Objectively Measuring Products and Practices with the SWAT ECOSYSTEM 

In agriculture, farmers and agronomists are inundated with products and practices promising to rejuvenate soil, enhance crop health, and boost yields. These claims are often accompanied by side-by-side photos of plants or roots, showcasing dramatic differences in size, color, or vigor. While compelling at first glance, these images frequently lack any scientific rigour as they are often cherry-picked examples from unknown conditions that may not represent the broader field or treatment areas. 
 
To make informed decisions, it’s crucial to evaluate these claims objectively. As agronomists, our role is to cut through the noise and provide measurable insights into how products or practices impact crop performance. While the SWAT ECOSYSTEM offers a suite of tools designed to enable precise, evidence-based evaluations, there are also other valuable resources available that can help bring clarity to these assessments, ensuring farmers and agronomists make decisions backed by reliable data. 
 
Consistency in Side-by-Side Comparisons 
Before diving into specific tools, it’s worth noting that any side-by-side comparisons must start with consistent sampling. At a minimum, plants should be chosen from the same SWAT zone—areas defined by soil, water, and topography characteristics. For instance, selecting samples from a Zone 5 (a mid-slope) ensures that the plants are growing in similar environmental conditions, reducing variability unrelated to the product or practice being tested. This basic principle is the foundation for fair and objective assessment.

Yield Analysis with the Yield Potential Program (YPP)
One of the most reliable indicators of success is yield. By using yield maps, farmers and agronomists gain an objective view of crop performance across an entire field. The SWAT MAPS Yield Potential Program (YPP) enhances this process by breaking down yield data by SWAT zones and further, into treatment areas if applicable.

This functionality allows farmers to identify how a product or practice performs under various conditions within the same field. For example, a fertilizer might show a higher yield response in an upper landscape position or SWAT zone 1-4 for example, while its impact diminishes in wetter, depressional areas. Best practices for such trials include replicating treatments across multiple zones to minimize bias and improve reliability.

Assessing Crop Growth with SWAT CAM
SWAT CAM, a sprayer-mounted field imaging system, offers another layer of insight. It provides high-resolution images of the field after each sprayer pass, enabling agronomists to assess crop growth and plant stands with precision.

SWAT CAM can be particularly useful for visualizing treatment effects very early in season. The system creates maps of plant stands and crop coverage, with the added ability to zoom in on individual image points. This tool empowers farmers to make informed decisions by monitoring how products or practices influence crops throughout the growing season. Instead of relying solely on end-of-season yield data, SWAT CAM provides real-time feedback on plant health and uniformity.

Leveraging Other Tools for Objective Insights
In addition to YPP and SWAT CAM, several complementary tools can help refine treatment evaluations:

Satellite Imagery: Platforms like the Copernicus Browser offer weekly biomass imagery, allowing you to monitor growth differences throughout the season. While cloud cover or smoke can interfere with acquiring useful images, this is an excellent resource for spotting trends across large areas.

Comparative Tissue Testing: Tissue testing from treated and untreated areas within the same SWAT zone provides insights into nutrient uptake and plant health. This can often explain yield differences observed in the field.

Feel Confident in Your Decision Making
As an industry, we can do better than subjective side-by-side photos as evidence of product efficacy. By leveraging tools in the SWAT ECOSYSTEM—YPP for yield analysis, SWAT CAM for growth monitoring, and satellite imagery for seasonal trends—we can move toward more objective, data-driven evaluations. Many of these tools are readily accessible, cost-effective, and easy to implement, offering a deeper understanding of soil, crop, and yield variability. If you're ready to elevate your approach to assessing products and practices, start with the base layer for all SWAT ECOSYSTEM tools.

Interested in these tools? Get in touch with your SWAT MAPS agronomist today.

Where did my Nitrogen go? Don’t guess – soil test!

Saskatchewan, Canada - As fall soil sample results roll in from the central prairie region, it becomes clear that nitrate soil residual levels are lower than what we were expecting.  Consensus from harvest is that yields were below target even though crops had a great start and looked good until the end of June. The lack of moisture in some areas for all of July and August, along with the intense heat that came with July most likely negatively affected yields.

