By Aneetha Goplan, Conservis Chief Operating Officer
There is inherent value in the data surrounding the tractor, combine, and sprayer on any given field. When we first started thinking as a company about cloud integration with machines, there was no real precedence within the industry. But Conservis founders and leaders kept listening to the growers. They knew the data was out there, but they needed a better way to translate what was happening on their fields into their bottom line.
Translating farm data into valuable agricultural insight
Just as fuel powers these pieces of equipment, efficient machine integration (MI) empowers farmers to make better decisions right down to the square yard. Our early work included development with John Deere Operations Center on their APIs. This led to our ability to bring a profitability platform forward geospatially to growers, giving them significant context about real-time field activities. It truly has been fun - yes, fun - for me as part of the Product and Engineering team at Conservis to listen to the farmers and turn their challenges into success stories.
Consider the questions a grower might ask when planning for next year’s crops.
- What crop makes the most sense to plant in this particular field?
- How can I make sure my applications and activities are thoughtful and useful?
- Where can I change my farming practices at a field level to improve yields and profitability?
- How can I react and make adjustments based on market conditions and weather?
The answers to these questions exist in the data, and it is about more than just the seed and fertilizer application rates. It is about bringing those pieces together across the farm and connecting them to an operation’s planning, budgeting, and financial processes.
Smart agriculture platforms enable farmers to collect massive amounts of field-level data. We’ve continued building powerful MI capabilities for growers, including for John Deere Operations Center and/or Climate FieldView™, while providing the analytical tools that make it all worthwhile.
“Understanding the farm's operating cost is crucial. Without this information, you are driving blindly and making decisions that will very likely cost you in the future. You have to be able to closely monitor what is coming both into and out of your doors in regards to inputs and inventory, because the bottom line is that is your money coming and going. Having a tool like Conservis to track that is invaluable.”
Your data. Your decisions.
Unlike other tools on the market, Conservis is an independent platform. We don’t just collect your data, we protect it. We never sell or give your information to 3rd party vendors like seed dealers or insurance agents. You have control over what you do with the data - whether it is from machine integration or crop insurance reporting. We make it possible for your data to be yours, fueling your decisions.
Agribusiness data points add up
Expectations are that technologically connected farms will generate as many as 4.1 million data points each day in 2050. By comparison, in 2014 they generated an average of 190,000. Meghan Brown, contributing to engineering.com, speaks to the potential of these data points.
“This mountain of data and other information generated by farming technology, and the connectivity enabling it to be shared, will be the backbone of the future smart farm. Farmers will be able to 'see' all aspects of their operation—which plants are healthy or need attention, where a field needs water, what the harvesters are doing—and make informed decisions.”
Growers who use Conservis see the difference in collecting the data and making proactive decisions based on that information, especially when uniting field data with financials. It is extremely gratifying to see the engineering work behind the scenes equate into real-world opportunities for growth.
“The best thing about Conservis... the machine integration has really worked well. Everything flows in nicely.”
In my role with Conservis I’ve had the privilege of working with a dedicated team to build machine integration capabilities we believe remain unmatched in the industry. Pulling in as-applied and yield data directly from machines unlocks potential.
- Automatically create activity records in Conservis using your machine data.
- Track inventory with ease. As-applied records from MI automatically deplete inventory in real time.
- Access integrated harvest records and get a clear and accurate picture of your year-end activities.
According to Molex, an engineering innovator across multiple industries, “Although the amount of data collected is vast, the technology of the smart farm means that strategies can be applied to individual fields or animals, making the best use of resources and ensuring the greatest productivity.”
“We use MyJohnDeere to pull our information and it has been fairly seamless and not a whole lot of headaches there at all. Which we have seen in other platforms - not so seamless.”
We consistently hear from our growers that Conservis was the missing piece of the data-puzzle they were searching for to truly find the full value in their machines’ capabilities. Row crop growers utilizing machine integration can take advantage of Zone Economics, enabling them to perform cost-based financial analysis of their growing activities, right down to the square yard. The variety level comparisons and zone level profitability analysis capabilities empower farmers to make real-time decisions and plan for the future. Kyle Musselman of Musselman Brothers Inc. says, "FieldView™ is great at mapping. Conservis is great at analyzing. It's almost a perfect pairing with those two together.”
From machine integration to the future of agriculture
Just two weeks into my career with Conservis I was able to go onsite to a farm operation. It was amazing to see at that literal ground level how farmers do their jobs on a day-to-day basis. Just as this helped inspire the work our team has achieved regarding machine integration, our continued conversations with growers help us build our future project roadmaps.
"Your people at Conservis are very open minded. They listen, ask questions, and they continue to improve their program and try to help us all that time. I believe that if it was associated with a bigger company or with a different motive to sell something, there's parts of that you wouldn't get."
View our 30-minute Zone Economics webinar
Note: Zone Economics is currently available to row crop growers.
Conservis delivers on diverse operations, including both row and permanent crops.
Let us know what challenges you have and we'll let you know more about the solutions we offer.