Precision Grain Management

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PRECISION GRAIN MANAGEMENT is a concept adapted from precision agriculture. For centuries, farmers made decisions about planting, tillage, fertilization, etc. based on their experiences alone. During the first decades of the 20th century, scientists developed tools such as soil tests and yield plots that provided information farmers could use when making production decisions. Even so, planning and decision-making were done mostly on the basis of an experience-based Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

In the second half of the 20th century, the science-based practices of INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM) were adopted by many farmers for many crops. IPM uses intensive sampling to provide detailed information for pest control decisions, and decision rules are devised based on maximum profit. In IPM, the low-cost preventative practices such as tillage and field sanitation are done on a SOP basis, but the higher-cost practices such as pesticide application are done only after a cost-benefit analysis based on the information from the intensive sampling. Once IPM was widely adopted by farmers it was obvious that the IPM approach was more profitable than the SOP approach for many crops and in many areas of the world. The reason was simple: the cost of generating the sample-based information was less than the cost of the inefficiencies inherent to the SOP approach.

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PRECISION AGRICULTURE is the latest generation of decision-making approaches for production agriculture, and combines the sample-based IPM approach to crop protection with advanced decision support software and the latest process-control technology, including global positioning. The precision agriculture strategy seeks to apply maximum-profit production decision-making on a plot-by-plot basis instead of a “field-by-field”basis, with the “plot”becoming as small as a few square feet

PRECISION GRAIN MANAGEMENT is the approach that uses this same strategy to manage grain stored in commercial facilities. A three-million-dollar, USDA-funded research project begun in the mid1990’s developed the sampling and data-analysis techniques for grain stored in large masses in commercial facilities.

These techniques for insect control were combined with knowledge gained through decades of practical research in working grain elevators to develop an approach to routine grain management that addresses threats to grain quality using the IPM strategy, managing the grain on a bin-by-bin (“plot-by-plot”) basis. Precision grain management’s emphasis on cost-benefit analysis contrasts with the typical SOP approach, in which the cost of the practice often is not considered. To make the benefits of the precision grain management approach available to the grain industry, a consulting company was founded to provide services parallel to those of the crop-consulting companies. The grain scouting company, called Precision Grain Management Consultants, Inc., has operated from south-central Kansas since 2003. Periodic scouting reports with data analysis and recommendations, combined with training and one-on-one consultation allow clients to apply a least-cost, maximum-benefit decision making process on a bin-by-bin basis, eliminating the need to “turn and treat”large numbers of bins at the same time while minimizing the risk of grain deterioration.

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Contact Information
Precision Grain Management Consultants, Inc.
PO Box 517
Manhattan, KS 66505
Tel (785) 770-7116
pgmci@cox.net