When this happens, we tend to see it reflected in our fall soil test results. However, this year nitrate levels seem to be low no matter the field or area we look at. Here we have summarized all of our soil sample results from this fall by soil zone and SWAT zone and also compared them to 2023 fall sample results.

Typically anything below 20lbs of residual nitrate would be considered depleted which we see quite commonly across all soil zones in SWAT zones 1-6, except for maybe in the brown soil zone which has slightly higher residual nitrate values.

And when we look at the comparison to 2023 soil nitrate levels, we have more fields in the <20 lbs range of residual nitrate in 2024 then we did in 2023 when looking at all soil zones and SWAT map zones combined. There is a clear shift to lower nitrates with significant reductions in excessively high testing areas (>60 lbs) as well, which helps reduce environmental losses over winter or next spring.

Our best explanation to this trend for fall of 2024 seems to be the pattern in which the crop grew.  There was a lot of crop growth early on and that biomass would have had a large nutrient demand as most crops require a large portion of their nutrients prior to tillering in cereals and bolting in canola.  These timelines would match up to when growing conditions were ideal.  When environmental conditions took a turn for the worse (July/Aug) the crop nutrient demand decreases as nutrients are only needed to fill seed and carry out the yield potential that was set earlier (either hit or miss it).  Our hope is that the nitrogen is tied up in crop residue which will eventually be returned to the soil through decomposition and mineralization.

The other possible explanation for lower nitrates is less mineralization. Under dry topsoil conditions, microbes are less active, and therefore we don’t see as much nitrogen coming from mineralization.

This is why soil sampling in the fall is very important, especially by SWAT zone, to determine the residual nutrients in your fields. The data reinforces that despite average soils being low, there can still be other areas that test very high or even lower, so understanding that variability can help make better fertilizer decisions. Don’t guess – soil test!

CropMax Consulting: Finding new VR scenarios, the ground up approach, and 10 years of business success

Servicing the Cut Knife, Saskatchewan area, CropMax Consulting prides itself on offering sound agronomic advice and unbiased recommendations. Co-owner Justin Kelly and Agronomy Manager Taylor Muzyka say those are two main contributing factors of their business success story, and the use of SWAT MAPS has provided a way of doing so.

“There are a lot of applications that can come out of a SWAT MAP and that’s where your value and money is coming from,” said Muzyka. “SWAT MAPS gives us the right template for us to take our agronomic knowledge and apply our principles to the map.”

Kelly and Muzyka, along with Co-owner Cody Northam and their team of experienced agronomists have found a wide variety of use case scenarios that can be played with using SWAT MAPS, including making use of pre-existing moisture, pulling seeding rates where needed, and reallocating with what makes the most sense.”

“We’ve had lighter areas where we pull fertilizer or seeding rates so that we have less competition for moisture, and we’ve managed to produce a crop in areas where there was previously no crop establishment,” said Muzyka. “We’ve been looking into surface drainage alteration too because SWAT MAPS can set the stage for that discussion.”

“The moisture conditions change how we do VR year to year. On the back of five years of dry conditions, our zone 10’s aren’t drowned out anymore – they can be some of the best producing areas now,” said Kelly. “We’re actually pushing fertilizer in some areas whereas five years ago we may have cut fertilizer.”

In July 2024 CropMax Consulting celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Over the last decade the company grew to expand agronomy staff, conduct multiple trials each year, and continued to provide leading-edge expertise to farmers. While they also offer crop scouting, the team is continually shifting towards adding in new technologies that support decision making in the field and harnessing the SWAT ECOSYSTEM of tools such as SWAT CAM and SWAT WATER.

“The SWAT MAP always verifies our decisions,” said Kelly. “Other technology isn’t based on soil characteristics, but SWAT MAPS uses a ground up approach. We know we can trust this process and that’s how we’re able to offer our unbiased opinions. Our farmers have an inherent trust with us.”

The SWAT MAPS Team is proud to work alongside dedicated teams like the one at CropMax Consulting. Stay tuned with what’s happening in their area of West-Central Saskatchewan by following them on social media or visiting their website:


X: @CropMax1
Facebook: CropMax Consulting
Website: https://www.cropmax.ca/

If you farm near CropMax Consulting, please contact them to get the SWAT MAPS discussion rolling.

