The month of March can be consuming for college basketball fans. Filling out brackets, making predictions, and watching games are all part of the experience. Teams who make it to the NCAA tournament spend hours formulating plans, crafting plays, and strategizing. Farmers should take the same approach in preparation for a successful crop in 2024.
FARMserver® holds the suite of tools you need to craft and execute your gameplan. From selecting the right seed varieties to preparing to plant, your plan can be used and referenced throughout the entire season. Establishing field boundaries in FARMserver will build the foundation of your plan. Once this is done, a variety of tools become accessible.
To start, go to FARMserver’s Seed Plans tool, which houses a list of Beck’s hybrids and varieties along with product fact sheets. This tool will allow you to select a product on your 2024 seed order and assign it to the corresponding field. Once this information is logged, you can download a summary report outlining your plan for planting each product including the farm name, field name, assigned acres, and units. These Go2Field reports will create your playbook for planting season. The platform allows you to email the report or print off copies for easy access in the truck or tractor making it a great resource for distributing to help on the farm.
Next up, create your seed prescriptions. It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned veteran to creating seed prescriptions or brand new and want to try a field or two. FARMserver has you covered with the industry-leading management zone and prescription generation tool. This tool can look at yield data, soil types, elevation, drone data, and soil test information to make the best zones for every field. No matter what kind of planting monitor you have FARMserver collaborates with a wide variety of manufacturers all types of monitors and equipment.
Then, it’s time for the question of the season: should I begin planting? NEW for the 2024 planting season is the Ready2Plant™ tool. This decision-making tool is designed to help you make the best choice to start the growing season. The 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. All the information supporting the plant or no-plant decisions will be available in FARMserver to give you a deeper understanding of what you’re looking at. The notification will recommend one of the two messages: Ready2Plant: It’s GO time! or Ready2Plant: Press PAUSE. You must opt-in for this notification by updating your notification preferences.
After the seed is in the ground, we then shift our focus to the in-season aspects of FARMserver. One of the most used tools in FARMserver is the Crop Growth Model for corn, soybeans, and wheat. The crop growth model needs a few pieces of key information to create a growth model for each field. First is relative maturity. FARMserver will default to a 109-day corn product and 3.0 maturity for soybeans unless directed otherwise. Second is the planting date. You can add the data one of three ways: uploading planting data, adding a manual planting event, or by checking off a field from the Ready2Plant™ tool. Once FARMserver has this information, the platform will map out the entire growing season for the field. Variation may occur by a day or two based off weather modeling.
Throughout the growing season, FARMserver will send you text or email notifications for High Priority Situational Alerts, PFR Alerts, and Agronomic Alerts. Make sure you turn on your notifications to stay up to date. Starting the year off with a strong plan will help you optimize yields and have a winning season. Reach out to your local Beck’s representative with questions or contact us directly at support@FARMserver.com.
FARMserver is free to all Beck’s customers. To learn more, visit www.FARMserver.com. Scan the QR code to enroll in Ready2Plant™ notifications.
Craig Rogers | Precision Farming Lead