Value of Data: New Tool to Manage Abnormal Production in Analysis

Across the nation this year, many areas were challenged with “off” weather. From the drought in Texas, to the record rainfall in the northeast, and wind through the corn belt, yield maps across the country likely have a different look than they have in previous years. It is years like this that a new feature in SMS Version 11.5 can help you manage data to get quality information for your fields. We have added a feature that provides an easier way to flag data to exclude from analysis functions so that abnormal data from one field or year doesn’t affect other analysis information. Below are some examples of where we are using this in our operation:

• 2008: Wet weather during the first part of the summer resulted in some poor weed control in some NON-GMO soybeans. Even after rescue applications, we still had weed escapes that affected yield more than we like to see.
• 2009: We had a severe outbreak of White Mold in a few soybean fields. Areas that for several years were very productive suddenly were the lowest yielding areas of the field.

• 2010: We were rained out of the field, with half of the corn still standing. A low pressure system came through, and two days of 60-70 mph winds flattened the other half of the field.

You can probably come up with many of your own examples. In the above situations, I still wanted to have the data for production records and as a yearly reference. I can set these flags for omission one dataset at a time by right clicking on the dataset and choosing Edit Item, or for multiple datasets using Batch Command (see screenshot below). With these flags set these datasets will be removed automatically when I run analysis, and I no longer have to remove data manually from my analysis setup.