YFI, Young Farms Inc., powered by FarmBuilt.ag

Young Farms Inc. · East-central Illinois

We set out to run our own farm a little better.

We're a family farm. Like a lot of farms, the field work was in good shape, but the office side ran on texts, ticket photos, and a workbook that was always a few days behind. This is the story of how we fixed that for ourselves.

Changes when you do.

The vision

An office that keeps up with the field.

We didn't want more software. We wanted the everyday paperwork to take care of itself, so we could spend our time farming instead of retyping things at night.

Grain ticketsBinsElevator deliveriesShop upkeepCrew communication

We'd tried off-the-shelf tools. They're great until they aren't. The first time our operation did something they weren't built for, we were back to a spreadsheet.

So we asked a different question: what if our tools changed when we did?

Grain bins at dusk Planter in front of grain bins
Planting Young corn rows Sprayer Tractors in the field

What we built

So we built our own, with Grok.

None of us are programmers. We started with the job that hurt most at harvest and built one piece at a time, describing what we needed in plain English.

First

Grain

A grain bot that reads scale ticket photos, logs each load, keeps the bins straight, and tracks deliveries by elevator.

Next

The shop

A shop bot for service intervals, parts, fuel, and a daily checklist for each machine.

Then

One place for the crew

An app on the phone and desktop, with crew chat, owner approvals, and a dashboard that stays current.

Scale ticket photo logged by the grain bot
Snap a scale ticket. The bot logs it.
Dashboard overview
Delivered and in the bins, at a glance.
Daily machine checklists
A daily checklist for every machine.
Crew note approved by an owner
Crew notes wait for an owner's OK.

Screens shown with demo data, not our farm's records.

When the farm changes, the tools change with it.

A new elevator, a new machine, a new way we want to see the bins. We tell it, and it changes in near real time.

What we learned

Good data takes the whole team.

We've always valued data on our farm, and we use it to make the farm better. What we needed was data collected in real time, while the work happens, and easy to find when we need it. That only works if the whole crew can do it, not just the owner. So it had to fit how we already work: a photo, a text, a quick check-off.

You don't have to be a programmer. You need to know your farm, and you already do.

Two crew members working on the corn head at night
Corn head down at night. As soon as the crew reports it, ShopGrok checks parts inventory and posts help in the crew chat while the guys get to work.

Start with one headache

For us it was grain tickets. Fix one thing that eats your evenings, then build from there.

Say it in plain English

Describe how your farm actually works. The tools get built around that, not the other way around.

Own it

It runs in our account, with our data, and we know how to change it ourselves.

Get in touch

Curious? Let's talk.

This is what we did on our own farm. If you're thinking about building something like this, or you've started and got stuck, reach out. I've been through it first-hand and I'm glad to help you get over the hump, whether that's a quick conversation or a half-day working through it together.

Half-day sessions can be in person or virtual. No software to buy.

[email protected]