Patent ID: 7047133

Claim:
A method for evaluating performance of a crop, the method comprising the steps of: obtaining environmental measurements associated with a geographic region, each environmental measurement including at least one of soil data derived from measurements of a soil characteristic sensor and weather data derived from measurements of a weather sensor; obtaining respective location data associated with corresponding environmental measurements; determining an estimated performance characteristic for a particular crop planted in the geographic region based on the obtained environmental measurements and respective location data; establishing contours of one or more uniform performance areas with generally uniform performance characteristic within the geographic region comprising multiple fields by applying a decision-tree analysis to the obtained environmental measurements; identifying critical environmental measurement identifiers associated with corresponding critical values or critical ranges for one or more of the uniform performance areas; and estimating a geographic marketing opportunity or market size for seed or a precursor of a particular crop variety within the geographic region based on at least one of the uniform performance areas, the critical environmental measurement identifiers, and the critical values and the critical ranges, without estimating of any potential economic profit or loss of any grower within the geographic region.