Use crop planning – a powerful AgExpert Field tool

Published April 8,2022

The bigger the farm, the harder it gets to properly plan and make reasonable projections of revenues and costs throughout your crop year. In this article we’ll cover how AgExpert Field can help you achieve your crop planning goals.

Crop planning can be a dense subject and difficult to fit into your schedule. But even if you’re running a year-round production cycle, there’s always that season where things run at a slower pace. Take advantage of your down time to step back from the farm and get planning. Here are some basic principles.

-  Create a harvest plan – you need to have a clear idea of how much of each crop you would like to harvest and how much space will be required to achieve your goal.

-  Create a planting plan – setup a template that carries all the planting information, seed ordering, and any other notes on each crop.

- Map out all the plantings – do a dry run on planting out all the fields and try to figure out where everything should go, how it will fit, and if you even have space for it all.

Costs and yields on each farm will differ with the condition and type of equipment, the selection of crop protection products and other inputs, agronomic practices, soil class and weather conditions. As a producer, you’re expected to set your own target yields.

Get flexibility and variation 

Sign into your AgExpert Field account and select Crop planning in the left navigation bar.

 

AgExpert Field allows a lot of flexibility. You can try different scenarios and find out which one provides the best results. Choose crops to plant. Enter fertilizer, crop protection products, and your operating costs for each crop. Set a target yield and sale price.

 

Find the bottom line

Include the cost of any additional items involved in your operation.

Watch your crop profit projections update in real time. Get your breakeven yield, sale price and ratio for each crop.

Note: Numbers used in this blog are only for illustration purposes only and don’t necessarily reflect real prices and costs. Use your own numbers and build realistic scenarios.