In the sale of yield-increase and/or crop protection products, the main problem is selling the farmer/grower on the idea that the product will actually work as it is advertised. While many products are sold with a “satisfaction guaranteed” promise, the farmer is often skeptical of the willingness or the ability of the seller to stand behind its “satisfaction guaranteed” claim. Additionally, while a product may be sold with a promise of, for example, fewer nematodes and higher yields, again, the farmer is often skeptical of such promises.
An additional obstacle arises when the yield-increase and/or crop protection product produces no visually discernable difference in the field. The main question the farmer typically has is will the product work consistently enough to get a positive return on their investment and, if so, how will the farmer know. While a farmer can harvest a field of untreated crop and determine its yield by weighing, and then harvest a field of treated crop and determine its yield also by weighing, and then compare the untreated and treated yields, this is a time consuming and burdensome task. It may not be worth it to the farmer to go through the extra time and expense to separately weigh/measure the yields and make comparisons. Also, if the farmer is under time constraints to get the crop harvested quickly due to weather or other concerns, there may just not be enough time to separately measure and weigh the yields in treated and untreated areas and make any determination or comparison. Further, differences in soils between various fields may also skew the results and not accurately identify the value of the product.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the above-mentioned problems.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds