As the temperature gets colder and winter quickly approaches, it’s important that you optimize each post-harvest field pass in order to set yourself up for success next growing season. You can’t make the days longer, but you can use the latest technology to use your data to make sure your operation is optimized for maximum productivity.
A few small changes to your operation can pay big dividends when you end the year with more grain in the tank. These AFS Connect™ features can help you prepare next year while you wait for the ground to thaw.
Geofence Boundaries and Vehicle History
Take the time this fall to make sure you’ve correctly set up geofence boundaries for your fleet. Harvest can leave field nutrients depleted and impact the next season if left untreated. With tools like geofencing and vehicle history tracking in AFS Connect, you can set clear operation areas for your fields and monitor the activity history of those vehicles, giving you peace of mind by knowing how fast or slow your post-harvest nutrients were applied and where they were applied. To setup a geofence, simply draw new areas or update existing fields in AFS Connect depending on your specific needs. Once your geofenced areas are established, you’ll receive app notifications when vehicles enter or exit your fields or boundaries with real-time updates. You’ll know exactly when an operator started or finished a field so you can plan your next move accordingly. Make the most of your post-harvest nutrients and fieldwork with Geofencing.
In-Field Data Sharing
In-field data sharing technology, like AFS AccuSync™, can connect multiple machines in a field, allowing you to ensure all your operators are working together efficiently by sharing coverage maps, as well as straight and heading guidance lines. This will prevent operators from accidentally making skips or overlaps when working fields.
Evaluate Post-harvest Nutrient Needs
Post-harvest is an excellent time to prepare for next season by evaluating your field’s residue management needs. AFS Connect allow you to easily create and share tillage prescriptions with your AFS Soil Command™ equipped tillage tools to help you better address your residue management goals based on your soil and field conditions. If an extra set of eyes are needed to assist with decisions, AFS Connect also makes it easy for share data files to and from your agronomist or trusted advisor.
Analyze Harvest Data
While tools like AFS Connect can quickly and easily help you get a big-picture view of your operation, the real benefit lies in assessing which variables led to greater, or smaller, yields. For instance, overlaying fertilization, soil maps, weather, planting or pest data on top of yield data can help you determine which factors improved your bottom line — and which factors did not.
How does this work in practice? Perhaps you’re interested in determining whether increased yields in a specific section of your field were weather-dependent or not. By using mapped fields and overlaying rainfall data on top of yield data, you’ll gain a clearer picture of whether that section of field benefited from increased rainfall, or whether it was your specific seeding, planting, application or fertilization practices.
The benefit, of course, is that knowing what factors contributed to higher yields will help you replicate those factors in seasons to come. In the same way, knowing what caused crops to fail or suffer can help you remove unwanted variables before planting season begins next year.
Examine Your Fleet
Use the dynamic machine reporting on the desktop version of AFS Connect to give you quick access to deeper-level information on things, like idle time and fuel use, via an easy-to-use dashboard that simplifies the data reporting process. AFS Connect takes the guesswork out of things and allows you to be confident with data-driven decisions by monitoring historical and current performance, coordinating maintenance needs and view operating parameters.
Information Sharing
Once you’ve got a clearer picture of your field data, sharing it with trusted partners is the next step in boosting your bottom line. By sharing important information with agronomists, dealers, consultants and other business partners, you can make smarter decisions about how to manage your operation.
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