for AgReliant Genetics.

Before buying any technology, first identify your yield goals and what tools – whether old or new – can best help you achieve them, advises John Brien, division agronomy manager for AgReliant Genetics.

“If you're at a lower yield level, it might make the most sense to spend your available dollars on fertility this season,” Brien told farmers attending the AgReliant Genetics next-level scouting session at the 2024 Commodity Classic.

“If you're at the 250- to 300-bushel range, maybe it makes sense to spend some money on equipment, because that could help you get to the next yield level,” Brien adds.

Reach out to seed and crop-protection agronomists, technology experts and other farmers to glean their insights and recommendations on technology, encourages Caleb Traugh, an independent crop consultant and owner of Traugh Ag Services in southwest Georgia.

“Talk with someone who already uses that technology to make better decisions on their farm,” he says. “How is it providing them with a return on investment (ROI) in both time and money?”

2. Make existing technology you've purchased – or have access to – work harder. Make a list of the technology you already have and consider what you can do to get a better ROI from it. For instance, doing some pre-season maintenance work now to ready sprayers could be a good investment of time and dollars.

3. Another low-cost idea – consider using agronomic apps. There are dozens of ag apps in the marketplace, and it can be overwhelming to evaluate and pick ones most relevant to your needs. If those challenges have been holding you back, check the list of ag-specific apps provided here by Charles Ellis and Kent Shannon, precision agriculture specialists at the University of Missouri.

Ellis and Shannon have organized the apps into various categories, including agronomy, crop scouting and precision ag, farm management, spray application and tank mixes, among others. For each app, they also provide a detailed description and the compatible mobile devices.

4. Use search engines like a pro: It’s easy to spend more time than you’d planned on trying to find agronomic information via search engines like Google and Yahoo. For the best results, Adam Sisson, Iowa State University Extension specialist in the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program, recommends starting the process with specific wording.

For example, instead of using a broadly worded search such as pigweed control in corn, try using the more specific pigweed control corn Iowa State University (insert your favorite land-grant university), which will pull up results specific to your state. The News Literacy Project offers eight additional tips here that can improve your Google search results.

5. Does buying new technology tools (i.e. a drone) make sense this year? Maybe, maybe not. If you decide to hold off buying a drone, consider working with a retailer or crop consultant who uses one for scouting purposes and pesticide applications.

Traugh likes to combine walking fields with the broader perspective a drone can provide. He references one example of how using a drone helped one of his farmers last season preserve corn yields.

“I walked into the cornfield in one spot, and the crop looked great. But then I decided to throw the drone up and get an aerial perspective, and we could see there were lodging problems in a number of places across the field,” he says. “We were able to use that information to prioritize harvest for this field.”

Traugh says one way that purchasing a drone or other technology might make economic sense this year is if you have a son or daughter you want to bring back to the farm.

“Especially for the younger generation, like myself, if you're someone just getting out of college and looking to try to find the place on your family operation, technology is one way you can bring value. Utilizing some of these new technologies can be a great fit,” he says.

If you’re looking for more information on drone use in crops and how they could be a good fit on your farm, check out the Extension bulletin, Drones for Spraying Pesticides—Opportunities and Challenges by Erdal Ozkan, professor and Extension state specialist for pesticide application technology at Ohio State University.

TRIED-AND-TRUE TOOLS ARE STILL EFFECTIVE

6. Check out university Extension agronomic tools. University Extension specialists are still hard at work on behalf of agriculture and farmers. Check state and local Extension websites for articles, newsletters, disease, insect and weed identification field guides, podcasts, videos and other free or low-cost agronomic services and materials.

One online site that offers a wide range of Extension tools and materials is the Crop Protection Network (CPN), a partnership of several dozen university Extension specialists based across the U.S. The CPN offers a variety of agronomic tools to help you with crop protection decisions in alfalfa, corn, cotton, small grains and soybeans.

In addition, on the CPN site you can also find the contact information for state-specific Extension agronomists, entomologists, pathologists and weed scientists.

Here are three additional practical, hands-on agronomic tools and recommendations you can use to boost your crop scouting results this season:

7. Send in a scout. Even the best of technology is no substitute for walking fields and assessing agronomic problems. Brian Luck, precision agriculture specialist and professor at the University of Wisconsin, offers three crop scouting basic tips he gathered during a discussion with Eric Birschbach, Ag Site Crop Consulting:

a. Do an initial field assessment upon arrival at the field. Identify any 'good' or 'bad' locations.

b. Look for uniformity or the lack of it throughout the field. Identify those areas needing follow-up visits.

c. As you prepare to scout, bring your curiosity to the process: "What the heck happened here?"

If you don’t have the time or inclination to do field scouting – which is OK – assign this important job to an employee, consultant or other responsible person who can make the scouting process a priority, advises Ken Ferrie and Missy Bauer, Farm Journal Field Agronomists.

Learn more about what the crop scout assignment and responsibilities entail at the AgWeb article, Ten Top Scouting Tips

8. Assemble a crop scouting backpack. Adam Sisson, at Iowa State University, put together scouting gear the handy checklist, right, of items for consideration.

9. Take photos and jot some handwritten or digital notes on problems you see in the field. Date the notes for reference when you scout later in the season or make treatment plans.

The photos will be handy for your personal use and can also be passed along to your agronomist, retailer and technology specialist for reference.