Landus Agronomist Mines Post-Harvest Imagery to Sharpen 2026 Advice

A 69-year-old technical agronomy lead at Iowa's Landus Cooperative is running a post-harvest data review that stretches from now until December grower meetings — and he says the imagery record is already explaining yield gaps nobody caught in-season.

Dan Bjorklund, Technical Agronomy Lead at Landus, laid out the workflow during an episode of CropLife's Retail Week, co-hosted by Amy Asmus of Asmus Farm Supply. His platform of choice is SkyScout, Landus's digital agronomy tool that pulls imagery from drones, aircraft and satellites to track crop conditions across enrolled acres.

The method is simple. In-season, Bjorklund drops a digital pin on any area of interest, walks to it, and investigates. After harvest, he returns to the same pins and replays the imagery timeline against yield data.

"Some things that didn't appear apparent then are now starting to make a little more sense," Bjorklund said. Disease pressure, root health issues and other stresses often drove yield differences that weren't obvious in July.

"From now really until we do our farmer meetings, which we'll start in December, I will be looking back at what we saw and then looking at the data coming in and making some correlation as best as we can," he said.

What does the AI layer change?

SkyScout includes analytical capabilities and an AI agent that lets users query information across all enrolled acres. Bjorklund runs comparisons that used to require manual record-keeping: hybrid against hybrid, brand against brand, and — critically for input budgets — nitrogen timing against nitrogen timing.

"We can say, okay, let's compare this genetic hybrid, this company brand versus this one, and let's compare it where we did fall anhydrous and maybe a little bit of spring application versus just fall," Bjorklund said.

"There's no limit to the questions that you can ask. And sometimes I can go down deep rabbit holes that way," he added.

He keeps expectations grounded. "As you know, as being in agronomy, we never figure everything out." Environmental differences still require interpretation, and the data doesn't hand over answers on its own.

How do retailers sell a backward look to growers?

Asmus flagged the practical problem: once the combine is parked, many growers want a hard page turn. "Because I know with us, it's a pretty hard page turn. And now I'm on to the new year," she said.

Her question to Bjorklund: "How do you take that data so that you're not only looking back, but maybe when you start to have those discussions in December, you're looking forward to practices that maybe they need to add or practices they did that maybe they don't need to do?"

Bjorklund's answer is personal contact. One customer between Britt and Forest City, Iowa, enrolled a significant number of acres in SkyScout, and Bjorklund committed to visiting the farm every two weeks all season. "I think I pretty much fulfilled that. But we became friends enough that he calls me every day now," he said. After a disappointing season, the two plan to sit down on genetics, planting challenges and management practices that protect crop health.

Beyond the yield monitor

The same review applies to crop protection economics. Bjorklund observed that some Iowa growers who ran two fungicide treatments appeared to reach higher yields than those who applied one — though he stressed the data isn't yet firm enough for conclusions.

On nitrogen, he was blunt about both the uncertainty and the cost side: "The whole nitrogen thing is very elusive." His current agronomic advice carries a hard threshold: "My recommendation as an agronomist is do not put on anhydrous if soil temperatures are above 50 like they are right now."

Efficiency matters too. Drone scans now direct his scouting the way an MRI directs a doctor. "I can take a scan of a field, and it's like a human MRI, and I look for those areas that are abnormal, all during a growing season, and it directs where I scout," he said. "I'm 69. I'm not as quick in the field as I was 30 years ago." Asmus replied: "Awesome old guys like me, too."

For agronomists covering thousands of acres, the payoff is prioritization — technology targets the walk, it doesn't replace it. As the December meeting season approaches, retailers who combine imagery timelines, yield files and scouting notes will arrive with field-specific recommendations rather than regional generalities.