Syngenta Thrive

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While pollinators are often unseen, they pack a powerful punch when it comes to the production of some of the country’s highest-value crops. Flying from flower to flower, these bees, butterflies, birds, bats and beetles, among many other species, are critical to the food supply. In fact, pollinators are essential to one-third of the world’s crops, including apples, almonds, blueberries, cherries, cranberries and melons. In the U.S. alone, pollinators increase crop values by more than $15 billion annually.

Needless to say, protecting these pollinator powerhouses is critical to the variety of plant life and the food supply that nourishes us all. Because organizations and individuals can accomplish more together than they ever could on their own, partnerships are helping protect pollinators, enhance biodiversity and preserve the land.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

Farmers have been working with beekeepers for decades, according to Caydee Savinelli, Ph.D., stewardship team and pollinator lead for Syngenta.

“We all care about the land, but farmers steward the land and maintain it for generations to come,” she says. “They grow the crops that bees can forage on and around. Whether the crop itself needs pollination or the surrounding land is providing habitat for pollinators, farmers understand that working together is good for themselves, the beekeepers and, most importantly, the bees.”

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We’re growing crops that feed and fuel the world; and, without pollinators, our crops can’t produce what they normally can or should.

Chip Bowling Farmer and Former Chairman, National Corn Growers Association Newburg, Maryland

Farmers continue to place great importance on pollinator protection, says Chip Bowling, farmer and former chairman of the National Corn Growers Association.

“My grandfather taught me that you need to take care of the soil and whatever is around it, and that includes the pollinators,” Bowling explains. “As farmers, we’re growing crops that feed and fuel the world; and, without pollinators, our crops can’t produce what they normally can or should. Pollinators are critical to the agricultural community.”

Beekeepers work with farmers every year to provide pollination services for crops. For example, more than 80% of all commercial bee colonies are transported across the U.S. in January to produce almond crops in California. From there, bees may travel to the Pacific Northwest, the East Coast or the Southeast to pollinate fruits and vegetables.

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Relationships between farmers and beekeepers help provide forage for bees, but they don’t solve some of the challenges that the overall bee population is facing. These challenges include mites, diseases and potential pesticide exposure.

“It’s hard to know exactly what is affecting bee populations,” Savinelli says. “There are a lot of variables, and there is a need for more data. One thing is certain: Collaboration will play a vital role in overcoming these challenges.”

Collaborating To Build Bridges

Stakeholders from around the world are coming together to preserve biodiversity and protect pollinators.

“As an industry, we have a lot of knowledge and best practices to protect pollinators,” Savinelli explains. “We thought it really made sense to get together and provide resources so farmers can continue using and benefiting from insecticides, but at the same time help pollinators.”

As a result, the Growing Matters coalition, which includes neonicotinoid insecticide registrants, launched the BeSure! campaign. Its purpose is to remind members of the ag community to follow best management practices and stewardship tips when using insecticidal treated seeds and crop protection products. In its second year, the 2020 campaign reached farmers and applicators in at least 28 states through tailored radio sponsorships, social media and traditional trade media outreach.

“One of the keys is communication,” says Tom Smith, executive director of the National Pesticide Safety Education Center. “Communicating with fellow landowners surrounding their farms and with beekeepers who may be in the area is really critical. Even for farmers who don’t grow crops that need pollinators, it’s important to understand where they have natural areas and to work with others to continue preserving biodiversity on their farms. Frankly, farmers are aware of these things and are already doing them.”

Playing a Role in the Pollinator Story

One way Syngenta is building bridges to connect farmers, companies and beekeepers is through Operation Pollinator, a global biodiversity initiative to boost the number of pollinating insects on farms and golf courses. Other industry stakeholders are partnering to protect pollinators as well, including The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, Project Apis m., the Iowa Soybean Association, Monarchs in the Rough and many others.

The end goal of all these partnerships is the same: to maintain a biodiverse planet, a healthy environment and a thriving population of pollinators that will ensure a stable food supply.

It’s a goal that growers and ag retailers share. After all, no one has a stronger stake in preserving the land than the people whose livelihoods depend on it. They also understand that maintaining access to the seed- and crop-applied technologies needed to produce more bountiful crops requires proper use, storage and disposal.

