1 Farmers and Consultants Receive Training in Spatial Analysis of Yield Monitor Data

In response to suggestions from farmers and agribusiness, Purdue University offered a one-day workshop on spatial analysis of yield monitor data on March 1, 2007. There were 19 participants that included farmers from Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario, and representatives from agricultural input suppliers, farm cooperatives, and private consultants. The workshop was led by Terry Griffin, former Purdue University graduate student and currently Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service. The discussions focused on strategies to design and implement on-farm experiments, collect data and harvest experiments, yield monitor calibration, precision agriculture, and spatial statistical analysis software. “Spatial analysis techniques recently adapted from other disciplines allow farmers and consultants to make better decisions based on their field-scale on-farm trial data collected with yield monitors than previously possible, ” Griffin said. “This workshop serves in part as a pilot program to pass the techniques developed from recent research over to the end users along with some basic statistical training. ” The agenda was largely set by the farmer-collaborators fro