The Role of Trusted Advisor in Providing Local Agronomic Knowledge for Improved Decisions.

Crop producers have historically relied on local sources of information for crop management decisions – their fertilizer or seed dealer, the county Extension educator, or neighbors. Often decisions were made by producers integrating recommendations from these local experts with their own intuition. Today farmers have large quantities of data generated from their own operation, and the opportunity to manage data to make decisions based on quantitative information rather than intuition. The key is to have the time and expertise to appropriately manage and interpret large volumes of data generated today in a modern farming operation. In addition, the opportunity exists for data from one producer to be aggregated with that from many others for more comprehensive analysis. In this environment, the trusted advisor can serve a pivotal role in using data to make informed, timely decisions. This presentation will discuss the role of the trusted advisor in today’s crop production environment. Today this role can range from assistance with technology on planters, sprayers, and other equipment to processing and interpreting multiple years of yield and other spatial data from grower fields, to using crop growth and weather models to schedule irrigation and fertigation during the season. In some cases these varied roles may be filled by a single advisor, while in other cases growers will still integrate information from multiple advisors in specialized areas in making decisions.