“Whatever we do together is much better than what we can do alone,” Savinelli says. “As long as we’re working toward a common goal — putting seeds in the ground, growing productive crops and keeping pollinators safe — the future looks bright.”

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As a parent, I teach my son that every story has two sides. As a leader in sustainable agriculture, I also find myself having to remember that every day. Too often, we miss our opportunity to tell our side of the story — the story of the American farmer, the progress that has been made in sustainability and the groundswell of new efforts underway to further success in sustainable agriculture. Though most consumers are at least three generations removed from the American farm, they are showing increased interest in learning where their food comes from and knowing more about the farmers who produce it.

So how do we start the conversation?

Authenticity, coupled with facts, is a great place to start. Put a few statistics, such as the percentage of family-owned farms in the U.S. (98%) coupled with your own family farm story, into the conversation. I have been amazed to learn how many of our customers are operating farms passed through generations all the way back to the Homestead Act of 1862!

Knowing the facts about your farm exponentially increases public interest. That story is better told with robust on-farm record keeping, which also helps tell your environmental sustainability story. Tell people about the practices you use to improve soil health or optimizing production through technologies like genetically modified seeds.

For the big picture, in this issue you can grab a few data points on the differences between organic and conventional crop production. And, as in every issue, we share information regarding American agriculture’s commitment to strong, economically sustainable production.

Every one of us has opportunities to tell our story in a genuine way, inviting conversation and further developing relationships between farmers and consumers. By taking time to listen and understand other perspectives, then sharing our own stories, we can build farmer-consumer relationships one conversation at a time.

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Central Valley Ag (CVA) cooperative, based in York, Nebraska, established an organic division in 2018 in response to interest from its member-owners in eastern Nebraska, northwest Iowa and north-central Kansas.

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Ninety-nine percent of the cooperative’s business is in conventional agriculture. But a lot of growers are either trying organic or looking at the price premiums and wanting to try it. We believe both farming methods have a place. Our job is to provide value to our growers, whether organic or conventional.

Tim Mundorf CVA Director of Soil Management

“Ninety-nine percent of the cooperative’s business is in conventional agriculture. But a lot of growers are either trying organic or looking at the price premiums and wanting to try it,” says Tim Mundorf, CVA director of soil management. “We believe both farming methods have a place. Our job is to provide value to our growers, whether organic or conventional.”

Mundorf advises organic growers on inputs that meet Organic Materials Review Institute certification. Tools include natural fertilizers, biologicals, plant growth regulators and plant stimulants that help plants build natural defenses against disease. The co-op also offers organic grain storage and marketing services.

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Hannah Borg, winner of the 2020 Thrive #RootedinAg Contest, shared a glowing tribute to her grandmother Lois Borg in a video that warmed the hearts of online voters and contest judges alike.

“Grandma is really the glue that holds our family together,” Hannah says.

Pam Caraway, communications lead at Syngenta and one of this year’s judges, further explains the appeal of Hannah’s winning entry, “It’s a story of devotion to faith, family and country,” she says.

Lois, 86, still lives on the farm near Wakefield, Nebraska, where she and her husband, Marvin, grew crops and raised four sons. Marvin passed away about 10 years ago, but their children and grandchildren continue the family’s farming tradition. Hannah, the eldest of 10 grandchildren, works on the farm while also pursuing other opportunities in agricultural communications — a field in which she earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Family members know that on any day, they can count on Lois to have a full-course meal ready at noon. Hannah regularly joins her grandmother for those lunches.

“I’ve learned a lot about her and the history of the farm,” Hannah says.

During the years when she and her husband were raising their family, Lois helped in the field when needed. But her work around the home was equally important — cooking, canning vegetables, doing laundry and raising chickens. In addition to the farm income, egg money helped feed the family. Selling eggs was something she just quietly did.

“She didn’t want the attention,” Hannah says.

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Telling ag’s story helps keep the family farm at the forefront of our national conversation.

