Modeling of time-variant grain moisture content for determination of preferred temporal harvest windows and estimation of income loss from harvesting an overly-dry crop

A system comprising:

• a computing environment including at least one computer-readable storage medium having program instructions stored therein and a computer processor operable to execute the program instructions to profile a moisture content of a crop by performing a harvest advisory model within a plurality of data processing modules, the plurality of data processing modules including:
• a weather modeling module configured to predict expected weather conditions at a specific location by applying weather information including recent and current field-level weather data and extended-range weather forecast data to one or more predictive numerical weather models;
• one or more modules configured to 1) aggregate the expected weather conditions with crop-specific information that includes at least one of crop type data, planting data, and growing season data into an agricultural model of one or more physical and empirical characteristics impacting harvest operations of the crop, 2) simulate time-varying moisture content of the crop in a planted field at specific times as an anticipated end of a crop growing season approaches, and 3) compare one or more sampled observations of actual moisture content from a planted field at corresponding times as the anticipated end of the crop growing season approaches with the simulation of time-varying moisture content to modify the simulation based on identified differences between the otherwise simulated moisture content and the one or more sampled observations of actual moisture content at the corresponding times;
• and
• a harvest condition prediction module configured to predict the moisture content in the crop in a harvest output condition profile for planning a timing of harvest operations and estimating income loss from harvesting a crop that is either wetter or drier than a desired moisture content.

A method of analyzing moisture content of a crop for determination of preferred temporal harvest windows, comprising:

• within a computing environment comprised of a computer processor and at least one computer-readable storage medium operably coupled to the computer processor and having program instructions stored therein, the computer processor being operable to execute the program instructions to profile a moisture content of the crop in a harvest advisory model configured to perform the steps of:
• predicting expected weather conditions impacting the moisture content of the crop in the planted field at a specific location by applying weather information comprised of recent and current field-level weather data and extended-range weather forecast data to one or more predictive numerical weather models;
• simulating time-varying moisture content of the crop in a planted field at specific times as an anticipated end of a crop growing season approaches by applying the expected weather conditions and crop-specific information to an agricultural model of one or more physical and empirical characteristics impacting harvesting of the crop;
• and
• modifying the simulation based on the identified differences between the otherwise simulated moisture content and the one or more sampled observations of actual moisture content at the corresponding times to generate a predicted moisture content in the crop in the planted field at a plurality of times as the anticipated end of the crop growing season approaches.