Continuous improvements in precision farming equipment and data analysis are providing Iowa farmers better tools to increase margins, reduce nutrient losses to protect water quality and create on-farm tests to study agronomic practices in real-world conditions, data experts said last week at the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation (IFBF) annual meeting in Des Moines.

"There are new waves of data technologies coming, and they are allowing us to make better and more informed decisions to in­­crease efficiencies," said Tim Berkland, an agronomist at Growmark, said during a seminar on data use and management at the annual meeting. "It’s really helping us ask better questions, and to me, that is something that’s very powerful."

Finding...