Pam Caraway Communications Lead at Syngenta

Through her #RootedinAg video, Hannah shares her grandmother’s impact and contributions. “Grandma is the perfect mix of grace and grit,” Hannah says. “I’ve always admired how she lives her life and her role in our family.”

The #RootedinAg Contest celebrates ag’s heroes, Caraway says. “Telling ag’s story helps keep the family farm at the forefront of our national conversation,” she says.\

Part of Hannah’s prize package from Syngenta is a $1,000 donation to a local charitable or civic organization . She chose to have the donation made in her grandmother’s name to the Wakefield Heritage Organization, which manages both a library and a railroad museum.

The Borg donation is a big boost, says Barb Stout, who co-manages the Wakefield Heritage Organization. This is especially true because the organization was unable to hold its 2020 fundraisers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization will use the donation to help maintain buildings and support various projects, Stout explains.

Hannah says she chose the Wakefield Heritage Organization because it helps preserve the community’s roots. Communities such as Wakefield have endured because of the leadership and hard work of people like her grandmother, she explains.

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Victories from the field feature growers winning battles, both small and large, by choosing the right solutions for insects and diseases. As with any challenge, growers report that overcoming obstacles on multiple fronts is essential to achieving higher yields in corn.

Derric Eisenmann from Mahomet, Illinois, is one of those growers. Every year, he’s on the front lines, fighting off pests like gray leaf spot, corn rootworm (CRW) and Japanese beetles in his cornfields. His goal is to find a program with high efficacy that increases the profit opportunity in his crops.

“I’ve done trials where I’ve only used a fungicide or only used an insecticide,” Eisenmann says. “But then I used both and received a much bigger return on investment [ROI].”

Eisenmann found that using an effective insecticide and fungicide provided a balanced attack against both insects and diseases, with robust treatment of one resulting in improved control of the other.

Over the past few seasons, he’s found success by using a combination of Trivapro® fungicide and Warrior II with Zeon Technology® insecticide from Syngenta.

“With those kinds of superior products, your ROI can go through the roof,” Eisenmann says. “I’ve seen the standability, the plant health and the control of gray leaf spot improve. We also get late-season rootworm beetles or Japanese beetles. If you’re cleaning up the beetles to protect the leaf, then you also need to enhance the leaves’ healthiness.”

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I’ve done trials where I’ve only used a fungicide or only used an insecticide. But then I used both and received a much bigger return on investment.

Derric Eisenmann Grower, Mahomet, Illinois

Perennial Pests

Protecting corn against insects takes more than just spraying the right insecticide at the right time. Dependence on one seemingly perfect solution can result in exposing successive insect generations to the same mode of action, leaving those pests resistant to a once-effective chemical.

Kevin Langdon, Ph.D., product biology lead for insecticides at Syngenta, uses his entomological expertise as a representative on the Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC). Formed in 1984, IRAC works as a specialist technical group of CropLife — the national trade association for pesticide manufacturers, formulators and distributors — and provides a coordinated industry response to prevent or delay the development of resistance in insects and mites. Langdon notes that the group’s insect control philosophy has changed in recent years.

“IRAC now recommends a generational ‘windows approach,’ where one window is equal to one insect generation,” he explains. “It’s a different way of thinking that cuts down on exposure of subsequent generations to the same mode of action.”

Great Traits

Hybrids with insect control trait stacks act as a foundation for an effective corn insect control strategy and provide growers peace of mind. Corn traits help preserve yield potential and keep target pests from causing significant economic damage. Traits work in tandem with crop-applied insecticides to help manage insects effectively.

An example of this kind of protection can be seen in Syngenta traits, such as Agrisure Viptera® and Agrisure Duracade®. These traits are offered in several integrated E-Z Refuge® stacks that provide multiple modes of action against above- and below-ground insects. Agrisure Duracade and Agrisure Viptera trait stacks combine to control 16 damaging above- and below-ground pests, more than any competitive trait stack.

The discovery of Agrisure Viptera started with something that many people have experienced in their refrigerators. “One of our researchers returned from vacation and decided to study the bacterial strains in his sour milk instead of dumping it, which led to the discovery of Agrisure Viptera’s insecticidal protein, Vip3,” says Eric Boudreau, Ph.D., head of trait projects for corn at Syngenta. “Before Agrisure Viptera, yield losses from lepidopteran [above-ground] pests could be devastating. Agrisure Viptera marked a major step change in corn insect control.”