Let Them Eat Cake

Did you know that SWAT MAPS Premium and Yield Potential Program customers have access to SWAT CERTIFIED sustainability reporting? These are reports that demonstrate farm sustainability and years of good stewardship. They avoid many of the current pitfalls in sustainability reporting because they are rigorous and highly detailed. 

Let’s use an analogy to explain the current pitfalls of sustainability reporting:

Imagine that the government implements a program to incentivize people to get healthier. The government decides that weight loss is key for improving health and that calorie reduction is the only proven way to lose weight. They incentivize people to reduce calories by paying them for using a calorie tracking app on their phone and showing a daily calorie reduction over their initial baseline. 

You decide you want to get healthier.  You do some research and learn that you need to change your diet and increase exercise. You start exercising and change what you eat. You build muscle mass and increase your metabolism.  The total calories you consume every day don’t decrease but you focus on high quality protein and lots of vegetables. You are much healthier than you were before, as indicated by your blood pressure, cholesterol ratios, improved sleep, and overall energy level. Your weight even increases slightly due to muscle gain. Despite being much healthier, you don’t qualify for the government incentive because you didn’t decrease your calorie intake.  Based on the government’s criteria, you are not healthier. 

This is very similar to the current state of sustainability incentives in farming. Farming metrics are overly simplistic, just like only measuring reduced calories. Practices that may or may not be applicable are applied without differentiation for regional context: practices like reduced fertilizer use, zero tillage, cover crops. Does implementing the metric actually result in greater soil health and reduced environmental impact?  Just as reducing calories doesn’t necessarily mean increased human health, neither does implementing cover crops necessarily mean increased soil health.

For fun, we can take the calorie reduction analogy one step further. Under pressure from Big Cake, who fear the government incentive will reduce cake sales, the government introduces the option for people to purchase “calorie offsets” in the app. This allows people to buy calorie reductions from their friends (who don’t like cake anyway) and apply them to their own daily total. With calorie offsets they can access the incentive payment without reducing any calories at all.  They can eat as much cake as they want!

The reality is that in both the human health and sustainable farming cases, better is always going to be much more complicated than what can be measured from one simplistic measurement (one can assume that you can be healthy and still eat cake sometimes). 

What would a better system look like? To start, it takes more than one measurement. Like getting a full physical from your doctor, rather than entering a calorie number in an app. SWAT MAPS provides you with a “full physical” version of measurements for your farm. Real metrics on soil health and yield potential. These are things that improve both the environmental impact on your farm and your profitability.

There is a growing demand from members of the farm value chain to see farm sustainability data and reports.  Canadian banks, both voluntarily and due to regulatory requirements, must start to report on the sustainability of their portfolios, and are putting programs into place that incentivize sustainable farming practices. Market-based incentives are developing as well, due in part to changing legislation in Europe, such as the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) or from growing biofuel markets. It is expected that more incentive programs will come in the future due to various global pressures on large food companies to meet their climate change commitments and as markets for biofuels grow. Having your data ready to go will make it easier to access incentives in the future.

Currently, a farmer may want to have a SWAT CERTIFIED Sustainability or 4R Stewardship Report to have concrete metrics demonstrating their good land stewardship. Farmers using SWAT MAPS for precision agriculture are doing really great things that are not always recognized as sustainable agriculture. This sustainability certification will help farmers get acknowledged and recognized for the results of years of beneficial management practices.   

Learn all about our Sustainability Strategy in Croptimistic's Sustainability Report.

New in-field artificial intelligence technology will enhance sustainability and efficiency from field to fork

AI technologies will provide more information at the sub-field level, providing farmers, ingredient processors and food manufacturers with valuable information starting at the farm through to the final packaged product.

Saskatoon, Sask. — Today, Protein Industries Canada announced an innovative new project in collaboration with Croptimistic Technology, TheoryMesh and C-Merak Innovations aimed at transforming the agri-food value chain through the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. This initiative seeks to enhance food production efficiency, improve food quality and support sustainability goals from farm to food processor by improving existing precision agriculture tools to enhance data collection and integration at the sub-field level. This will provide food manufacturers with verified data that complies with regulations and meets consumer expectations for transparency in the food they consume. The data collected will also help farmers and ingredient processors access sustainability incentive premiums and access to alternative markets.

