Earth Optics Releases ’25 Predictive Ag Report

Earth Optics released the 2025 Predictive Ag Report.

“Earth Optics is the leader in soil analysis and understanding the physical, chemical, and biological profile of the soil, and we use that data to inform your crop plan for the next season," said Cam Norgate, co-founder and vice president of products at Earth Optics.  "So, using a comprehensive set of analysis to help inform all of those key decisions around what seed to plant, how to protect that seed and that yield potential, and how to feed that plant through fertility in the soil.”

Norgate highlights some of the data found in the company’s Predictive Ag Report.

“The Predictive Ag Report is our take on what you might think of as a farmer's almanac for this century, and the idea is that we run a ton of analysis across the Midwest, looking at the various physical, chemical, and biological attributes of the soil, and so we have this deep insight into what's going on and what sort of risks and opportunities there are throughout the Midwest for farmers going into the next crop season. We want to surface and share that information with folks so they can understand what risks might be in their region and optimally start planning for their next crop season. So, that's the goal of the Predictive Ag Report is to take all this great data that we have and aggregating it up to the major things to think about as we go into the next year.”

The report mentions Fusarium will be a big challenge to farm profitability in 2025.

“Yeah, so Fusarium is an interesting one for us because it's a well-known disease," Norgate said.  "It affects the seedlings and the roots early in the season. We typically will handle that through seed treatments, and the conventional wisdom is that, ‘Hey, we've kind of solved that problem, or we've managed it pretty well,’ but the data we're seeing when we run our analysis - and we run trials across thousands of acres - we're seeing very substantial yield loss associated with high levels of Fusarium. So again, our testing and our analysis can detect and measure the exact levels of Fusarium in a field, and that is actually predictive of upwards of 50 bushels of yield difference between fields that are at high risk. It's surprising to us because it's one that we thought we had managed or controlled.”

Which areas of farm country are most at risk for Fusarium development in 2025?

“It will vary throughout the Midwest, but we're seeing the highest levels of that actually kind of in eastern Iowa and out into southern Nebraska. It tends to correlate more heavily with the major corn-growing regions where there's a lot of corn on corn, and Fusarium is certainly a large disease of corn, and we see, again, that 40–50-bushel difference, where there’s a high risk for Fusarium, and that's where we tend to see it.”

He talks about where farmers can find the 2025 Predictive Ag Report.

“Head to our webiste, and we will have that posted up on the main landing page of our website, so earthoptics.com to find the report. You can get all this great detail across the Fusarium and a wide array of other pest disease and biofertility measures all covered through our analytics here at Earth Optics.”

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