Real Shot™ variable rate (VRT) fungicide saves money and makes sense.

It’s not uncommon in July to look across a canola field and see different parts of the field yellower than others.  The variability that you are seeing is a result of a variance in canola plant densities, delayed emergence in some field areas, or even some drowned out areas.

The problem is that you want to protect those strong, dense, healthy areas of the field against sclerotinia disease, you usually need to spray the whole field with fungicide, forcing you to also spray the thin canola spots and those areas of the field that are not at risk to disease, due to less conducive canopy conditions, few petals, and lower yield potential.

The Problem:  How can I identify the areas of my canola field that need fungicide from the areas that don’t?

The GeoFarm Solution:  Order Real Shot™ images of your canola fields taken prior to flowering, ground-truth, create management zone creation, and use your variable rate controller in your sprayer.

In 2008, this problem and solution presented itself to two producers in Saskatchewan.  Using Real Shot™ NDVI, agronomic guidance and expertise, and simply loading a management zone map into their John Deere sprayers, the producers were applying variable rate fungicide to canola within a week after ordering Real Shot™.  The result was no noticeable sacrifice in yield compared to blanket application, a cost savings or fungicide between $3/acre and $8/acre depending on the field variability, as well as fewer trips to the water truck.

Lot’s of yield data, but you don’t know what to do or where to start!

A very common situation in today’s farms is to have a computer sitting at home filled with data from your last 4 years of yield maps.  At the time the intention was to use and analyze these maps for the good of the field and to learn more.  The trouble is usually always finding the time and also keeping up with the skills to analyze these yield maps properly.  It’s also obvious that there are errors in some of the yield maps and certain level of data cleanup and organization is needed to start your GeoFarm.

The Problem:  A farmer called and explained there was many years of yield maps are sitting in the computer.  He wanted to start to capture more value from yield maps, but is getting overwhelmed with the work involved, what can actually be done with them, and more than anything finding the time.  He’s also worried that if his computer crashes, data could be lost. 

The GeoFarm Solution:  GeoFarm believes that there is good value in yield data.  It’s another layer of information, that when put together with other spatial data will give you more confidence.  For this problem, the best solution was to start with a GeoFarm Custom Solution, GeoFarm Basic.  This solution solved the problem in the following ways:

•    Eliminated the overwhelming feeling of data and computers
•    Organized yield maps by year and field
•    Backed up yield maps and files with The Agri-Data Solution™
•    Provided a basis for management zone creation and zone sampling
•    Identified data gaps and inconsistencies in different fields to watch for

For the value of GeoFarm Basic, the producer easily returned a profit on the fields that were chosen for zone soil sampling and variable rate nutrient application.  Himself and his agronomist were also that much smarter, and knew where to go for standard composite samples.