Picture this.
The calendar flips to April 1. You’re sipping on your first cup of coffee, thinking about the day, and an exciting thought creeps into your head…
PLANTING SEASON IS HERE.
For some of us, it’s earlier, and for some, it’s later, but there is something exciting about the thought of growing a new crop. With all your seed in the shed and the planter fine-tuned and in planting-ready condition, the only question yet to answer is, “SHOULD I PLANT?”
Over the past decade, our team has met with dealers, seed advisors, and customers, and the number one question we get asked in the spring, time and time again, is, “Do you think we should start planting?” There are many factors to consider when deciding to head to the field and plant, including soil moisture, soil temperature, past and forecasted rainfall, past and projected temperatures, and the ability to get the planter and tractor across the field, to name a few.
NEW for the 2024 planting season is the Ready2Plant™ tool in FARMserver™. The Ready2Plant decision-making tool is designed specifically to assist farmers looking to make the best possible decisions to ensure a great start to the growing season. This decision-making tool will run from March 15 to June 15 and takes into account more than ten different variables to provide insight into making planting decisions. A few of these variables include field accessibility, soil moisture, and soil temperature.
HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU SPEND DRIVING AROUND TO YOUR FIELDS TO CHECK CONDITIONS AND SOIL TEMPERATURES?
With FARMserver’s Ready2Plant tool, we provide the accessibility and temperature for every field you have in your FARMserver account. All the information used to support the plant or no-plant decisions will be available in FARMserver (Figure 1) to give you a deeper understanding of what you’re looking at. For ease of use, you’ll also receive notifications via email or text containing a report and one of two messages (Figure 2):
- “Planting Consideration: It’s GO time! Forecasted conditions indicate ideal planting window for the next 3 days for the following fields: <your field information listed here>”
- “Planting Consideration: Press PAUSE. Forecasted conditions less than ideal for planting starting tomorrow, May 23, for the following fields: <your field information listed here>”
So, what do you need to do to start receiving Ready2Plant notifications? First, create your FARMserver account, which is FREE to any Beck’s customer. Next, you will need to create field boundaries for any fields you want to receive the Ready2Plant notifications. And finally, you will need to turn on your Ready2Plant notifications in the notification center. You have the option for text messages or email, and you will only receive a notification when all the data variables identify that conditions are fit or unfit for planting (Figure 3).
CLICK HERE to sign up today for Ready2Plant notifications and get ready for #plant24. For more information, visit FARMserver.com or give us a call at 317-565-4120.