|
| This is a great topic and I have been following it since first posted! There are some really good, balanced perspectives that people have put in. Let me add two cents to the whole discussion by drawing a little bit from everybody.
First of all, there are a lot of really great software packages out there, but I do not feel there is one that does everything that is necessary for a good data management program.
Secondly, I am a big proponent of data analysis. Of course, this is a broad subject and ranges from simple variety reports (well, I should say they seem simple) to some really in-depth analysis of your trends and yield factors.
While I do teach a precision ag part time at a local university, I am a full-time farmer and have to make it all work in the real world as well. On the family farm, we use Apex pretty much to get it to and from the field (we are predominately John Deere), but that is as far as I go with Apex. There is nothing else on the market that I want to own that will handle the data to and from the equipment. We need planting maps for in-field variety location, VRT for the 2600 display on fertilizer, etc.
However, if you need to look at a database full of numbers and do a lot of data clean up and analysis, don't expect your simple field management software to also be really powerful with data. Use SAS or SPSS or even ArcMap, MapShots, etc. for the heavy lifting. Apex, SMS, SST, FarmWorks, and so on are really good packages, but use them for what they do best.
Finally, most people don't want to do a lot of software buying (especially something really expensive like some of these). That's when you start figuring out what you have available. There are some great websites that will run basic statistical tests, most people own MS Office and Excel does a tremendous amount of basic number comparisons for yields, your local university is probably willing to open up their computer lab to use software they already have installed (this could be a public lab, a GIS, Mathematics, Ag, Statistics, or some other department or it could be your local university extension agency). You local extension agent probably has some really good tools that could be used in cooperation with their department.
A lot of thoughts that may seem disjointed here, but I would encourage you to think outside the box a little bit by figuring out what you need and pursuing that goal. | |
|
Thinking of making a software change. Need help.
