Charles Baron with Farmers Business Network told me all about the organization’s latest innovation, Norm the AI Agronomist. Norm is an online tool that uses artificial intelligence to scan the internet and agronomic research to answer questions about agronomy, farm management practices and more. Baron says that while still in its beta stage, many have already experimented with asking Norm questions about no-till and cover crops and how to best implement those types of conservation ag practices in different climates.

“Norm is going to actually give you responses and help you answer questions, and you can have a conversation with it. So, if it doesn’t answer your question right away, you ask it a follow up question and it will keep learning about you and keep learning about your question as you’re asking it to give you the best response. It’s really pretty fun. It can answer questions about all kinds of stuff, everything from equipment to crop rotation and tillage and agronomic practices. We are training Norm right now on chemical intelligence and things like labels, tank mix data, licensing and pest targeting, so that Norm can be used to support farmers when they are buying products, using products and making agronomic decisions in the field. It is, of course, not an agronomist. It is a technology system, right. So you still need to have the kind of agronomic support or veterinary support. But it can help growers answer very basic or common questions and help them march further along the way in being more autonomous and more independent. One of the common questions people ask about no-till, is how do I implement no-till or what should I consider to implement no-till. And Norm will help with that decision-making process, it will help talk through what are the common steps either to introduce no-till on the farm or other management practices that you’d want to consider.”

And if you’d like to try asking Norm your own cover crop questions, just go to FBN.com/norm and create a free account.