Agrisure Duracade, in particular, represents a major step forward in insect control through traits. “Duracade is unique because it’s the first engineered hybrid Bt protein,” explains Tim O’Brien, Agrisure® traits manager at Syngenta. “Our researchers combined two different Bt genes to create a unique protein that has a different binding site in the gut of corn rootworm, giving growers a novel way to combat one of agriculture’s most persistent pests.”

Even in light of these advances, O’Brien notes, it’s important to remember that Agrisure Duracade is one of the many technologies farmers may use. “Growers concerned with corn rootworm should have a multiyear management plan in place for each field that incorporates multiple control strategies, including crop rotation, CRW-traited corn hybrids, soil-applied insecticides and adult beetle management.”

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Your farm data is worth a lot, but how do you extract that value to lower your cost per bushel and farm more sustainably and profitably?

“Farmers are the original environmentalists, but we’re also the original economists,” says no-till farmer Matt Moreland of Medford, Oklahoma, who raises corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton with his three sons.

Moreland operated out of spiral notebooks until converting to AgriEdge® in 2014. With the computerized system from Syngenta, Moreland enters land rental rates, taxes, crop input products and costs, equipment costs, labor costs, and more to track profitability by field. With AgriEdge, Moreland says, “it’s easy to generate reports to figure variable-rate prescriptions, adjust seeding and fertilizer rates, and run projections.”

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Farmers are the original environmentalists, but we’re also the original economists.

Matt Moreland Farmer, Medford, Oklahoma

The key for farmers is to use a system that helps them make data-driven decisions faster. “We can drill down into tillage passes, crop protection applications and more to help growers realize greater field-level profitability and sustainability by placing the right products in the right place at the right rates,” says Patrick Thompson, an AgriEdge specialist with Syngenta.

Data is secure in AgriEdge, and the program includes highly responsive support service, Moreland adds. “AgriEdge is an integral part of our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly planning.”

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With the 2021 planting season underway, soybean growers face the challenge of selecting herbicides that best protect their seeds’ full genetic yield potential. The online Syngenta soybean herbicide program planning tool gives growers, retailers and consultants a simple, straightforward way to find the solution.

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Our new planning tool makes choosing the right herbicide — burndown through post-emergence — easier, regardless of the trait system.

Pete Eure Technical Product Lead Syngenta
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“In recent years, new traits have come to market that provide growers even more options for rotating their herbicides to new effective sites of action,” says Pete Eure, technical product lead for Syngenta. “Our new planning tool makes choosing the right herbicide — from burndown through post-emergence — easier, regardless of the trait system.”

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Q: What are your top three tips for creating a budget?

A: Dale Nicol, AgriEdge manager for the Western Commercial Unit, Syngenta:

  1. A grower needs to know his or her numbers. That means different things to different people, but it boils down to a summary of fixed and variable costs in relation to anticipated revenue. Tools offered through the AgriEdge® whole-farm management program are available to help analyze potential profitability.
  2. Determine the level of granularity that is right for the operation. Some farms can operate at a very high level on fixed rotations and constant acreage that allow the budget to be somewhat simple. Other farms are more intricate with numerous and varying crops, constantly changing field locations and acreage, and significant input
  3. cost fluctuations. These require a finer view of the numbers for good budgeting.
    Plan ahead, and then adjust from there. Without a plan, how can a farm measure its success? Years ago, growers would simply report it was a good or bad year. Those times are past; and while the forensic message might be similar, there should be details behind the statement. A solid plan with as much detail as possible will provide the measure by which growers can assess their results.

A: Shawn Hock, AgriEdge Manager for the West Heartland Commercial Unit, Syngenta: Creating a budget begins with knowing your current operation’s economics.

  1. Start by reviewing your latest year’s farm actuals.
  2. Know which costs you are going to focus on. Because variable costs are small relative to fixed costs, increases in productivity may result in impactful profit increases.
  3. Use your budget to project your financial position for year-end and update the projections throughout the year.
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A solid plan with as much detail as possible will provide the measure by which growers can assess their results.

