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Westport, IN | I think it is still the correct order to do things. We must have a baseline for "the way we have always done it", and seeing how it takes one year per data point, I do think it takes a while before starting to comparing new technologies. I have friends who try new ideas and never measure the results. No check strips, no weigh wagons, all gut feel. Maybe they understand better than I do, but their reported results are contrary to my measured results. I guess i am doing it wrong.
My first piece of Precision equipment was a yield monitor. It shown where I was doing somethings wrong (sometimes very wrong). Very quickly I jumped into VRA planting. In two years everything was planted VRA. Huge payout for me. Here with variability in soil types in the same round there is no way to treat each acre uniformly. I actually want to treat different areas of the field differently.
This year was the first year with weigh bar on row units. My eyes were opened again. I look forward to comparing problem areas to yield maps. However my hard soil areas are not traditionally low yielding. I think down pressure will be my next area of concentration. Automatic down pressure is not a cheap option. This is where I may agree with your order above. Without uniform planting conditions, what good is the data if it is flawed. (maybe I really agree with you)
My yield data remains largely untouched, but it is available if needed. Problem areas have been greatly improved, by doing experiments and confirmed by data. Maybe I could have collected data in other ways, but in reality it too late to check yield on small areas when running the combine. (One thing I found out is when planter is running empty and it alarms, I stop immediately and move seed around. I never thought about it but on row out of six on 200 bushel 30 bushels to the acre. Ill get out of the cab for that.) This list could go on and on with describing my mini experiments. I log these into the versa and I can go back and see their impact.
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Another Thought on Data Value…