“With this project, Protein Industries Canada is supporting greater transparency and traceability throughout the supply chain,” said the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. “By leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance precision agriculture practices and increase the adoption of technologies in farming, these project partners are increasing sustainability in the agri-food sector and contributing to a cleaner and healthier environment for Canadians.”

Together, Croptimistic Technology, TheoryMesh and C-Merak Innovations will develop and utilize AI-integrated technologies to consistently collect sub-field-level data and management practices from producers. This data will then be used to predict process settings within the mill to generate high yields and less by-product or waste material, while at the same time, supplying ingredient processors and food manufacturers with the information necessary to support sustainability claims on food products.

“This project will provide Canada with a unique selling advantage, helping us to fully understand our environmental impact from the field to the dinner table. Investments like this will help Canada achieve its sustainability goals and establish itself as a global leader in the sector,” said Lisa Campbell, Senior Director of Programs at Protein Industries Canada.

The project will see $5.4 million co-invested into innovative and scalable AI technologies that will enhance the sustainability, competitiveness and profitability of Canada’s agriculture and food production sector. Protein Industries Canada will invest $2.4 million, with the partners investing the remainder.

“We believe that harnessing the use of AI technology is key to improving the quality and value of the precision ag solutions that we provide to the agrifood industry,” said Phillip Harder, Research Director and Hydrological Scientist at Croptimistic Technology. “To see the data we collect being used to its fullest capabilities beyond the farmgate is a nod to the positive direction we’re heading in with integrating AI technologies to increase agricultural sustainability and food production efficiency.”

“Working with extensive primary farm and food processing data in this project will allow us to use our AI models to improve manufacturing yields, reduce loss and create measurable impact on the sustainability of food production,” said TheoryMesh Co-Founder and CEO Chris Bunio.

"Opting for healthy and sustainable foods isn't just about personal taste; it's a crucial investment in our well-being and the planet's future," said Brett Casavant, CEO of C-Merak Innovations. "By selecting foods that both nourish us and support eco-friendly practices, we're taking control of our health while safeguarding the environment for generations to come. However, finding reliable information to guide these choices can be challenging. That's where AI technology comes in, playing a vital role in providing clear and accessible information from farm to final ingredient. At C-Merak, we're thrilled to collaborate with our consortium partners and Protein Industries Canada to develop innovative solutions that promote healthier people and a healthier planet."

Protein Industries Canada is one of Canada’s five Global Innovation Clusters. Protein Industries Canada and our members are working to embrace the $25 billion opportunity presented by Canada’s ingredient manufacturing, food processing and bio-product sector. Projects such as these add value to, and create new markets for, Canadian crops, generating local jobs and supporting new economic development in locations across Canada. More information can be found at www.theroadto25billion.ca.

For more information:

Sarah Ivey
Protein Industries Canada
sarah@proteinsupercluster.ca
204-914-8467

About Croptimistic Technology

Croptimistic’s vision is to be the global leader in premium precision agriculture services. It is an international AgTech company providing SWAT MAPS, a turn-key variable rate process that combines Soil, Water, and Topography factors of fields for the creation of precision management zones and prescriptions. Their SWAT RECORDS software powers the entire SWAT ECOSYSTEM of products that are synced with the app for real-time viewing. Impressive technology, an expanding service provider network and 98 per cent retention of acres year over year showcase the validation that farmers are seeing value from this premium precision agriculture service. Learn more about SWAT MAPS by visiting swatmaps.com.

About TheoryMesh

TheoryMesh is a Winnipeg, Canada-based software company bringing advanced technology to agriculture and food companies to deliver traceability and sustainability through their supply chains. TheoryMesh’s FarmCapture, FoodTrace, ProcessAI and FoodCertify products are used to digitally transform farms and food companies, providing advanced capabilities to manage data and leverage analytics and AI for better insights. TheoryMesh integrates machine learning, AI and blockchain throughout an integrated platform to provide verifiable traceability, transparency, and sustainability. For more information, visit www.theorymesh.com.

