Yellow legal pads and ballpoint pens were Dave Schrock’s tools of the trade when it came to recording data early on in his farming career.
In the day and age of smartphones and AI, that might get a chuckle. But thanks to that yellow legal pad, Dave has nearly 30 years of data records to help guide his management decisions.
“We didn’t have spreadsheets. There was no Excel. There were no computers in our offices,” he said. “We would have yellow tablets, and we would just start watching our tissue samples to see if they correlated with what we found in the soil.”
A long stint in the construction industry taught Dave the value of good record-keeping, and despite the manual nature of it in the 1990s, he always took time to make it a priority. As data became easier to collect and record-keeping became easier to manage, he was ahead of the curve.
He started to dive deeper into his data and subsequently, into nutrient management. He started to do more tissue sampling. He started reviewing data more often. He added a yield monitor to his combine. He started to look at nutrient levels and cross-reference them with yield. He joined Total Acre® and followed other educational opportunities and groups. He started to look at his fellow farmer’s tissue samples.
Why? Because Dave knew that data is the first piece to unlock a truly balanced nutrient management plan.
“Using data to inform on-farm decisions is like building a road. If we just drive out here blindly, without headlights, in the dark, we’re going to end up in a ditch. But if we build a road and turn our lights on, we can avoid the ditch,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing with this data. We’re using that data to forecast — it’s actually similar to AI.”
Data alone doesn’t mean much. But by reviewing it in context — comparing it to previous years or to regional or crop-specific trends — you can start to see the bigger picture, said Dave.
“Most labs today just give you your nutrient levels—high, low, deficient, sufficient. Then, once we had yield monitors, we could say, ‘Yeah, this spot did this, and that spot did that.’ That’s something we can actually build on, and that’s what we’re doing today in some of the high-yield groups, like Total Acre,” said Dave.
With this data and context, efficiencies can be found. And efficiencies are what help keep farms profitable — or what helps farms simply survive when the markets are tough.
“Farm economics are not that great right now. Instead of having $10 to spend, now we have $6. So, we’ve got to figure out where that $6 is best spent,” said Dave. “How do big retail stores survive? They sell stuff that the little store down the road can’t. How? They figured out efficiencies. Farmers need to figure that out, or we’re going to be pushed out like little mom-and-pop hardware stores, little mom-and-pop restaurants, all these little businesses went by the wayside because they couldn’t compete, for one reason and one reason only — efficiencies.”
Compared to the cost of fertilizer, land rent or other inputs — data is cheap. For less than the cost of fertilizing 50 acres of corn, Dave can have access to all the data he could ever need to help him make informed decisions for a balanced crop nutrition plan.
Sorting through data sets and farm records can feel overwhelming, but when the margins are as tight as they are this season and going into next, you can’t afford to sacrifice inefficiencies you could discover in that data.
“It costs nothing to be educated. Once you start educating yourself, you’ll start wondering, then you’ll start looking at your data, then you’ll be hungry for more,” Dave said. “The first dollar spent on the farm should be on data and knowing how to use it.”