Company To Expand Test Of Hybrid Selection Tool

By: Willie Vogt

The science of crop modeling keeps advancing. Company software engineers are expanding their knowledge of the interaction among seed, soil, weather and growing conditions to better match crop to location. The latest news on that front comes from The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Bayer.

The company is advancing its predictive seed selection and placement technology to precommercial testing with farmers this fall. This corn-focused effort aims to help farmers in three states in the Midwest better place the right hybrids on their farms. The implication for the tech, however, is wider-reaching; as more information is available, these types of tools will help farmers across the country fine-tune seed selection.

For now, the test starts with 50 dealers and 200 customers who will be given access to Seed Advisor, which Climate says is a data-driven tool that provides dealers with a ranked hybrid recommendation by field, and optimal seeding rate recommendations for those fields. “There are complex interactions in the field that we have to sort out,” says Sam Eathington, chief science officer. He adds that these tools are powered by “deep data sets and expansive field trial research.”

During the announcement event at the 2018 Farm Progress Show, Eathington shared a slide from Fred Below, a professor of plant physiology at the University of Illinois, that shows the seven key factors that impact corn production. Eathington observed that 70% of the actions taken to raise a corn crop are controlled by the farmer. “There’s opportunity there to boost yields,” he says.