Crop Insurance Today First Quarter 2023 - 8

Aerial imagery of NCIS grain sorghum stand reduction
research. Today, new technologies have created
different ways of capturing data and viewing crops.
important changes to crop loss adjusting in the
past 100 years and the mission to develop and
revise adjusting procedures continues this year
as NCIS will conduct 14 research projects in 11
states and Canada.
The Benefits do not End
with Crop Insurance
From the beginning, hail researchers understood
the level of intensity and the crop stage
of development as primary factors in the ability
of crops to recover from damage. Although researchers
often described a crop's growth stage
when publishing research, for most crops, there
were no standardized growth stage descriptions.
Because of crop insurance research, growth stage
descriptions for many crops were developed. The
first were created for potatoes at the University
of Idaho in 1959. Twelve years later, one of the
most widely cited articles published in Crop Science
described new growth stage descriptions for
soybean. A follow up publication titled Stages of
Soybean Development was released in 1977 that
Popcorn stand reduction research in Nebraska is chronicled to show what the crop looks like near harvest.
included descriptions and drawings for both indeterminate
and determinate soybean-some
of which are still in the NCIS Soybean Loss Instructions.
Using the soybean descriptions, original
common bean growth stages developed from
industry supported research in 1959 were further
refined in 1974 using the soybean descriptions
published in 1971. Sunflower research in the
1970s led to growth stage descriptions published
in Crop Science in 1981. While our industry cannot
take credit for the development of all growth
stage descriptions, industry-supported research
could be considered the catalyst for standardized
crop growth stages.
The Next 100 Years
It is difficult to imagine agriculture when
hail research began in the 1920s-that corn was
open pollinated, planted in hills, and cultivated
by mule teams. Now, corn hybrids with biotech
traits are the norm, corn is rarely cultivated,
seeding rates have doubled, and the crop is
planted in varying row spacings, and often with
different hybrids in the same fields. Since the
first research projects, new crops, new management
practices, new growing regions, and new
genetics have constantly evolved. Today's crops
are more resilient and produce higher yields
than their predecessors. Behind these advances
are dynamic physiological events that affect
how these crops cope with stress, damage, and
general environmental conditions. Crop insurance
agronomic research has kept astride of
these changes since the beginning. Our industry
continually adapts to these changes through
its grassroots research framework that relies on
input from field adjusters, managers, and independent
university researchers. The mission is
the same as then-to develop procedures that
are as accurate as possible so that insureds are
indemnified fairly.
We are grateful for the long-standing support
A researcher caring for peanut stand reduction research plots in Georgia. While most agronomic researchers make
every attempt not to damage research plots, National Crop Insurance Services research is focused on damaging
crops and determining their response to damage.
8 FIRSTQUARTER2023
of the NCIS membership, including the NCIS
Board of Directors who approves annual funding
for the agronomic research projects and the
members of the NCIS Regional/State Committees
who provide input on new crops to study
and suggestions on needed improvements to the
current loss adjustment procedures.

Crop Insurance Today First Quarter 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crop Insurance Today First Quarter 2023