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Free Planting Date AdvisorSM Tool on climate. com Helps Identify Ideal Planting Windows The Climate Corporation recently announced that the free climate.com service is now live for the 2013 growing season. Using remote sensing technologies, physical and geospatial mapping, unique weather simulations, and proprietary agronomic models, climate. com provides growers with field-level weather monitoring and forecasting, field-specific crop insights, and decision support tools to help them better manage their operations and increase their profitability. The Climate Corporation also announced the availability of Planting Date Advisor,℠ a new climate.com tool that dynamically quantifies spring and fall freeze risks by planting date for each field. With the help of Planting Date Advisor, growers can better identify an ideal planting window and evaluate the potential risk-reward of their seed relative maturity choice. "Every year growers miss out on hundreds of millions of bushels of yield potential valued in excess of $1 billion because of lack of access to data and insights to inform their planting date decisions,” says Jeff Hamlin, director of agronomic research at The Climate Corporation. “Planting Date Advisor is a unique online tool that growers can put to use in the coming months to understand freeze risks by planting date and risk-reward tradeoffs of their seed relative maturity choice. The goal of climate.com is to help growers increase their profitability, and Planting Date Advisor is the first tool that can help growers make more profitable decisions in the face of increasingly extreme weather." Powered by The Climate Corporation’s unique weather monitoring, forecasting and agronomic modeling technology platform, Planting Date Advisor: •
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Calculates the risk that a corn or soybean crop in any of over 20 million U.S. fields could be damaged by a spring freeze post-emergence or damaged by a fall freeze before the crop has a chance to reach full maturity, with risks calculated for each potential planting date. Allows a grower to vary the relative maturity of the seed to assist cost-benefit analyses regarding the additional fall freeze risk the grower would be taking on by planting a longer-season, higher-yielding variety. Provides dynamic field-level planting date risk analyses using real-time weather forecasting technologies.
The full climate.com service drives more profitable farming by saving growers time and improving their operational decision making. In addition to Planting Date Advisor, key climate.com features for the 2013 growing season include: •
Farm-Level Dashboard: Growers can easily scan
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current field-level weather conditions and key status indicators for each of their fields, including 24-hour and 7-day accumulated precipitation, growth stage, soil moisture, projected yield impact of season-to-date weather conditions, and estimated yield projections. •
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Precipitation and Temperature Tracking: Growers can track daily and cumulative season-to-date precipitation on each of their fields, monitor high and low temperatures, and receive notifications of yield-impacting and operational-impacting weather events. Soil Moisture Tracking: Corn and soybean growers can monitor current soil moisture levels to evaluate whether a given field is experiencing drought or excess moisture stress and to assess field workability. Growth Stage Tracking: Corn and soybean growers can track the field-level progression of their crops through each growth stage to full maturity during the growing season, and monitor the expected timing of future crop growth stages based on season to-date weather conditions. Crop Impact: Corn and soybean growers can track the occurrence, severity and estimated yield impact of heat, drought, excess moisture and freezing weather events.
This powerful feature delivers a more complete view of how the implement is performing and will arm farmers with the data they need to more effectively tune and balance their equipment for maximum performance and efficiency. IAS has also designed and implemented new low flow rate algorithms for improved system performance in applications such as planting sunflowers, canola and flax. These algorithms make the Wireless Blockage Monitor even more versatile for farmers planting a wide range of crops. Additionally, IAS has improved support for customers running multiple systems in the same field. “This release of updates and improvements continues to move the Wireless Blockage Monitor forward,” said Bobby Volesky, IAS product manager. “We’re already leading the industry technologically, and continuing to innovate with features like flow monitoring across the implement shows our dedication to our customers and to ensuring that the system remains cutting-edge far into the future.” The new functionality will be released as an update to the Wireless Blockage Monitor application on the Apple App Store at the beginning of April.
“Farmers tell us that they can’t get all the weather and agronomic data that they need to make informed daily decisions,” says David Friedberg, CEO of The Climate Corporation. “We have built technology to acquire, analyze and provide weather and agronomic data for every field and operation in the United States, allowing farmers of all sizes to improve their outcomes and profitability using simple tools on climate.com.” Growers can create a free trial account at www.climate. com. Ongoing free access to the climate.com service is available through Climate Corporation authorized independent crop insurance agents. ______________________________________
IAS Announces Wireless Blockage Monitor Updates Intelligent Agricultural Solutions (IAS) is pleased to announce several software updates and improvements to its groundbreaking Wireless Blockage Monitor system. The Wireless Blockage Monitor system is an innovative acoustic-based seed monitoring system for air seeding implements. Launched in 2011, the system monitors every opener on the implement and uses the popular Apple iPad to instantly display blockages anywhere on the tool. The system has been well received by forwardlooking farmers and is now in use across the US, Canada and Australia. The most compelling improvement is the system’s new flow monitoring feature, which displays total flow levels and flow variance from manifold to manifold.
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For more information call 701-356-9222 or 701-6304117; or email bvolesky@intelligentag.com. ______________________________________
New In-Cab Cell Phone and Tablet Mounting Brackets from John Deere
The proliferation of smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices has made them popular and essential communications and information resources for today's farmers and ranchers. As a result, John Deere is introducing mounting brackets and attachments to make it easier and more convenient for producers to have hands-free access and improved viewing of their mobile devices while operating equipment. Continued on next page
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