Conference 2025 recap: A producer’s perspective on turning yield data into decisions

Wietze Dykstra is a dairy farmer in western New Brunswick and chair of Dairy Farmer’s New Brunswick. He shared how he uses yield data to make decisions on his farm during his presentation at the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association’s (CFGA) 16th Annual Conference: Greener Horizons: Technological Innovations in Forage and Grassland Management. The conference took place Nov. 18 to 21 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and was organized in partnership with the New Brunswick Soil and Crop Improvement Association (NBSCIA).

Farmers today interact with tons of data. As a dairy farmer, milking 170 cows, Wietze sees their yields every day – who’s pregnant, who’s going to have a baby, who’s sick and much more. His job is to manage the data and use it to keep production stable.

“I’m an average farmer and I’m very pleased with that,” he said, explaining 20 years ago, he was milking 50 cows, had a little harvester and was happy harvesting his own forage. But, as his operation grew, he started to need to harvest more and more. He looked at his workload and decided he was spending too much time sitting in the tractor and not enough time sitting on his deck during the short summer months. He started contracting out his planting and harvest.

Since then, technology has dramatically changed and he uses technology to better understand harvests, moistures and other metrics as he works with his custom harvester.

GPS, tractor software and other technology collects data in the field. From field size to total yield, amount dry matter to total wet weight, starch to inoculant dosing, both Wietze and his contract harvester know exactly what is happening in any field. This allows him to make both short- and long-term decisions about what to plant where and which field may need a boost.

He said he knows how much grass and corn silage he needs to feed his herd and the data shows him how much he has in inventory.

Additionally, by using a custom harvester, his harvest is completed within 24 hours. Ensuring consistent quality of feed.

Technology comes with a price tag though and he said farmers and harvesters need to understand who pays for the cost and who owns the data.

2025 conference recordings
Would you like to hear all this presentation? Online access to recordings of this and all conference sessions are available for purchase. For more information, email [email protected].

2026 CFGA annual conference

Early bird registration is now open for the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association’s (CFGA) 17th Annual Conference, taking place Nov. 9 to 12, 2026, at the Best Western Calgary Plaza Hotel in partnership with the Agriculture Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA).

With the theme Canadian Forage Systems: Designing for Durability, this year’s event brings together Canada’s forage and grassland community to explore resilience and long‑term system design. Watch the CFGA website, follow the CFGA on Facebook, X, Instagram and LinkedIn or subscribe to the CFGA quarterly newsletter to stay up to date.