Picture a 32 year old former New York City tech worker waltzing onto a farm with zero experience in agriculture, soil moisture and temperature probes plus a brix refractometer in hand, wanting to learn how to use data and technology to help farmers. Two months into farming, there isn’t a moment yet where my spreadsheets and soil probes have told me something about the plants or soil that Ethel doesn’t already know. Ethel has been farming this land in upstate New York for 25+ years and has graciously let me learn from her this season and use a piece of her land for my nutrient density project. The knowledge Ethel has about the soil, land, bugs, weeds, each individual food producing plant, and so much more has astounded me. The most valuable farming data isn’t what I can capture with my sensors, it’s Ethel’s experience.

Ethel knows what a plant looks like when it’s nitrogen-deficient and how its leaves bleach. She knows which plants benefit from more calcium, typically through crushed eggshells, and how to optimize crop rotation for disease prevention and soil health. I think the data will be able to show me this too, eventually, but the collection required to get there will need to go well beyond one season. Every time I see something wrong with one of our plants, an off-colored leaf, suspicious bite marks, a general droopiness, I ask Ethel what she thinks is going on. More often than not, she knows the answer and what to do.

Farmers live by the weather. It tells them when to start seeds indoors, when to transplant seedlings outside, when to water, when to not to water, and when to watch for certain pests and weeds. If you go by dates alone and transplant your young plants in the field too early, a late freeze could knock out your entire crop. Transplanting on a sunny day causes new plants stress, so it’s best to wait for a cloudy cool day to get them outside. I originally started tracking soil temperature and soil moisture daily in an effort to estimate the best planting days based on weather patterns and the warmth of the ground, but Ethel already knows when everything should go in. The moisture and soil temperature data is still valuable to me as a beginner to farming, but it’s only a small part of the story.

The average US farmer has 23 years of experience and is 58 years old. When these farmers retire, their knowledge will largely disappear. Farmers have learned through dozens of seasons how weather patterns impact their crops and techniques that give their plants the best chance of survival in an ever-changing world. That's the knowledge I need to be capturing here. General farming practices are well documented. What isn't is the hyperlocal knowledge a farmer builds about their specific land and environment over decades. What Ethel knows about this particular plot in upstate New York only exists in her head.

What we eat is a reflection of the practices that went into growing the food, and the environment it was grown in. If harmful chemicals were used in growing the crops, it’ll show up in the vegetable or fruit we eat. If there were wildfires nearby and the smoke blocked the sun for a majority of the season, the tomatoes will likely be watery since they didn’t get enough sun. How the food is grown is shaped by what the farmer knows about their specific land. We've spent decades optimizing nutrition guidelines and medical advice for the average person, not the individual. In reality very few of us actually need what’s average. We need what’s right for our specific bodies. The same problem exists in farming. Data can help us capture and scale the hyperlocal knowledge of farmers.

I’m still focused on testing nutrient density in the food we grow because that’s something no amount of experience can tell us, only a lab. But now I’m spending more of my tracking energy capturing Ethel’s knowledge, like when and how to let the pepper seedlings harden more before planting them outside. If the plant stems are too delicate, they won’t survive the great outdoors, so they may need an intermediary step after the greenhouse and before the field to help them get sturdier. The data I actually need from this season isn't just soil chemistry and nutrient density. It's everything Ethel already knows, and figuring out how to write it all down.

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