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By Ty Higgins, Ohio Ag Net
Agriculture is filled with new technology, data, and products designed to help farmers improve yields and efficiency. But the message at a recent Progressive Crop Solutions grower meeting was much less complicated. Start with the fundamentals.
Lead agronomist Lewis Stearns and business manager Kevin Ward discussed that message during the company’s customer appreciation meeting in Wyandot County in mid-August.
Stearns said the company’s work with data consistently points back to the importance of doing the basics well.
“Every year we analyze millions of data points. And what it always points to is we’ve got to get better at fundamental agronomy,” Stearns said. “We always want to jump on these shiny new things. And I do too. I want to be the guy out here talking about the latest biological or the latest technology that we’ve got to put into this crop.”
But technology should support sound agronomic decisions rather than replace them, he said.
“Really, when we come down to it, we’ve got to get better at fundamentals,” Stearns said. “Part of that is giving guys a reason why to focus on the fundamentals, because it’s not cool.”
Stearns said taking a customized approach based on the goals and characteristics of each operation is key. That can mean taking a different mindset to highly productive ground than acres facing development pressure or other limitations.
“We’ve got to manage a lot of those acres nowadays,” Stearns said. “Or do we have some acres that we can just treat to the top in potential? We’re customizable to be able to do all of that and kind of roll that up into one for you.”
For Stearns, the answer is technology that simplifies farmers’ jobs rather than creating more work.
“Growers are busy. They don’t need more tools and more work,” he said. “They need things that are easily understood, that are quick, and that they can just take and take to their employees and their team and begin to execute.”
That same philosophy applies when they work with growers to establish agronomic priorities, and the process starts with the basic building blocks of fertility, like N, P, and K.
He said some growers can become focused on individual fertility decisions without addressing underlying needs, including soil pH.
“We ask quite a few guys we deal with when we start the conversation about the last time they applied lime,” Ward said. “They believe it was five or six years ago and then records show it’s been eight or nine years since they did it. Time goes by so quickly. You forget about those things.”
Ward said the company is developing its own software to better organize and utilize the information it collects. The software is currently intended for use by Progressive Crop Solutions and its growers, with full functionality expected in the coming year.
Ward said the answer starts with understanding where the grower wants the operation to go. If maximizing yield is not the primary goal, Ward said technology and management decisions should reflect the farm’s actual objectives.
“We need to better manage economics and efficiency or logistics of your operation,” he said. “That’s where we start by asking the grower where they are wanting to go and then find what piece of the puzzle matches their answer and what roadmap they want to follow.”
The bottom line: The newest technology may have an important role in agriculture’s future, but the foundation of sound agronomy, clear goals, and consistent execution of the fundamentals remains the same.
