ISA’s free tools help with input and management decisions

December 5, 2024 | Kriss Nelson

Information in making input and management decisions for the 2025 cropping year can be found using the Iowa Soybean Association’s (ISA) interactive tools.

“The importance of the tools we have lies in our ability to analyze the research trials and their outcomes,” says Matthew Carroll, ISA analytics and insights lead. “Our unbiased research on a product or management practice a farmer may be considering could be found in one of the tools.”

Cover Crops and Soil Health

The Cover Crop Economic Simulator demonstrates the potential for offset options to make cover crops cost-effective or profitable in an agricultural operation.

“If you are thinking about cover crops, the Cover Crop Economic Simulator is a tool to help farmers find out expected seed and termination costs and what an expected ROI will be,” says Carroll.

This tool also shows the estimated societal and community benefits.

“Things such as water quality and soil erosion are tough to quantify but are issues that may be top of mind for farmers,” he says.

Compare soil health and explore the impact of different management practices with ISA’s Soil Health Interpretation Portal.

“This tool is for exploration, not direct agronomic results, but it lets you compare your farm’s soil health, see your overall score, and find ways to improve it,” says Carroll.

On Farm Trial Results

On-Farm Strip Trial Results is the largest repository of all trials done at ISA dating back nearly 20 years.

“If you are looking for something we have done, it is probably here,” says Carroll. “The intent is  you can sort and filter by year, crop type and cropping practice and see what those individual trial results show.”

The Interactive Summaries of On-Farm Strip Trials (ISOFast) tool centralizes the results of individual trials for easy access.

“ISOFast combines multiple trials testing the same product to evaluate its performance, along with brief analyses of factors such as rainfall and planting dates that could impact the results,” says Carroll, adding 2024 results will be available soon.

Economic Viewer of On-Farm Studies (EVOS) evaluates the financial impact of different practices, products and technologies.

Simple step-by-step instructions are embedded in the tool’s user interface. Users select a crop, choose a study category and pick the studies to compare on the left-hand side of the interface. Product costs and market prices can be customized in the interface at the top of the app. Changes to price, cost or study selections can be made at any time, and new outcomes are instantly updated.

“Just because a product shows an agronomic response, does that mean it pays for itself? A good example is if you expect to spend $32 an acre on a fungicide product and application and soybeans are $10, you need a 3.2-bushel-an-acre yield response to pay for that product. The product may only have a 2-bushel-an-acre yield response. With prices and conditions, it may not be something that pays for itself from that perspective. EVOS can help you make those input buying decisions,” says Carroll.

Planting rate and soybean quality

Farmers can model how altering seeding rates impacts results with the Soybean Variable Rate Seeding Simulator

“Farmers can upload three years of soybean yield data and use this to develop variable rate seeding recommendations,” says Carroll, adding updates will be made to reflect results from 2023 and 2024 seeding rate trials.

The Soybean Quality Economic Simulator allows farmers to see the potential economic return from protein premium payments based on soybean quality.

“The Soybean Quality Economic Simulator lets farmers assess the financial viability of planting higher-protein soybeans,” says Carroll. “For example, farmers can plug in higher seeding rates, what they can expect for yield and if hauling the soybeans is paid for by the company – the level of detail is up to them. This information can potentially boost their marketing power and premium requests.”

Data can be downloaded as a PDF or Excel file and saved for later use.

Agricultural Digital Imagery

Vegetation Index Time Series Imagery Tool (VITSIT) uses calibrated imagery to explore which crop canopy reflectance values have the highest predictive yield capabilities.

VITSIT can be used to:

• Communicate the differences between uncalibrated and calibrated imagery sources
• Report time series of different vegetation indices of crop canopy to identify within-field yield corn and soybean variability zones
• Identify whether temporal patterns for different vegetation indices change during and across growing seasons
• Report correlation between yield and vegetation indices from the beginning to the end of the growing season
• Identify how rainfall changes imagery calibration quality and correlation with yield

“This exploratory tool analyzes data regarding how different vegetation indices—images generated from satellites—correlate with crop yield,” says Carroll. “Although it does not allow users to input their data, it provides insights into how satellite imagery can be used to understand yield variability.”

The tool is especially useful for more intelligently scouting fields.

“It can help identify spots where disease may be developing or serve as an alternative for assessing areas in the field when a drone is unavailable,” he says. “Additionally, it offers insights for reviewing and addressing issues at the end of the growing season, enhancing your overall crop management.”

Drainage Calculators

Transforming Drainage Rate Calculator is a tool that calculates three standard drainage rates for characterizing the performance of subsurface drainage systems.

With this tool, you can input tile drainage parameters and evaluate their drainage effectiveness and functions as a planning tool for proper drainage installation,” says Carroll.

Control Structure Stoplog Settings calculator stoplog settings for inline water level control structures used in edge-of-field conservation drainage practices such as bioreactors, saturated buffers and controlled drainage.

This calculator assists in setting stoplogs to manage water flow and tile systems.

“Stoplogs help to raise or lower the water table within the field artificially,” says Carroll. “For example, by setting stoplogs higher, farmers will have a higher water table. Thinking of planting season, farmers may want the field drained to be able to get in. Later in the year, they may want to set it higher, slowing down the drainage process to make water accessible to the crop, especially in dry years.”

Farmer feedback

As ISA works to build more tools, the focus will be on getting out and doing customer discovery by talking to farmers, understanding what problems they are facing and what online tools can or aren’t solving the problem. In the meantime, Carroll welcomes and values hearing from farmers. 

“We would appreciate any feedback from farmers,” he says. “We are always looking for opportunities to improve.”

Need assistance with tools or want to give feedback? Contact Matt Carroll at mcarroll@iasoybeans.com.

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