Est. 2014 · Des Moines, Iowa
Precision agriculture and soil health for Midwest farms
Highwater Ag is an independent farm advisory in Des Moines. We work on yield maps, soil health, cover crops, nutrient plans, irrigation, and grain marketing — without a combine to sell you.
How Highwater Ag works
Precision agriculture only pays when the layers talk to each other: as-applied maps, soil tests, and a nitrogen plan that matches hybrid and weather. We help growers clean data, set management zones, and stop treating a 1,200-acre farm like one field.
Soil health is not a slogan here. We write cover-crop mixes, residue plans, and livestock integration where it pencils. Compaction, tile, and pH get the same attention as the latest planter tech. Irrigation scheduling is for the acres that actually justify water, not a catalog pitch.
We sit beside Farm Journal and AgWeb in the truck, but we are not a magazine and not a dealer. Growers comparing John Deere, Corteva, and Farmers Business Network still need someone who will say when a sensor is theater.
What we actually do
Management zones and yield data
Clean yield files, satellite and soil layers, and prescriptions you can run without a three-day training.
Soil health programs
Tests that include biology when it changes a decision. Cover crops, tillage passes, and compaction diagnosis.
Nutrient planning
N, P, K, and micronutrients tied to hybrid, previous crop, and manure. Not a generic removal table.
Grain marketing calendar
Basis, storage, and sales targets with the farm's cash-flow months, not a CNBC ticker.
Irrigation and water
Scheduling, pivot uniformity, and when not to irrigate. For acres where water is the limiter.
Livestock–crop integration
Grazing cover, manure crediting, and fence logistics that do not wreck the next corn crop.
Guides from the studio
These are the pieces we keep on the homepage because they are the questions people ask in the first meeting.
- 01
What to do with five years of messy yield maps
Cleaning files, spotting header issues, and building zones you will actually use.
- 02
Cover crop mixes for corn–soy rotations in Iowa
Species, terminate timing, and nitrogen credit that is not wishful.
- 03
Variable-rate nitrogen without buying a new toolbar
When prescriptions pay and when they are a software demo.
- 04
Soil tests: what to sample, how deep, and how often
Grid vs zone, and the labs we will send a check to.
- 05
Grain marketing: storage vs harvest cash in a high-basis year
A calendar, not a hot take.
- 06
Tile, compaction, and why the yield hole is always in the same spot
A field walk checklist before you call a contractor.
- 07
Precision ag stack: display, farm software, and agronomy — who owns the data
How to keep your layers when you change dealers.
- 08
Livestock on crop acres: fencing, water, and nutrient credit
The math before you buy a herd.
The landscape we work in
Highwater Ag is not these publications — we read them, send clients to them, and sit in the same niche. If you already follow this beat, you already know the names.
- Successful Farmingproduction coverage Iowa growers already trust
- Farm Journalpolicy and market context we use in planning meetings
- AgWebdaily farm news clients forward us before breakfast
- Progressive Farmerregional production features we still clip
- Agriculture.commarkets and weather that sit next to our grain calendar
- DTNquotes and ag weather we would rather cite than scrape
From people we work with
They threw out half our yield data and the other half finally made a nitrogen map that matched the field.
Cover crop mix that we could terminate on time. First year we did not fight a green mess at plant.
Independent of the dealer. That sentence is worth the retainer.
Visit or write
Highwater Ag Advisors LLC · Des Moines, Iowa. Studio visits by appointment. For press, partnerships, or a first conversation, use the studio desk — this site is the public face of the practice, not a marketplace.