About C-Merak Innovations

C-Merak is a food ingredient manufacturer located in Saskatchewan, Canada. From field to final ingredient, C-Merak offers a closed-loop traceable value chain for quality ingredients you can trust. Harnessing the potential of faba beans and oats, they are evolving the landscape of dry-milled sustainable plant-based food. C-Merak’s diverse ingredient lineup features the innovative FABAFuel Protein 65 per cent Concentrate, FABAFuel Flour, along with starch and fibre options, and the versatile Prairie OATFuel ingredients including groats, flour, rolled flakes, quick flakes, steel cuts, and fibre.

Precision Ag vs. Hydrology: Different Problems, Same Solutions

Precision agriculture has provided farmers with a multitude of tools to manage and optimize crop production. However, there are many different approaches out there to do the same thing, which at the end of the day creates a lot of conflicting information and ideas. So how can we distinguish the signal from the noise at the end of the day? One approach is to look at other disciplines to see how they have handled common problems.

Meet Phillip Harder, Research Director and Hydrological Scientist
Before I started at Croptimistic, I spent 16 years doing academic hydrological research (in different roles from grad student to research associate at the University of Saskatchewan) so it’s been fascinating to explore some of the common challenges faced by both the precision ag industry and the hydrological research community. Here are a few key items that I’ve learned:

1. People Use The Tools They Know

There are many different hydrological models that have different purposes, but hydrologists used the models that they were familiar with or were developed by themselves or their colleagues. Therefore, a lot of hydrological research may be based on using the most convenient model (tool) rather than the best one for the job. Humans tend to stick to habit and often run out of time to try new things, so we often end up using the same tools that we know. There is value in using tools that you know well, but that does not mean that you should use a high lift farm jack for everything. All tools, whether they are hydrological models or precision ag approaches, have a built-in bias to solve a particular problem.  We need to be careful not to apply tools outside of their intended use so that we don’t inadvertently end up with broken jaws.

Case Study: How hydrologists make their choice of model (Addor and Melsen, 2019)
·       1529 published papers published in hydrology between 1991 to 2018 were examined.
·       In 74% of all cases, the model selected was determined by the institution of the paper’s author.

2. Quantifying Spatial Variability in Landscapes

The goal of quantifying spatial variability may vary (hydrologists want to know how much streamflow a basin will produce whereas a farmer is more interested in how a crop will respond to specific management actions), but in the end it’s the same question. In practise this leads to differences in approaches like grid versus zone-based management strategies in precision agriculture (Figure 1), which are similar to fully distributed and hydrological response unit-based approaches in hydrology (Figure 2). A hydrological response unit (HRU) is an area of equivalent hydrological response defined by landscape and soil attributes.  A grid or fully distributed approach often treats the landscape as a grid/raster at a high resolution and every location/grid point needs to have data.

Figure 1 shows a SWAT MAP with a 2-acre grid superimposed on top and it is apparent that this level of gridding does not approach the resolution needed to capture the spatial patterns of the SWAT MAP. A gridded representation of a watershed (bottom left in Figure 2) has significantly more grid elements, which break the landscape up into squares and which all need numbers, versus an HRU equivalent representation which only needs a single set of numbers for each HRU that align with the landscape elements (bottom right in figure 2). In the SWAT zone delineation process we are using the interpretation of electrical conductivity and topographic data, to produce the HRU equivalent but in this case for areas of consistent and stable SWAT properties that will affect crop productivity in similar ways.

There is a long-standing debate in how to think about and divide a landscape in hydrology that reflects what is happening in many precision agriculture discussions. Is the uncertain and indirect information found everywhere (e.g., remote sensing of NDVI) valuable enough to make better decisions as opposed to detailed point scale observations that are required for each grid point?

    Figure 1: SWAT zone representation of a field with a 2-acre grid superimposed over top in black lines.


    Figure 2: Representation of a watershed that defines hydrological response units (bottom right) from the intersection of land use, soil type, slope and sub basins data layers and the equivalent gridded representation (bottom left) (Figure from Johnson et al 2023).

