More growers are using software to manage data collected from the field, analyze it, and then decide how to utilize it most effectively. This practice allows growers to become more efficient, and most importantly, provides better understanding of the decisions that are having a positive effect on yields and ROI.
Water is, of course, the thing that has the biggest impact on yields. Water is also one of the least tracked data points when examining yields.
Why Not Track Water?
Most growers are keeping track of the hybrids planted, plant population and fertilizer inputs, then collecting yield data for analytics. So, why aren’t most of those same growers adding the applied water data into the equation when evaluating what’s working and what isn’t? Without water data, it’s not really precision ag.
The problem is that water is hard to keep track of accurately. Flow can vary throughout the season, and rainfall amounts typically vary from field to field. It’s time-consuming to track runtime hours, and manually collecting data from flowmeters is a hassle. Even if this data is collected, it can still take time to format the information.
Data Collection Simplified
Valley Irrigation has simplified the collection of water data applied through irrigation – as well as rainfall – by allowing users the ability to pull accurate reports for each, with the click of a button. AgSense remote pivot telemetry and pump control solutions track every inch of water applied via irrigation, as well as where that water is applied within the field. This feature is built in to all Valley ICON panels. In addition to tracking the application rates via irrigation, all AgSense telemetry products are compatible with a digital rain bucket.
AgSense telemetry keeps track of:
- Total acre inches applied throughout the entire field;
- Total gallons pumped; and
- Total hours the pump was on/ff for the date range selected by the grower.
Plus, with the addition of a digital rain bucket, the grower also can review the past 24 hours, seven days or year-to-date rainfall amounts without ever going to the field.
You can then save this valuable information as a data layer to overlay on top of other input layers when evaluating yield data, at the end of the season. You can also share it automatically with your favorite data collection software via Valley's API (Application Programming Interface).
Whether you need to report water data for allocations, improve yield data analysis, or just want to track what your water input amounts and costs are year-to-year, Valley makes collecting and using this data simple.