Agronomy Technology

Many tools are available to enhance crop data accumulation and analysis. It is the ability to intensively manage ever smaller areas of a field. We are all in business to make a profit.

Lamb Farms has learned that different areas of various fields may be more or less profitable. The goal is to increase the overall profitability, which literally means we need to focus on smaller areas of those fields. The challenge is to identify the limiting factor and a reasonable means to effectively overcome that challenge.

The limiting factor may be drainage, fertility or any number of potentially limiting factor of production. Through the use of technologies we are better able to overcome these challenges.

The ultimate goal of our precision efforts is to identify areas of fields which can be tweaked to improve the overall profitability levels. And we feel the ultimate analysis concludes with a variable profit map. Similar to a yield map showing variable yields, a profit map includes enough detail to look at the variable profit or loss levels in various parts of each field.

To derive a profit map we include input expenses which may be constant (as land charges) or variable (as fertilizer), and then we add in the yield maps. Crunching all of the data through certain software will generate a profit map such as this one. In this example the areas with yellow color realized a profit of between $60 and $90 per acre. The areas in purple or red realized a net loss per acre.