    3. Making Decisions Amid Uncertainty

    The underlying question in this landscape representation debate is, how can we make good decisions when everything is uncertain? Hydrologists have some experience with this. We often have insufficient information and limited data for every variable, and sometimes we need to provide answers in data-scarce situations (a common hydrological example is the prediction of streamflow in an arctic river where there are no stream gauges or weather stations for thousands of kilometers). The same challenge occurs in agriculture, where measuring every relevant soil and fertility variable at every 0.25m grid cell, for every 10 cm soil layer depth, over a field is not economically feasible, but we still want to spatially adjust our inputs to optimize production. So how can we improve our decisions with incomplete information?

      There are two primary approaches to do this in hydrology:

      1. Empirical Models: A hydrologist puts together a conceptual or statistical model of how a hydrological system works and then defines factors to describe the interactions. There is no requirement for any of this to be connected to reality, because with enough data, anything can be calibrated to give a “good” answer. This is a data-driven approach that assumes that the available data can capture all the variability and relationships of interest. The problem is that this approach may not work when conditions are outside the range of the calibration datasets. This is the typical case where correlation works well, but correlation does not imply causation.


      Just because some predictor (like NDVI) shows a correlation with the four years of yield data that we may have, it does not mean that the next year will have the same spatial pattern in yield. For example, we may get a drought where the kochia thrives while the crop fails. Our remote sensing NDVI, that cannot differentiate between kochia and crop, will not capture the significant yield drop.

      2. “Process-Based” Approach:I will state my bias that this is my preferred option. Basically, in this approach, we try to go back to first principles and build a model to focus on physical processes (things that can be described by physics) that we know are true. So, using the same Kochia example, if we know from our SWAT MAP the water holding capacity of a SWAT zone (Figure 3) and weather conditions, we can calculate the amount of crop available water with the SWAT WATER model. Because crop water use efficiency is relatively stable, we can more realistically anticipate the yield in year 5, even if we do not have any data for similar weather conditions.  Not only can we better anticipate and manage for a different outcome, but we will be able to understand why this is occurring which is information to help us do better next time.

      Figure 3:  Spatial variability of the soil field capacity from SWAT WATER (left), yield (middle), and NDVI (normalised difference vegetation index).



      The SWAT MAPS Approach

      We can learn from the similarities between hydrological and precision ag challenges. We should use tools that are suitable for our challenges, not just familiar ones, and base our decisions on process-level understanding, not more irrelevant data. The SWAT MAPS approach follows this principle. It is true that "you can't manage what you don't measure", but we also need to avoid "managing what we measure". Yield is the final agronomic goal, but we do not manage yield directly. NDVI shows biomass patterns, but it may not relate to yield, so we can be led astray. What we manage are inputs, and how their response potential varies with soil, water, and topography. So, focusing on the static soil properties that SWAT MAPS use, and managing them accordingly, gives us the process-based understanding to quantify and manage the spatial variability of crop production.   

      REFERENCES

      Addor, Nans & Melsen, L.A.. (2019). Legacy, Rather Than Adequacy, Drives the Selection of Hydrological Models. Water Resources Research. 10.1029/2018WR022958.

      Johnson et al 2023. https://topsoil.nserl.purdue.edu/~flanagan/erosymp2023/Presentations/23507-Billy_Johnson.pdf

      SWAT Partner Announcement: Dirks Bros

      The SWAT MAPS team is excited to welcome Dirks Bros as a new SWAT MAPS service provider located in Rich Hill, Missouri.

      Dirks Bros began serving clients with results-driven crop fertility management services in 2019. After years of building trust in their Crop Fertility System and proving their commitment to a “Grow Smarter” philosophy, bringing SWAT MAPS into their business offerings was a fit that made the most sense.

      “We believe incorporating SWAT MAPS into our Crop Fertility System will allow us to have the most agronomically complete crop management program in the industry,” said Taylor Dirks, Managing Owner of Dirks Bros. “SWAT MAPS ground up method is the most logical way to delineate field management zones.”

      With clients primarily located in Bates and Vernon counties in Southwest Missouri, a goal of Dirks Bros is to continue to grow and expand the Crop Fertility System service while also continuously trying new approaches, learning from mistakes, and progressing forward.

