Trusting Ag Tech Tools For Fertility Decisions

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Nutrient management is one of the most important aspects of growing a profitable crop that is within a farmer control. But some growers time their fertilizer applications based on habit rather than on data. Jackson Stensell and his team at Sentinel Fertigation want to change this, but they know trusting technology for something this important is not always easy.

Stensell... "So many farmers are used to operating on a plan when it comes to nitrogen management. With our technology, we're taking that plan and kind of condensing the plan to okay, we're gonna plan what the early season looks like so everything until the crop essentially gets to canopy and corn, and then from that point, we're going to let the imagery tell us what the crop needs. And so there's a huge unknown of am I going to need any more fertilizer or am I going to need a lot more fertilizer? And so it changes the fundamentals of the buying decisions. When are we procuring fertilizer? Right. And it also, it's kind of working against this anxiety of I've always done this, I've always put this much on and I've always done it at this time. Why is the software saying I don't need it right now? Is it right? Can I trust it? And that's why it's so important for farmers to try it at small scale. We found, you know, typically it's one or two fields in the first year, or it's with a neighbor that has done an on-farm research trial because that's very central to what we do is on-farm research trials, but it's really getting close to that farmer, letting them understand and see it. And that's ultimately what leads to the confidence that gets built over time, that we can rely on the data to help inform that plan in season."

Again that’s Sentinel Fertigation president and CEO, Jackson Stensell.