Improving agriculture outcomes with data-driven, real-time decisions

For farmers and agronomists, there’s no more-critical data than the yield estimate. Corteva Agriscience collaborated with Kin + Carta to equip its customers with the ability to transform its yield estimation process from the ground up using a new digital app and drone technology.

Yield estimations come down to two critical data amounts: stand count (how many plants have sprouted) and seed spacing. Traditionally, an agronomist would need to conduct a time-intensive “stand assessment” to retrieve these data by physically walking fields to inspect crop growth and prepare a full report for growers. Corteva aimed to not only reduce the time required to complete these assessments but also make data more readily available.

In the spring of 2020, the proprietary Corteva™ Flight app was released, bringing data to the field’s edge by leveraging Corteva’s drone fleet, the largest agricultural fleet in the world. Agronomists can now quickly draw a field boundary, send a flight path to a drone, and capture images that are then processed on an iPad.

By the time the drone mission is complete, the stand count and spacing are already being analyzed are available within minutes, a 76% reduction in estimation time. The app has already been used for more than 12,000 flights and over 8,000 shared PDFs, highlighting the collaboration between growers and their trusted advisors.

“There’s a constant theme developing in agriculture of being able to do all things at the field edge to speed the decision-making process,” said Steve Dieke, architect at Corteva Agriscience. “Other applications rely on cloud processing and take hours, if not days, to get your results. But with Corteva™ Flight, by the time the drone lands, you pack things up and get in your truck, a stand count is ready to be shared.”

Corteva recognized the need to create a more-efficient and more-accurate stand assessment tool. After Corteva’s R&D team developed an initial prototype, it quickly became apparent that there was a growing market for Corteva Flight.

“We really saw a gap in the [drone] industry . . . so we took a different approach to look at this from the mindset of, how do you make . . . the pilot way more efficient?” said Jeremy Groeteke, US Digital Ag Lead for Corteva Agriscience.

In late 2019, the Corteva team set out to produce a market-ready mobile app for the 2020 growing season. To meet its tight turnaround goal, the team turned to Kin + Carta to bring the product to a production-ready state.

The collaboration provided the opportunity to leverage Kin + Carta’s unique approach to user-experience design and Corteva’s agriculture data-science capabilities to create a powerful digital tool while capitalizing on a clear industry need.

Corteva recognized the need to create a more-efficient and more-accurate stand assessment tool. After Corteva’s R&D team developed an initial prototype, it quickly became apparent that there was a growing market for Corteva Flight.

“We really saw a gap in the [drone] industry . . . so we took a different approach to look at this from the mindset of, how do you make . . . the pilot way more efficient?” said Jeremy Groeteke, US Digital Ag Lead for Corteva Agriscience.

In late 2019, the Corteva team set out to produce a market-ready mobile app for the 2020 growing season. To meet its tight turnaround goal, the team turned to Kin + Carta to bring the product to a production-ready state.

The collaboration provided the opportunity to leverage Kin + Carta’s unique approach to user-experience design and Corteva’s agriculture data-science capabilities to create a powerful digital tool while capitalizing on a clear industry need.