Automatically assigning hybrids or seeds to fields for planting

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2020005166-A1
Application number	US-201816042015-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 23, 2018
Priority date	Jul 2, 2018
Publication date	Jan 2, 2020
Grant date	—

Abstract

Techniques are provided for automatically assigning hybrid products or seed products to agricultural fields with optimal yield performance. In one embodiment, a computer-implemented method comprises using field assignment instructions in the server computer system, receiving, over a digital data communication network at a server computer system, grower datasets specifying agricultural fields of growers and inventories of hybrid products or seed products of the growers; using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, obtaining over the digital data communication network at the server computer system, other input data comprising relative maturity values, historic yield values for the fields of the growers, and mean yield values for regions in which the fields of the growers are located; using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, calculating pair datasets consisting of permutations of product assignments of two (2) products to two (2) fields from among the fields of the growers, and corresponding converse assignments of the same products and fields; inputting specified features of the pair dataset(s) to a trained machine learning model, to yield predicted POS values for each of the product assignments and its corresponding converse assignment; blending the predicted POS values for all fields with field classification data using an operations research model of other field data, to result in creating and storing score values for each of the product assignments and the corresponding converse assignments; using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, generating and causing displaying at least the product assignments in a graphical user interface display of a client computing device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
using field assignment instructions in a server computer system, receiving, over a digital data communication network at the server computer system, grower datasets specifying agricultural fields of growers and inventories of hybrid products or seed products of the growers; using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, obtaining over the digital data communication network at the server computer system, other input data comprising relative maturity values, historic yield values for the fields of the growers, and mean yield values for regions in which the fields of the growers are located; using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, calculating pair datasets consisting of permutations of product assignments of two (2) products to two (2) fields from among the fields of the growers, and corresponding converse assignments of the same products and fields; inputting specified features of the pair dataset(s) to a trained machine learning model, to yield predicted POS values for each of the product assignments and its corresponding converse assignment; blending the predicted POS values for all fields with field classification data using an operations research model of other field data, to result in creating and storing score values for each of the product assignments and the corresponding converse assignments; using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, generating and causing displaying at least the product assignments in a graphical user interface display of a client computing device.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, repeating the calculating, inputting and blending for all products in inventory of a grower and all fields of that grower.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, repeating the calculating, inputting and blending for all products in inventory of a grower and all fields of that grower, for all the growers.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system:
classifying the fields of the growers as high-performing or low-performing; inputting the specified features of the pair dataset(s) to the trained machine learning model in two stages to cause separate classification with respect to the high-performing fields and the low-performing fields.

5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, performing the classifying for a particular field based on calculating whether a historic yield value of the particular field is among higher yield values that are above the mean yield values for regions in which the fields of the growers are located.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, for the predicted POS values that are associated with a particular grower, applying one or more grower-specific constraints that are associated with the same particular grower, to result in updating the predicted POS values to grower-specific POS values.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the grower-specific constraints comprise any one or more of: numbers of bags of hybrid products or seed products in inventory; sizes of fields of the particular grower; relative maturity values for the fields of the particular grower; equipment types of the particular grower; operations management values of the particular grower; seeding density goal values of the particular grower.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, for the predicted POS values that are associated with a particular grower, automatically assigning the hybrid products or seed products of the same particular grower to specific fields of the same particular grower, based on ranking the predicted POS values that are associated with the same particular grower.

9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, updating the graphical user interface display of a client computing device to cause displaying an ordered chart of assignments of the hybrid products or seed products of the same particular grower to specific fields of the same particular grower.

10 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, generating the ordered chart of assignments of the hybrid products or seed products of the same particular grower to specific fields of the same particular grower using a plurality of graphical bars representing the assignments, each of the bars having a length based upon a magnitude of one of the predicted POS values that corresponds to a particular hybrid product or seed product.

11 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, generating the ordered chart of assignments of the hybrid products or seed products of the same particular grower to specific fields of the same particular grower using a plurality of graphical bars representing the assignments, each of the bars comprising a graphical attribute that indicates a positive recommendation or negative recommendation.

12 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system:
for a particular grower, generating and causing displaying using the client computing device, a graphical map display comprising a graphical representation of one or more particular fields of the particular grower and the product assignments using one or more of: product identifiers in text; distinct colors of the particular fields.

13 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system:
for a particular grower, generating and causing displaying using the client computing device, a graphical map display comprising:
a graphical representation of one or more particular fields of the particular grower and the product assignments using one or more of: product identifiers in text; distinct colors of the particular fields; and
a data table that identifies a field or farm, a particular hybrid product or seed product that has been assigned to that field, and a number of bags of the particular hybrid product or seed product that have been assigned to that field.

14 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system, generating and causing displaying a graphical user interface display that presents field assignment recommendations comprising:
a graphical field map of a particular field; a product assignment graph comprising a bar chart in which graphical bars correspond to seed products or hybrid products, and a linear dimension of each bar represents a magnitude of a POS value or recommendation score for the associated product; the bars for products reflecting positive recommendations or negative recommendations; the bars ordered according to POS value or score; the bars displayed using a plurality of different colors that are associated with a spectrum of values along a positive to negative recommendation scale.

15 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising, using the field assignment instructions in the server computer system:
receiving input that s

Assignees

• Climate Corp

Inventors

• Reich Timothy
• Yang Xiao
• Ehlmann Tonya
• Bull Jason
• Xie Yao
• Shah Nikisha
• Sorge Matthew

Classifications

• G06Q50/02

  Agriculture; Fishing; Forestry; Mining · CPC title

• G06Q10/04

  Forecasting or optimisation specially adapted for administrative or management purposes, e.g. linear programming or "cutting stock problem" (market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities G06Q30/0202) · CPC title

• G06Q10/0631

  Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations · CPC title

• G06N5/01

  Dynamic search techniques; Heuristics; Dynamic trees; Branch-and-bound · CPC title

• A01B79/005

  Precision agriculture · CPC title