An agricultural harvester includes a plurality of controllable subsystems and a forward-looking crop sensor that detects a characteristic of the crop in front of the harvester. The forward-looking sensor generates a first sensor signal indicative of the detected characteristic. The harvester further includes a component sensor that detects a characteristic of a component of the agricultural harvesting machine and generates a second sensor signal indicative of the detected characteristic. Adaptation logic receives the first and second sensor signals and determines a sensor conversion factor intermittently during operation of the agricultural harvester. Recommendation logic receives the conversion factor and generates a recommendation to change operation of a controllable subsystem, based in part on the calculated conversion factor and a value received from the forward-looking crop sensor. A control system controls the controllable subsystem based on the generated recommendation.