      Join us in welcoming Dirks Bros to our elite network of SWAT MAPS service providers. If you’d like to get in touch, they can be reached via the following:

      Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dirksbros/

      LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-dirks-b14271161/

      X: @taylordirks4

      Website: www.dirksbros.com

      Contact:
      Taylor Dirks
      660-679-1046
      taylor@dirksbros.com

      AI in Agriculture: Opportunities and Challenges

      Trevor Friesen
      Product Owner

      Agriculture is experiencing a transformative shift as artificial intelligence (AI) technologies become increasingly integrated into farming practices and agronomic decisions. This transformation proposes enhanced efficiency, scalability, and sustainability within the industry. How does this fit into the work being done by international AgTech company, Croptimistic Technology? Although we’re known for our high-resolution soil foundation maps (SWAT MAPS), our company is embarking down the path towards increased incorporation of AI into the entire SWAT ECOSYSTEM of products. Here’s a look at how we’re doing it, and how you can jump on board, too.

      Figure 1: The SWAT ECOSYSTEM encompasses a suite of hardware, software, and precision agriculture tools, designed by knowledgeable professionals and proven over the last two decades across many geographies.

      Solving unknown problems

      Before you get started with AI, you need to take a step back and think about the areas of your operation that are laborious, time-consuming, or tedious and how we can economically make a change to automate or scale this process. Our team at Croptimistic, is doing just that. Our first step into AI and Machine Learning (ML) was to automate and create an unbiased analysis of a very important step in the SWAT ECOSYSTEM – conducting in-season variable rate (VR) assessments. VR assessments are a key step to ensure the VR program and recommendations are working at a field scale, but keep in mind the short season we have to work with as well as difficulties getting across all farms and fields.

      SWAT CAM was born in 2021 to address this. It’s a tool in our toolbox that is designed to capture, assess, and evaluate crop establishment and weed pressure, while also revolutionizing crop monitoring by replacing labour intensive and biased tasks with an automated image capture system and predictive models. This allowed us to scale this part of our program and provide farm scaled, unbiased data that agronomists and farmers can use to make informed decisions about future VR seed rates and herbicide applications.

      Figure 2: SWAT CAM ML algorithms highlighting each pixel that is identified as Canola (left) vs the raw image (right).

      “Big data” vs. quality data

      Now, I might have made this sound like it is simple to just program software to incorporate AI and ML, but it faces its own challenges. Before you start the journey, you need to ensure the data that you are using to build out these processes are repeatable, consistent, clean, and qualified. It takes a great deal of time and effort to make sure these tools and models can handle a variety of situations and conditions that may arise. “Big Data” was a slogan that was thrown around not long ago. But what did this really mean? Everyone is collecting data, but does this make it “big”? How usable is it? What is the quality of this data? This created one of the biggest issues and challenges that the industry faces to date. All these data collecting companies have created data silos by having data stored in various locations that cannot be shared. Worse yet, if it can be shared, the formatting or data type is not consistent thus leaving it even harder to share data across multiple platforms. Sure, we can create an application programming interface (API) to connect platforms together, but this is also a challenge as all platforms still control what can or cannot be shared and how it is shared. As a side note, I want to emphasize that Croptimistic takes protecting client data seriously. The farmers we work with will always own the raw data entered into our SWAT RECORDS software.

      What’s next?

      Implementing AI solutions can pose challenges on its own with the technology available. In most rural areas, it can lack the necessary digital infrastructure (such as high-speed internet) to support advanced AI technology. Development of AI products can take years to develop, so it also needs to make sense economically to implement the technology within the business. Is this going to stop or slow us down? Of course not! We are committed to making sure our customers are getting the most value from our SWAT ECOSYSTEM and with the new technology that is being developed, both in house and externally is allowing us to adopt AI even easier. Our team of developers and technical experts are provided with continuing education and training to stay up to date with the tools and technology in the industry.

      The industry faces challenges every day that can use AI as a tool to help mitigate the risk and measure our path to success. AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data from various sources (soil sensors, weather forecasts, imagery, yield) that could be used to provide us with precise recommendations for planting, fertilizing, and irrigating crops. AI tools could also be used to collect data autonomously and provide results in seconds, improving the scalability of a difficult process.

      Integrating AI in agriculture presents ample opportunities to enhance efficiency, sustainability, and profitability. At Croptimistic, the journey of AI-driven agriculture is only beginning. By addressing the challenges and exploring new frontiers, we can unlock the full potential of AI to create a more resilient and productive agricultural sector. The future of our services depends on our ability to innovate and adapt, leveraging AI to meet the ever-growing demand for food in a sustainable and efficient manner.