Dale Nicol AgriEdge Manager, Western Commercial Unit at Syngenta

Q: How does field history, including yield, play into creating a budget?

Headshot of Dale Nicol
Dale Nicol (Photography by Oktay Ortabasi)

A: Nicol: Field history, especially a multiyear history, helps set the baseline for expectations. Much of farming is outside the control of farmers, making the multiyear view critical. Trends, too, can be important on both the cost and yield analysis fronts. If variable costs trend up at a constant rate over time, growers can infer that trend may continue. Yield improvement trends also may fit into the budget process.

A: Hock: Field-level data is a must to improve a farm’s economic performance. Understanding field-level data helps you make better farm decisions and may result in improved farm profitability. This is because profitability can differ largely across fields. When you get down to the field-level, you can start discussing agronomic practices, farmland purchase or rental decisions, and even marketing strategies.

Q: When creating a budget based on acres, how can growers establish their cost per bushel or other unit of yield?

Headshot of Shawn Hock
Shawn Hock (Photography by Geoff Johnson)

A: Nicol: True cost of production goes back to granularity. It’s a simple equation to determine cost per unit in comparison with price received: Fixed cost per acre plus variable cost per acre divided by the yield gives you the cost per unit. Assigning the cost, however, is not so simple. For example, do you consider land rent a fixed cost and spread it across the whole farm? Do you tally up all equipment costs into one bucket, then assign it across every acre? Ideally, fixed and variable costs are assigned to the individual field, recognizing that a fixed cost may go across every field or assigned by crop, or just the leased but not owned land. In the end, it becomes a balance between the perfect allocation and a realistic one. Therefore, budgeting itself has a cost-benefit equation.

A: Hock: Understanding your costs is important, regardless of whether it’s cost per bushel or cost per acre. Cost per bushel is simply determined by dividing your total cost per acre by your total yield per acre. Both should be used to discover actionable insights with your trusted advisers to improve your field-level profitability.

Q: How can farmers figure out whether a given product or treatment increases their earning potential, either through yield or quality?

A: Nicol: When it comes to knowing the benefit of a given input, it can be very complicated. Financially, the analysis is easily stated as return on investment (ROI). When I spend a dollar, do I get more than a dollar in return? ROI comes through increased yield or increased price due to quality. To truly know, however, a comparison with and without the single variable would have to be done, keeping all else constant. Splitting a field is one approach — keeping the whole field on a uniform program, with the new product on half and the previous or normal practice on the other half. Even this approach has its problems with variations within a field. Learning as much as possible about new products and their potential impacts on yield and profit through university trials and replicated demonstrations will help set expectations. Syngenta provides local Grow More™ Experience events and other field demonstrations that AgriEdge growers may access.

A: Hock: Farmers should start by knowing their operation’s cost of production and financial situation at the field level. From there, it’s easy for them to benchmark a product’s impact on yield compared with other products — always being careful to limit other variables’ impact on product performance in their evaluations. Replicating trials across fields, across farms and with other cooperators will help them gain more confidence in a product’s impact on earning potential.

Q: When looking at commodity prices and agronomic opportunity, what’s the simplest way for growers to figure out the crop acreage mix that offers the greatest opportunity for profit?

A: Nicol: One would think this would besimple. Evaluation of yield and price, less production cost of each option, results in a clear view of potential. However, it’s not that simple in most cases. Crop rotation, reliability of commodity price, weather unknowns and cost changes are a few of the variables that impact this otherwise simple evaluation.

A: Hock: The simplest way is to review your prior year’s cost of production, yield, and market price by field and crop, then adjust those to the current year’s reality. Once you know your current projections, you can weigh the pros and cons of making changes to improve productivity or decrease costs by crop at the field level. Typically, there are significant agronomic, marketing and other operational considerations in making changes to the crop acreage mix; and these shouldn’t be understated. AgriEdge offers an efficient way to convert a prior year’s field-level profit into a current year’s crop plan for this type of strategy development.

