No matter what size your farm is, collecting and making the most of your farm data is incredibly valuable. The more information you have,the more you can make decisions tailored to your farm’s specific needs. New data collection tools provide farmers with an exciting opportunity to take a step back and examine what productivity and sustainable farming goals we want to achieve.You can easily record and analyse data in fieldmargin using monitoring sites. Monitoring sites do not require any special technology and allow you to add measurements from anywhere. When you add a data reading into fieldmargin it saves the date, time and location. Read more here.

Working out what data is most useful for your farm is key, there are lots of exciting possibilities but only so many days in the year and money in the budget! With this in mind here are our 5 examples of data you could use fieldmargin.

 

1. Insect monitoring 

Early detection of insects is essential to prevent crop destruction. Monitoring pest numbers and locations using insect traps can reduce pest control costs and stop the spread of disease. The Integrated Pest Management scheme recommends the careful consideration of all pest control techniques and only using chemical control where and when needed. You can use fieldmargin to set up insect trap locations so you can add pest counts when you are in the field and use this information to identify hot-spots and spray thresholds.

 

2. Weather Monitoring

If you have your own weather station or rain gauge you can set it up on fieldmargin to record your measurements. fieldmargin also has an easy-to-use analysis tool which instantly produces graphs from your data. You can easily visualise weather patterns over time by viewing weather record graphs over one week, one month and one year.

3. Soil data

Good soil management is essential to maintain sustainable food production. Knowing your soil nutrient content means you can plan a fertiliser program that is accurate, cost-effective and environmentally responsible. Soil sampling and mapping are particularly important if your farm is in an area that has essential nutrient deficiencies. You can use fieldmargin to store records of soil test results and monitor change in your soils over time.

4. Crop recording

A key part of farming is conducting on-farm experiments to try new things. If you are testing a new crop variety or fertiliser regime fieldmargin can be used to easily record crop and field observations at different times of the year.  For example you can measure crop establishment, plant count, green area index, lodging, flowing score, and disease susceptibility. These crop measurements can be used to assess and compare performance. Was the new cropping system more efficient, cost-effective or productive?

5. Plate meter measurements for pasture

Effective pasture management is key to meeting the needs of grazing livestock. Rising plate meters provide a convenient way of assessing field cover through measurements of the sward height. fieldmargin can be used to record your plate meter readings and the available DM in each field while you are on the go so you can easily plan how to allocate your grazing. 

We are sure that you will find the new data tool useful – give it a go! The great thing about the data feature is that you can set it up to record any measurement you can think of. What will you record on your farm? Let us know in the comments.

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