Weather Stations Aren't Always Close Enough Monday May 3rd, 2021 News Reporter It’s time for your Farm of the Future Report. I’m Tim Hammerich. Many agricultural technologies want to use weather station data to make decisions about what’s happening on the farm. But that’s not accurate enough, says Arable CEO Jim Ethington. He recalls an experience from years ago when he learned about this variability from some Kansas farmers. Ethington… “It had been dry. The crop didn't do so well. Payouts weren't the size that the growers were expecting. I went out and visited with those customers and walked to their fields. I saw the size of the ears of corn that were left in the fields, you know, they didn't harvest it, it wasn't worth it. And know compared that to what they'd been paid. And we looked really hard at what it was and the weather data that they were showing for their area wasn't what they experienced. That accuracy of what actually happened in that field, to that crop, during what growth stage, it made all the difference. You know, it was the difference between 120 bushel year and a 50 bushel year.”