Growers face countless decisions each growing season. While choices may vary, all the answers seem to point in one direction: how to get the best return on the acre.
And the best way to approach that question is to start with the end in mind. What is the ideal return for each field? What’s the biggest problem or hurdle to reaching that return?
By addressing these questions, growers, agronomists and crop consultants can identify the right agronomic solution for the specific situations. This approach moves beyond pricing to put the emphasis on ROI. Crop inputs all boil down to a comparative solution, and the Grow Smart Advantage tool by BASF will help growers, channel partners and crop consultants do just that.
Launched in 2021, the tool is an innovative calculator that uses information about a grower’s operation — crop, trait platform, geography, in-field challenges — combined with the value a farmer places on different features of crop protection products. That information is then compared to competitive alternatives based on agronomic performance and cost, giving the grower a relative value of their program based on weekly CBOT Spot Future Price.
The tool has expanded for use with corn, soybeans, and cotton and includes comparisons with Bayer and Syngenta on herbicides and fungicides.
“This tool really puts what is best for farmers at the forefront in regard to their crop protection inputs and yield results,” says Nick Fassler, Technical Services Director for BASF Agricultural Solutions. “By providing sound agronomic recommendations, the Grow Smart Advantage tool is another example of how BASF continues to invest in digital tools that provide farmers with innovative ways to manage their operations and protect their investment.”
Grow Smart Advantage is ideal for retailers to use with farmers to quantify the benefits of a lower-use rates, flexible application windows, crop safety and other factors that can cost money beyond the price of the product.
“Making smart, ROI-based agronomic decisions requires solid data and an efficient framework, and so we built the Grow Smart Advantage tool to be intuitively customizable” says Brady Spangenberg, Director, BASF US Crop Marketing. “We want to support growers and channel partners to manage toward that return rather than just input costs. It’s a smarter, more efficient way to make crop protection decisions that will help increase yield in the most profitable, efficient way.”
Explore the Grow Smart Advantage tool an reach out to a BASF representative for more information.
