I REMEMBER WHEN WE FIRST SAW A SATELLITE IMAGE OF ONE OF OUR FIELDS…

I was surprised to see as much variability as I did. There were hilltops that I expected to not look as good because we never got the best yields on them, but there were other areas that I didn’t realize had just as many challenges.

It changed where I wanted to go in the field for scouting.

It changed my thoughts on soil sampling with smaller grids.

WHEN IT COMES TO FIELD SCOUTING, SATELLITE IMAGERY WAS A COMPLETE GAMECHANGER!

Fast forward to today.

Rather than one image per field per season or maybe a few images all season total, most of us have access to satellite imagery for every field on a weekly basis or possibly even more often than that. The sad thing is it’s not being fully utilized. Do you already have a service like VRAFY or Climate that includes satellite imagery? If so, how often are you looking at it?

HERE ARE A FEW THINGS WE ARE DOING WITH SATELLITE IMAGERY THAT ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE ON THE FARM.

TARGETED SCOUTING

If your field is all green on a satellite image, please send it to me. I never get to see fields like that! They always have at least one bad area in red or a few acres here and there that are not doing well. Without satellite imagery, would you find those areas so you could take a look and see what’s going on?

As farm sizes have gotten bigger, farmers have gotten older, and fewer people are working on farms, many farmers say there just isn’t time to get through all their fields like they used to. This is one of the biggest reasons you should look at your satellite imagery each week. You find the areas that don’t look good and narrow down your scouting. Plus, you will likely find those areas much earlier than you otherwise would, which will save you a ton of yield or at least help you identify why your yield is being lost.

PRECISION SAMPLING

If you’re pulling plant tissue analysis, you know how valuable that data can be for managing your fertility program. Satellite imagery can help you step up your game by precisely locating this year’s best spots and worst spots so your samples can be the most useful.

With soil sampling, it’s the same thing. Even if you’re doing one-acre grids, you’re going to miss a few of the hot spots. Satellite imagery can help you manipulate where you want to pull samples from so you can eliminate nutrient deficiencies as a yield-limiting factor moving forward.

HARVEST PLANNING

Your mid-season satellite imagery will likely look almost exactly the same as your yield monitor map this fall. This can help you estimate yields and bin space in advance. It can also help target which areas of a soybean field may need to be harvested a week earlier to avoid 8% beans or pods splitting open.

Another thing we’ve used satellite imagery for is directing silage harvest operations. We harvest a majority of our corn acres as silage for a neighbor’s dairy. Satellite imagery helps us figure out which fields to go to next, and it’s much more accurate than trying to drive from field to field to take moisture samples.

AND MUCH MORE…

There are many other uses for satellite imagery, and once you start looking at your fields in this way, you’ll figure out some that provide an advantage to you. Like I said before, chances are you already have satellite imagery from one or more services. Work with your agronomist to do more with your satellite imagery this season.