Daniel Turkovich

In this video we show how you can use real world season length, instead of relative maturity. The relative maturity (RM) of a variety is supposed to give farmers a relative indication of how long that variety takes to get to harvest maturity. But the problem with relative maturity is that there is no standardized system by which seed companies assign relative maturities to their varieties. Because seed companies may have different methods for assigning maturity numbers to varieties, varieties from different seed companies may not necessarily have the same season length even if they’re labeled with the same relative maturity. Also, many farmers worry that companies might not be fully transparent regarding maturity numbers, changing numbers slightly in order to fill gaps in their lineup or end up with a more marketable variety. Relative maturity can make seed decisions difficult.  The lack of transparency and consistency of current relative maturity values makes it difficult for farmers when they’re making seed decisions. At FBN , we've seen different brands sell the same variety in the same region with as much as a 5 "day" difference in corn, and half a maturity group in soybeans. On top of that, the units of relative maturity are confusing and widely misinterpreted1, since they are not actually calendar days between planting and maturity. Furthermore, seed companies typically assign a single national relative maturity rating, even though the actual season length required for maturity can vary by region. For example: 101 day corn grown in central Nebraska does not have the same season length as 101 day corn grown in central South Dakota. Farmers may end up not considering varieties that are actually well suited for their region if they only focus on relative maturity numbers. 

The FBN℠ Network is tackling one of the most important challenges facing our society today; feeding the world. The human population is growing rapidly, but the amount of farmable land is decreasing due to human development and environmental degradation. The FBN network is using information technology to ensure that humans can sustainably grow more food in the face of increasingly scarce resources and a growing population. The FBN approach to this issue is to empower individual farmers to make better decisions using the combined aggregated intelligence of a farmer-to-farmer, agronomic network. Farmers have every incentive to grow more with less, though they do not always have the information and knowhow to do so. A single farm generates a lot of information about how to best manage their operation, but the reality of farming annual crops means that an individual farmer only gets 40 chances in their lifetime to fine-tune their decisions. As  FBN members, farmers learn from the combined experiences of the whole network, and have access to the information and tools to quickly make better decisions - reducing wasteful applications of fertilizers and chemicals and optimizing every acre they manage. The FBN network grows smarter with every farmer that joins the network and with every new piece of data that is contributed. Agriculture is an enormously important and valuable industry, generating close to $200 billion worth of crops each year in the United States alone. The FBN network have already proven that its information and analyses can save farmers tens of thousands of dollars in just a single decision. In our first year, we grew to a network of thousands of farms growing 19 different crops across 28 states in the U.S. And we’re just getting started! There are hundreds of thousands of American farms operating on hundreds of millions of acres. As we look internationally, we want the FBN network to be an essential tool for every farmer in the world. Don’t ever underestimate a farmer. Farmers are the quintessential entrepreneurs- they’re highly curious and intelligent men and women who run sophisticated family businesses in rural regions with limited access to information. Inspired by self-driving cars? Farmers were some of the first adopters of GPS technology and have been utilizing self-driving tractors for the better part of the last decade. Farmers are devoted stewards of the land they work, preserving its value not only for growing crops, but also for harboring wildlife and providing the underlying support for modern rural economies. Many farmers have earned degrees (both from universities and from the school of hard knocks) in disciplines as varied as biology, chemistry, botany, engineering, meteorology, economics, and business management. Building products for our farmers is both challenging and exciting. Agriculture combines complex biological, mechanical, meteorological, chemical, and economic systems. Our team is constantly looking for ways to capture the data necessary to help explain these systems, and we work to present the analyses at the right moment and in the right format so that our farmers can easily interpret the information and make the right decision. The FBN team is looking for people who are eager to join some of the brightest minds in data science and engineering to help build an immensely valuable company for our farmers and for our future. Danny Turkovich Head of Product     We're Hiring! See Our Open Positions

FBN has cleaned and analyzed millions of acres of harvest data from over a dozen crops such as corn, soybeans, and wheat. FBN members can see all their soil and cleaned yield maps for each of their fields. Combining FBN’s seed, agronomic practice, and yield analytics with better maps gives farmers deeper insights into what’s affecting their yields inside each field. Yield maps work for any crop with an associated harvest file, including all major grain and row crops. Members can upload unlimited acres to be cleaned, stored, benchmarked, analyzed and mapped in FBN. FBN works directly with the raw harvest data from the monitor file and cleans and quality checks it before presenting the map. Browsing maps in FBN is fast and easy, it’s as simple as clicking from field to field. Users can scroll through maps for each year of data uploaded in their account. By including soil maps, comparing yields across years and crops to soil types is easy. Maps can also be shared between farmers, their advisors and crop consultants. To learn more about Farmers Business Network visit our website . To see your maps today, contact support@farmersbusinessnetwork.com or call 1 (844) 218-8039.

Farmers deserve an independent and unbiased source of data to help inform their seed purchases. Before buying seed, FBN members have the power to search and verify product claims with  FBN Seed Finder, the Consumer Reports ® for real-world seed performance on over thousands of seed varieties. Each seed variety in FBN Seed Finder has it's own Seed Intelligence profile. This gives members the power to: See how the variety actually performed in the real world across millions of acres Breakout the variety's actual yields by 10 practice & environmental factors See the acreage behind each result- just by mousing over the bars Sort yields by rotation, soil texture, year, and state Find the most cost-efficient nitrogen rates for each seed variety The image above is an example of a Seed Intelligence profile in FBN. FBN members can switch between tabs to see how a variety performed on a variety of factors.  Here is an example of how you can optimize a variety's seeding rate: In this image, you can see that that this seed variety (DKC-46-20) has nearly 60,000 acres of real world performance data in Farmers Business Network. The chart shows that DKC-46-20 produces the highest yield at 34,000 to 35,200 seed/acre.  With this countrywide information, you could choose to reduce your seeding population to increase yield and save money on your seed costs.  See how one farmer saved $12/acre using FBN Seed Finder. Want to take it a step further? You could filter the number of acres down (by checking the boxes) to only include data from a specific year, in your state, on your soils, with a specific crop rotation practice, or using your drainage/irrigation setup. This would provide you even more precise insights on ways that you can optimize your seed decisions.  Optimizing planting populations is just one example of how you can use FBN's network-powered analytics to increase profits. Each tab on the product profile packs powerful data on: Nitrogen Seeding Rate Soil Temperature Temperature at Planting Planting Date Soil Productivity Index (SPI) Total Precipitation During the Growing Season Harvest Moisture Planting Speed You no longer have to rely on seed company sponsored or small university plot trials to optimize your seed choices and practices.