In a season of high input costs and low commodity prices, growers must balance maximizing yield and managing input costs. Data can help growers understand their field environment and make the most of every acre.
Step 1: Know Your Field — Build a Historical Foundation
Yield maps from the past three to five years can help determine which areas in a field may have poor drainage or consistently low yield. They can also help identify areas with the highest yield potential across varying conditions. This history indicates where growers may want to manage parts of their field differently, investing more in proven acres and rethinking strategy on underperforming areas.
Step 2: Feed the Soil — Manage Fertility with Precision
Once growers understand the landscape, the next step is managing the soil to feed the crop. Yield maps paired with soil sampling can show nutrient removal rates, available nutrients and soil pH.
“When we think about fertility, one of the things I like to really start to talk with customers and growers about is, ‘Let’s understand how much of that nutrient is going to be removed through yield levels,’” said Matt Clover, agronomy innovation data leader at Pioneer. “We know that removal rates are pretty much a linear relationship with that yield. As yields go up, we’re removing more nutrients.”
Understanding the plants’ needs and how each nutrient is used allows growers to prioritize fertilizer applications and address other soil conditions before they become costly problems.
Step 3: Protect the Crop — Plant for What’s Ahead
After establishing field conditions and a fertility plan, growers can turn their attention to managing the crop itself. Reviewing external factors like weather patterns, disease pressure and pest activity using both past data and current-season modeling helps anticipate challenges before they arrive. With that insight, growers can select traits or treatments that limit risk throughout the season.
“That’s where disease risk maps come into play,” said Matt Essick, commercial unit agronomy innovation leader at Pioneer. “We want to try to manage that disease before it ever really sets in heavy in the crop, because there is really no such thing as a true curative type of product when it comes to curing disease. We can definitely slow it down and reduce the effects, but we can’t just spray something on and then the leaf material grows back and the disease goes away.”
The online 2026 Planting Guide helps set the crop up for success by providing guidance on soil fitness, planting timing, planter settings and product information, among other insights by state or region.
All this information helps growers create a plan best suited to their operation, ensuring the right product goes on the right acre at the right time and the crop remains healthy through harvest.
