CDMS’ Vision Goes Mobile

For those who may have missed it, Crop Data Management Systems (CDMS) launched a mobile agronomy software solution back in 2013, dubbed Vision, which is based off its highly-popular Advisor desktop computing program (released back in 2008).

From the start, the Marysville, CA, company set out in developing a mobile compliment to Advisor, intending to create a browser-based “enterprise solution” that combines agronomy and precision agriculture capabilities, as well as logistics and back-end accounting, according to Scott Mueller, VP business development.

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“The way we look at it, Vision is for ‘out there,’ while Advisor is for a situation that requires a bit more computing power,” he says. “Basically Vision just allows you to do what Advisor does in a mobile environment.”

While browser launched, Vision also has its own mobile app (new for the 2014 season), and its main selling point remains its ease of integration and vast suite of capabilities.

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“Retailers seem to really like to mobile aspect (of Vision) when they’re out in the field, and they will also tell you that it’s taken all of the things they’ve done before on multiple platforms and put that into one solution, one system.

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“Everyone’s looking for less software – and when you’ve got multiple software programs you end up having to set up each grower’s field in each software solution. Ask any agronomist or consultant out there – that’s not a fun thing to do while you’re out at the field,” says Mueller.

Mueller also points out that Vision is 100% geo-spatially referenced, supports all of the latest satellite corrections options (RTK, GPS, GIS) and is cloud-based. Updates are fully automated and pushed from the cloud, as is data transmission.

With 30 years of farm-level data know-how under its belt, Mueller assures that no funny business will occur with the multitudes of data collected by Vision.

“We’re very comfortable and very good at protecting data, nobody is signing away their life with the data,” he says. “Our mantra is ‘It’s only Big Data if you aggregate it – the individual field-level data itself isn’t Big Data – and that’s all we care about. We only care about one field at a time because that’s how growers farm: one field at a time.”

Mueller sees Vision’s precision capabilities as another solid selling point, particularly for the fact that he considers Vision a more complete offering than some of its brethren.

“Some software companies define precision agronomy as simply soil sampling – they don’t include scouting, but ours is pretty comprehensive. You’ve got scouting and soil sampling, variable-rate fertility, tillage and all of the different cultural practices around soil, and you can fill planting work orders right in the field, which are easily exported into the logistics and accounting pieces (of the software),” he says.

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