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Last year, Syngenta partnered with representatives from four technology companies to test their new devices on commercial farms in Illinois as part of Project Bin Buster.

“We wanted to know whether or not these technologies would bring value to our company, our growers or both,” says Bill McDonnell, digital ag solutions lead for Syngenta. He also oversees the company’s Farm of the Future, 152 acres of land near Ottawa, Illinois, where crop production experts evaluate innovative yield-enhancement tools using the Project Bin Buster protocol.

In 2020, the Bin Buster project stretched across nearly 400 acres over five farms, including the Farm of the Future — three in west-central Illinois and two farther north. Each of the five fields in the project were approximately the same size and planted with the identical replicated trials that included a base rate of nitrogen.

The project put four new technologies, produced by different companies, through their paces.

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I would use these technologies on my farm. At the end of the day, it’s all about finding solutions.

Steve Moffitt Agronomy Manager at D. Dowson Farms, Chatham, Illinois

Technology Monitors Airborne Plant Pathogens

California-based Scanit Technologies provided its new instrument, the SporeCam™ 100 Sensor, for testing. Equipped with a cassette that runs a sticky tape, the sensor can collect, identify and report the presence of harmful airborne plant pathogens and deliver that data electronically both hourly and daily, according to Glenn Wanke, the company’s chief commercial officer.

The sensor, which also collects weather data, was calibrated to collect gray leaf spot and northern corn leaf blight spores, but it also caught thousands of southern corn rust spores.

“Going forward, if we can put these out in strategic areas and they work, they’ll provide real-time information for making chemical-application decisions,” says Brad Koch, a Syngenta agronomist and corn, soybean and wheat farmer near Quincy, Illinois, who oversaw the project on the three farms in his area. “For example, if we can accurately predict southern corn rust and treat it accordingly, growers could see a 20 to 30 bushel per acre yield increase.”

Drones Deliver Accuracy

Project participants used drones developed by Rantizo, a company in Iowa City, Iowa, to spray the recommended treatments. Autonomous hardware and easy-to-use software then confirmed that issues were addressed correctly, says Michael Ott, Rantizo’s CEO.

Miravis® Neo was mixed with Warrior II with Zeon Technology® and applied to half of each plot. The mix was applied by drones on the west-central locations and by a ground rig on the northern locations.

“There were stark differences between the treated and untreated areas from a yield perspective and a plant integrity standpoint,” Koch says. “The plants stood better; the ears were more intact; and the fields took less time to harvest.”

Ott adds, “The application of chemicals by drones is increasing because users can very precisely apply ag inputs when and where they’re needed. And there’s no potential for soil compaction or crop damage. Through this technology, growers can bring more efficiency to their operations.”

Prior to using the drone technology in the field, Rantizo received all required regulatory approvals from both the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A next step for Rantizo is rolling out a new automated mix and fill loading system.

Instrument Tracks Nitrogen Levels

The problem with conventional soil testing is that it’s done in the offseason, but growers have to make their nitrogen application decisions during the growing season — a scenario that can lead to less-efficient nitrogen use. Retailers and trusted advisers are instrumental in helping growers make decisions on fertility management. Sensors also may help with in-season applications. To further aid nutrient management, Project Bin Buster participants tested a wireless nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (N-P-K) soil probe and its analytics platform.

Teralytic, a soil health company with four U.S. locations, developed the technology. “It’s a tool for making in-field, real-time nitrogen application decisions,” says Teralytic CEO Steve Ridder. “It also looks at soil health (carbon dioxide and oxygen), moisture, temperature, pH levels and salinity.”

“We looked at multiple nitrogen rates above and below the standard recommendations to try to pinpoint the return on investment from a fertilizer standpoint,” Koch says. “We used the data from the sensors to determine if we were making the right nitrogen fertilizer recommendations. In many cases, we applied more nitrogen than was originally planned.”

Grower Nick Andrew, who participated in Project Bin Buster and who has a 2,500-acre corn and soybean farm north of Quincy, Illinois, was most interested in the N-P-K sensor and the nitrogen fertility information he gleaned. “It looks like I was definitely overapplying it in some areas. In the future, I hope to cut back nitrogen use in some fields by 20%, which will save me around $20 per acre,” he says.

