Granular announced that it has released 67 new or improved features to its software in 2019 to-date, in addition to its field agents having logged over 1 million miles helping farmers to improve their profit margins by better using their on-farm data.
As growers experienced a challenging 2019 growing season and harvest, their reliance on actionable data from Granular to help increase yields and reduce input costs for the next growing season has never been higher.
According to recent research from the Purdue Center for Food and Agricultural Business, use of data management software continues to grow. Granular's product development team responded with innovative software features to support growers needs for improved analysis, calculations, and image modeling. North American farmers are increasingly leveraging Granular software to find opportunities for cost savings and profit gains.
"By accurately knowing our cost of production before the planting season started, we were able to reduce our level of crop insurance by $15 per acre." - Nebraska farmer
"After using Granular Business to analyze profit at the field-level, we shifted priority to specific fields, creating a $25k net improvement in dollar yield." - Indiana farmer
"Being able to assign tasks in Granular's farm management software gave us a chance to be more proactive with field team operations and management. Better communication improved efficiency and saved us $14k in labor costs." - Ohio farmer
"The onboarding and Granular Academy is second to none!" - Illinois farmer
Recently, the Granular team was awarded the Skilljar 2019 Customer Education Innovation Award - the first agriculture-based company to receive such recognition - which honors software training programs demonstrating innovation, thought leadership and industry-wide contributions. Supplementing Granular's Customer Success team, the Granular Academy online training portal educates new users to ensure every customer is comfortable with the software.
Prepping for 2020
Granular customers are already preparing for a successful 2020 planting season. Granular's Agronomy Science Lead Bob Gunzenhauser emphasizes the importance of precision agronomy when developing a plan for the next planting season
"Even though some areas are still wrapping up harvest, our agronomy experts are in the field performing soil tests to analyze soil health, and working with the farmer to develop a nutrient management and seeding plan," said Gunzenhauser. "Capturing each field's nitrogen and fertility levels, and creating various planting scenarios, gives the farmer valuable data to make decisions for 2020. With profit margins and yield estimations projected to be in a narrow range for 2020, data will drive cost analysis on seed varieties, variable rate seeding applications and associated inputs."
The need for good data does not end once planting is over. Field imagery becomes critical once corn plants reach the V6 growth stage. "Field scouting is key to recognizing pest and disease issues early, when remedial solutions can really make a difference," added Gunzenhauser. "Time-strapped growers not only need accurate imaging, but modeling algorithms to point them to the fields that need attention now. Good imagery and pinpoint analysis, coupled with farm software and service that manages input costs and labor, are all components of a successful 2020 plan."