End of crop year analysis

Jan 17, 2017

By comparing yields across your fields and farms, you can shape your production decisions for the next growing season

By Patrick Lynch
Farms.com

At the end of each crop year, you need to review final yields. You need to compare each farm/field to the other fields planted with the same crop.

Then start at the lowest yielding field. Make a list of the things that lowered yield on that farm/field. Be specific: rain, weed control, insects, disease or unknown. The objective is to solve the problem and change the yield the next time that same crop is on that farm/field.

Dry corn in field
Photo: stacey_newman/iStock/Getty Images Plus photo

I once heard of a farmer in western Canada who bought three quarters every year and sold one. Generally, he sold the lowest-yielding quarter. Other reasons to sell included distance from the rest of the land in the operation.

You cannot be sentimental about land if you are farming for profit. If for some reason a farm is consistently lower yielding, get rid of it. The reason may be something as simple as this farm has different soil type than the rest of your land. Tillage and other seeding equipment that work on most of your land is just not suited to the low-yielding piece of land. It is more economical to get rid of that land than to set up tillage and planting for a different soil type.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.