Moving forward, Teralytic will use the sensors to digitally measure on-farm carbon emissions. “Our goal is to help growers sequester excess carbon and then guide them in participating in carbon-trading markets,” Ridder says .

Sensor Provides Valuable Data

Giving growers the ability to track crop progress and quickly respond to any risks that emerge made testing the Arable Mark 2, an in-field sensor that acts as a weather station and crop monitor, a viable choice for the project.

“The Arable Mark 2 is rugged and self-contained, with no moving parts, and it has the ability to transmit data in any location with cellular connectivity,” says Adam Wolf, the founder and chief scientist of Arable, an ag and analytics company headquartered in San Francisco.

Among its 40-plus features, the sensor, which perches above the plant canopy, takes hourly surface-wetness readings to track disease potential, plus hourly dew and temperature readings. It also tracks canopy cover, which is used to estimate photosynthesis and growth, to monitor seasonal crop progress.

“After a fungicide with growth-regulating capabilities was applied, we were able to show that, in the treated plots, the greenness held on for quite a bit longer,” Wolf says. “That resulted in more photosynthesis, which, in turn, brought more dry matter into those growing kernels.”

Brad Koch adds, “From a research perspective, the Arable data will be helpful for making weather, soil moisture, temperature and plant health correlations in real time.”

What’s Next?

In 2021, Project Bin Buster will focus on corn again and add on-farm trials with two potato growers.

Steve Moffitt, the agronomy manager for D. Dowson Farms, an operation participating in Project Bin Buster, sees meaningful promise in these new technologies, “I would use these technologies on my farm. At the end of the day, it’s all about finding solutions,” he says.

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Marvin Frink served in the U.S. Army for 15 years, with deployments in South Korea, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. When he returned home, his father, the late Rev. Kirby Frink, saw that his son was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Rev. Frink remembered that as a child, his son enjoyed their frequent visits to cattle farms and rodeos. Rev. Frink thought reconnecting with cattle might be good for his son.

Turns out, dad was right.

His son now considers cattle farming his “agri-therapy.” “It gives me purpose and accountability,” he says. “I meet the Lord at the fence line every day.”

At the urging of his father and with help from the Farmer Veteran Coalition, a national nonprofit nongovernmental organization that helps veterans transition from military service to agricultural careers, Marvin Frink started cattle farming. He began with two beef cattle and today raises 103 head at his Briarwood Cattle Farm near Red Springs, North Carolina.

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It gives me purpose and accountability.

Marvin Frink Grower at Briarwood Cattle Farm

“I’ve been with the Farmer Veteran Coalition since 2013,” Frink says. “I remember Michael O’Gorman [the organization’s founder] taking me to visit with then-Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. They told me about the grants and resources available to veterans.”

The number of military veterans moving toward agriculture increased after 9/11, says Natalie Monroe, communications & marketing manager for the Farmer Veteran Coalition.

“Veterans are service-minded and accustomed to seeing through what needs to be done,” Monroe says. “Farming becomes their new mission — it provides new life and purpose while also enabling veterans to nourish their communities.”

Enhancing the Quality of Life

Another organization helping veterans, AgrAbility, has the goal of enhancing the quality of life for farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural workers with disabilities. There are currently AgrAbility projects in 20 states.

The AgrAbility website features a video, “The Next Mission: Breaking Down Barriers for Veterans in Agriculture,” in which veterans explain why they wanted — and needed — to farm, says Cindy Chastain, the organization’s veteran outreach coordinator. The veterans in the video speak of farming as hard work but also as a restorative experience that gives their lives purpose.

“It would be great if more agricultural employers offered jobs to veterans as they come out of the military,” Chastain says. Farmers also can help veterans by offering internships or opportunities to build sweat equity to someday own their own farms, she adds.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which offers various programs for veterans, also provides training to military personnel while they’re making the transition from active service to civilian life.

Visit farmvetco.org, agrability.org and usda.gov/our-agency/initiatives/veterans for more information on programs that support veterans in agriculture.