ARS Office of Communications
Sunlight, water and fertilizer have always been key to agriculture, but enterprising farmers are finding a new ingredient to get the most out of their land data. But not just any data, clean data.
Farmers have used sensors for years to monitor their crops, using the data they collect to customize operations to maximize yield. These data, however, were often incomplete or inaccurate. That’s why researchers at the Agricultural Research Service’s Cropping Systems and Water Quality Research Unit in Columbia, Mo., have developed Yield Editor.
Yield Editor is downloadable software that provides more reliable and defensible yield maps. ARS’s Scott Drummond and Ken Sudduth designed Yield Editor for their research projects, but as other researchers and early precision farming adopters saw the importance of the tool, they released the first edition of the software to the public in 2003.