Collaborations have been on the rise in recent years between major ag service and technology providers to offer simpler solutions for farmers. Winfield is no exception, as they made a major recent announcement at a dealer event in Las Vegas, Nev., this August, regarding a project with Climate Corporation, and they’re calling it Climate Pro by Winfield.

This comes after an announcement in January that the two companies were going to look into cross-licensing technology and data through a partnership. And they’ve been busy in recent months developing the Climate Pro by Winfield product.

“Climate Pro by Winfield will have the same advisors that everybody else has, but it will have some unique things, like a seed adviser powered by some Answer Plot data for corn or soybeans,” says David Gebhardt, director, data and technology, Winfield.

Other examples of services to be available through Climate Pro by Winfield include a spray adviser to help farmers and retailer applicators understand the balance between risk and product performance. And in the future, there will be plant nutrition tools available, yet Gebhardt says this offering is still in the research phase.

The partnership between the two organizations means they will combine their respective expertise, data and services to offer growers ways to make better in-season decisions to ultimately maximize yield potential. 

Winfield’s agronomic data through its Answer Plot trials and other services, combined with Climate Corporation’s hyper-weather monitoring, will do just that. This unique version of Climate Pro will only be available through Winfield affiliated retailers.

Bringing it all together

Answer Tech is Winfield’s new online resource center also announced at the event, which brings together the company’s decision-support applications into one toolbox. Gebhardt describes Answer Tech as a website that sits on top of an app store that aggregates a number of different technologies.

“We know that there’s more than one tool that our retail agronomists need to meet all the different demands that farmers have – and, by the way, farmers are asking for this – they want more informed recommendations,” says Gebhardt. “We’re trying to help our customers sort through the chaos that’s out there in ag technology.”

Managing the data

Data Silo is Winfield’s new cloud-based management system offered by Winfield to help agronomists store and manage farmer data through the tools offered in Answer Tech.

“Data Silo is an opportunity for our retailers to have a unique, locally branded option for them to work with their farmers to make sure that their data is gathered, shared and used according to what the grower wants. It is the grower’s data, and that data doesn’t go anywhere without their permission,” says Gebhardt.

Answer Tech will encompass a number of tools already offered through Winfield, like its Winfield NutriSolutions 360 System, the R7 Tool, the Spray Analysis System and its Answer Plot Program. But the website service will also offer tools and apps through their partner organizations. And Data Silo will provide the ability for these systems to work together and allow agronomists and growers to store their data via a secure, cloud-based management system, which is compliant with the Open Ag Data Alliance standards.

Climate Pro by Winfield will be available through Answer Tech sometime in 2015. An exact launch date has not been announced. Visit Winfield.com.

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