SOYL and Muddy Boots collaborate to simplify the use of data on farm

6th July 2020

Precision farming leader SOYL and farm and agronomy software specialist Muddy Boots have teamed up to make data transfer simpler for growers and their advisors.

Field and cropping information can now be easily transferred from Muddy Boots’ farm management software, Greenlight Grower Management (GLGM), to MySOYL, a precision data tool within Frontier Agriculture’s farm management platform, MyFarm.

GLGM is a cloud-based farm management and recommendation software system, popular with agronomists and growers, and is used extensively by Frontier’s agronomy team alongside the MyRecs tool in MyFarm.

MySOYL enables growers to store, view and utilise precision farming data such as yield maps, soil sample maps and biomass satellite imagery.

The new compatibility between the tools means that data relating to farms, fields, crops and varieties stored in GLGM can easily be fed into MySOYL.

“A continual challenge for UK farmers is to join up the digital systems they are using to reduce both the need for double-entry of information and the opportunity for errors when transferring data between systems” says Tom Parker, Head of Digital Development for Frontier. “SOYL is constantly working alongside producers of external systems to improve the connectivity of our tools with the aim of enhancing our customers’ digital experiences.”

“Coordinating the systems will allow us to easily set up new customers or synchronise cropping for existing customers who use GLGM software,” explains Tom. “What does this mean practically for a farmer? When next year’s field information is being decided, it will flow seamlessly through from GLGM to MySOYL, allowing fertiliser recommendations, seed rate plans and nitrogen plans to be created without double-entry of the same data. When new land is set up, field records such as names, boundaries and cropping will already be populated. Muddy Boots is a well regarded developer of crop recording software and we are delighted to integrate its software with our platform.”

Farmer David Cunningham of A G Cunningham & Son, based in Fife, has recently been set up on the new system and says “I can definitely see the benefits of being able to enter data into a single system and transfer it in the click of a button. It’ll make a big difference to growers who are inputting lots of information into these tools on a regular basis by saving them time and reducing the risk of making an error.”

SOYL Area Manager Stuart Fensom, who supports David with precision farming, says “When we make management decisions, the ability for that information to cascade through multiple systems makes us more efficient and means that no mistakes creep in. We can start working out the rotation, creating a seed rate plan to drill it, and looking for a fertiliser recommendation, all in different systems but using the same data. I can see a time where more applications specialise in individual areas whilst working together to improve the overall user experience, as GLGM and MySOYL do with crop recording and variable rate applications respectively.”

Speaking on the new connectivity, Paul Thomas, Senior Business Development Manager at Muddy Boots says “We are excited about the next stage of our long-standing collaboration with SOYL as we move to connect our customers with third party services. The capability for users to seamlessly transfer data from the GLGM platform to MySOYL and other third party digital farming solutions will maximise the value of these precision farming tools for the benefit of the whole industry.”

“Connectivity of our systems to allow a smoother digital experience for our customers is an on-going priority of ours”, concludes Tom. “Whilst this is a small step, it continues our journey to that end.”