Value of Crop4Sight
For growers
For supply chain
How does Crop4Sight work?
The proportion of marketable yield in the biological yield of a potato crop is an agronomic outcome of its development and growth across the season. Crop4Sight is an integrated suite of forecasting tools enabling growers and agronomists to manage these agronomic factors. This results in improved commercial outcomes and delivers efficient stocks into the supply chain.
Crops are most sensitive to changes in agronomic management in the first 50 days after emergence. Therefore, forecasts of crop growth are essential when managing crops to achieve target marketable yields and profitable crop value. Correct crop planning and early forecasts allow for effective adjustments to be made, where necessary, in response to measured crop growth and the season.
All our tools are developed using defined relationships quantified by independent applied research.
Crop4Sight makes decision making easier – all season long
Managing stem and tuber populations for optimum marketable yield
Optimising marketable yield requires the biological yield and tuber population to be adjusted for the commercial requirements of the crop (which size fraction is most valuable), yield potential of the field and type of seed being used.
Too many tubers for the target biological yield and the crop tuber size will be too small. Not enough tubers and crop tuber size will be too large. Both reduce marketable yield and crop value.
The stem population of a crop is the primary control for managing tuber numbers. Using the correct seed rate, accounting for seed size and age is essential for establishing the required target stem population. Crop4Sight’s seed module combines agronomy and commercial requirements to create your required seed rates.
Early season stem counts reforecast the tuber population. This allows early-season decisions on crop nutrition and season length to be amended, if required. Mid-season yield samples measure the actual tuber population and are used to forecast progression of marketable yield to the end of the season. Adjustments to burndown schedules can be made to achieve optimum marketable yields.


Crop value through the season
Understanding canopy development is crucial to good potato crop management. The rate of canopy expansion and persistence of full canopy are major factors in controlling the total biological yield, which is closely correlated to the solar radiation absorbed by the crop.
Crop4Sight provides benchmark canopy and biological yield curves that account for variety and date of emergence. These allow easy detection of deviations from good crop growth, giving users the opportunity to revise crop expectations in-season to manage crop value. Risk and reward analysis, using crop yield forecasts, quantifies the financial value returns of the crop weighed against operational requirements.
Crop4Sight’s irrigation scheduling is a full potato specific model using canopy to calculate crop water demand. Irrigation can be scheduled for scab control, yield, or both.
Forecasting final yield, crop value analysis and supply chain logistics
Yield forecasts are created from mid-season and updated throughout tuber bulking. These predict the progression of total yield and change in tuber size distribution. The value of marketable yield can be modelled to identify the date of optimum burndown or used for scenario planning to achieve highest total value when limited by operational constraints.
In combination with early season forecasts on tuber populations, yield forecasting can be used to manage stock and contract position in the supply chain and aid strategic business planning.
Crop4Sight offers bespoke project work. Examples of this work include optimising seed rates for specific commercial requirements (by tuber size and tuber weight). Regional and varietal performance analysis. Agronomic analysis of specific seed stocks or crops. Contact Crop4Sight for more information on bespoke project work.