      To dive further into the SWAT ECOSYSTEM, SWAT CAM or other aspects of our program, I encourage you to visit www.swatmaps.com

      Dabbling with VR lime and seeing the visual difference with Prairie Insights

      Kyra Sinclair of Prairie Insights, located a mile north of Vermilion, AB, says harvest decisions are becoming easier and big ROI is more likely. Now in their fourth year of offering SWAT MAPS services to clients, the results continue to prove the visual difference seen in typically low yielding areas, and knowing that fertility isn’t being wasted.

      “The main thing our customers are noticing is how even we’re managing their fields. In areas of their fields where they didn’t think it was possible to get that plant stand or that yield, we’re evening out that maturity,” said Sinclair.

      Prairie insights began as an agronomic consulting and crop scouting business in 2018. After bringing SWAT MAPS into their business offerings, they now also specialize in zone soil and tissue sampling.

      “We did lots of composite soil sampling and realized blanket applications need to be dialed down and we needed to be more specific about where we’re sampling. We wanted to offer farmers more intricate data. We found that relying on the data gives us a good picture of the field.”


      In the area that surrounds Prairie Insights’ clientele, Sinclair says the low base saturation of calcium and acidic pH is a big limiting factor on yields. To combat this, they have been working with VR lime, which is new to the area.

      “The cost of doing it may seem like a setback, but the maps help us save the producer money by not blanketing an application of expensive lime across the entire field. Sometimes only half of the field should be limed after we analyze the soil samples.”

      Another hesitation is the worry of the difficulty level when it comes to using the technology and loading a map into the drill.


      “Even customers who aren’t as techy are able to jump on board with this,” said Sinclair. “On the agronomic side there are producers who are skeptical too, but it all goes back to being able to see how even the crop is as it nears maturity and peace of mind knowing the money put into fertility isn’t being wasted.”

      Prairie Insights is continuing to expand their horizons by focusing on liquid fertilizer applications through Y-drops on corn, exploring the use of SWAT CAM, and seeing great results with variable rate corn seed.

      “We put so much passion behind what we do. We treat every field like it’s our own and we’re tweaking and perfecting all the time. We’re very proud of the retention with our clients.” said Sinclair. “At the end of the day we want our growers to put more bushels in the bins and if we can be a part of that then I believe we’ve done a good job.”

      The SWAT MAPS Team is proud to work alongside dedicated teams like the one at Prairie Insights. Stay tuned with what’s happening in their area by following them on Instagram or contacting Kyra directly.

      Instagram: @prairieinsights

      Contact:
      Kyra Sinclair
      306-441-8084
      kedwards@prairieinsights.com

      Farmers: visit https://swatmaps.com/partner-locator/ to find a SWAT MAPS Service Provider near you.

      Service providers: Contact us for partnership opportunities.

      SWAT Partner Announcement: Crowl Agronomy

      The SWAT MAPS team is excited to welcome Crowl Agronomy as a new SWAT MAPS service provider located in Spearman, Texas.

      After seeing results first-hand, owner Jonathan Crowl deemed SWAT MAPS as a crucial tool for the business. With the ability to offer clients a more complete breakdown of their soils, Crowl found the recommendations to be remarkably more accurate, as well as more cost-effective.


      “I am excited to offer my customers cutting-edge soil solutions through the use of the SWAT ECOSYSTEM and show them the value that precision agriculture and variable rate technology can provide for their operation,” said Crowl.


      Crowl Agronomy was started up in 2023 with clients in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles growing crops such as corn, winter wheat, grain sorghum, and cotton. As a young agronomist/crop consultant, Crowl aims to expand his knowledge in the precision agriculture world and fully incorporate the technology into the business.

      “My goal is to collect the most precise data possible so I can make the best recommendations possible for my growers,” said Crowl.


      Join us in welcoming Crowl Agronomy to our elite network of SWAT MAPS service providers. If you’d like to get in touch, Jonathan Crowl can be reached via the following:

      X: @CrowlAgronomy1

      Contact:
      Jonathan Crowl
      806-338-0716
      joncrowl20@gmail.com