Shaking Off the Cold and Getting to Work

Portfolio Update

Shaking Off the Cold and Getting to Work

By Ben Craker, Portfolio Manager

This year the snowy cold Corn Belt winter is thwarting those wistful glances we usually take over the time horizon in early February. The new growing season is only a scant couple months away, but it’s hard to see through the snow glare and blistering cold.

Meanwhile AgGateway working groups are taking advantage of this extra bit of ‘hunker down’ time to get down to business. Most teams have their first meeting or two of 2026 under their belts and are already making progress toward their deliverables. Here’s a summary of where things stand:

The Modus Plant Tissue Team (WG 28) is essentially complete. However, we are waiting to post the work to GitHub. The team found several topics that need a little broader review to ensure Modus resources are consistent between the soil, manure, and plant tissue method lists. The current plan is to convene a quick call or two with some of the exports on each method matrix to determine the best path forward. This will likely result in tweaks to all three lists that will then be updated on GitHub. We are also reviewing with the now operational Agrisemantics Committee to align processes for managing Modus with other AgGateway semantic resources.

Field Operations Controlled Vocabulary (WG31) is continuing to test the proposed component model for identifying a field operation with existing lists of types of field operations. They stated with the Agricultural Activity Ontology developed in Japan, and most recently began reviewing the RUSLE2 operation types and STIR values used by USDA-NRCS with a little help from the University of Wisconsin SnapPlus team. If you know of any other lists of field operations types/categories the team should know about, please drop me a line. The team would be happy to have additional examples to test the proposed structure.

The Crop Protection Work Record (WG 32) team has also met a couple times and has had some good discussions to help confirm their scope. They are also talking with other projects and organizations to understand some of the different reporting processes and requirements around the world to ensure the solution will work for these use cases. They spoke with AgGateway Europe director Conny Graumans to understand the UN-CEFACT e-crop model. They are also scheduled to learn more about the AgriGuide digital label project led by CropLife Europe and are planning to discuss digital acreage reporting in the US as well.

The Modus v2 Schema team had an initial meeting, but is holding off further activity pending a couple outstanding actions. I am working on reviewing several years’ worth of documentation in the wiki from multiple Modus working groups to draw out the requirements that have already been captured.

We also could use a few more participants. The v2 Modus schema is a topic that has had a lot of interest over the years but so far is a little light on participants. The team that has joined can drive the project, but it is always good to have more voices in the virtual room.

The latest installment from the Field Boundary (WG34) series of working focused on obstacles is meeting regularly and making progress identifying the types and attributes of a variety of obstacles to help frame a model for sharing relevant data. There is a lot that needs to be sorted out yet, but the team is making progress documenting use cases as well as reviewing existing ISO standards for construction data and other adjacent industries to inform their work.

As usual, if you have any questions on the activities of any of these working groups, an idea for a new group, or want to get engaged feel free to contact me (ben.craker@aggateway.org), or sign up for a working group here.