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See the latest news, innovation updates, trial results, grower stories and more from Agricen. 
A Better Investment by the Day
May 19, 2022 — Posted By Agricen

Wity-radio-down on farmWith planting wrapping up, Agricen’s Scott Lay sat down with WITY Radio’s Dennis Michelsen to discuss how Extract PBA can enhance sidedress nitrogen applications.

Dennis - WITY Radio: With the wet spring, I think it makes a product like Extract PBA even more important this year.

Scott - Agricen: With the later planting, advancing the crop through all of its physiological stages from emergence on out is critical. One way we can do that is by increasing nutrient availability with Extract PBA to hasten maturity and move the crop through its growth phases as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Dennis - WITY Radio: There’s no doubt from the trials that have been done over the years that Extract PBA really does help improve the efficiency of a sidedress application of liquid nitrogen. How and why does this work so well?

Scott - Agricen: By incorporating Extract PBA in a sidedress UAN 28 or 32 application, we’re able to increase the pool of available nitrogen by mineralizing more nutrients that are already in the soil profile—in other words, converting that nitrogen into an inorganic form the plant can use. And our university studies have shown that we’re able to increase the available nitrate levels by about 10 percent with Extract PBA, giving the applied nitrogen a higher level of efficiency.

Dennis - WITY Radio: When is the optimal time to sidedress nitrogen and use Extract PBA?

Scott - Agricen: In general terms, the ideal timing is starting at about V4 up to about V10 or V11. But why is that timing critical? Dr. Below at the University of Illinois has done a lot of work around nutrient partitioning in a corn plant, and he’s determined that the period from V6 up through tasseling is the time of rapid nitrogen uptake during which that plant will consume 7 pounds of nitrogen per day. So, it makes sense to apply nitrogen in the time frame to coincide with the crop's physiological demand for nitrogen.

Dennis - WITY Radio: There have been some impressive trials with Extract PBA in nitrogen sidedress trials. This has been very effective with all different types of soil types.

Scott - Agricen: The idea of increasing the nitrogen mineralization rate or increasing the amount of available nitrate in the soil translates to any soil type or growing environment. Over our third-party and internal split-field type trials, the average yield response has been about 8 bushels with Extract PBA compared to check. Right now, it takes less than 2 bushels of additional yield to pay for this technology. With today's economics, it becomes a better investment by the day.

Extract PBA is available from Nutrien Ag Solutions. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full interview below or on Agricen's YouTube channel.

Learn more about using Extract PBA in a sidedress nitrogen application by downloading the UAN sidedress bulletin.

Access the Bulletin

 

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Getting More Out of the Nutrients You’ve Already Paid For
April 12, 2022 — Posted By Agricen

Wity-radio-down on farmWith the spring planting season coming, Agricen’s Scott Lay spoke with Dennis Michelsen on WITY Radio’s Down on the Farm podcast about why growers might want to take a look at EXTRACT PBA this year to get more out of nutrients they’ve already paid for.

Dennis - WITY Radio: Input costs are going up for producers, but that’s why they need to take an extra look at EXTRACT this year.

Scott - Agricen: EXTRACT aids in the mineralization and release of nutrients that are already in the soil profile or in last year’s crop residue. These are nutrients that the farmer has already paid for. The object is getting more of these nutrients in a plant-available form to provide the necessary fuel to increase crop yield.

Dennis - WITY Radio: EXTRACT has a tremendous track record in university studies and it shows a gain no matter what the fertility program is, which I think is a good key to seeing it work in the field.

Scott - Agricen: We've had the product out for six years. In 2022, we’ll treat approximately 2 million acres with EXTRACT. You don’t get to that level without consistent results. We’ve seen an average yield increase of 10.1 bushels per acre in corn and 4.2 bushels per acre in soybeans. With today's economics, it takes slightly less than a 2 bushel increase in corn and less than a bushel increase in soybeans for Extract to pay for itself. The ROI on a per acre basis translates roughly to $45-55 per acre, depending on the price of the commodity.

Dennis - WITY Radio: One of the big factors in that ROI is that growers don’t have to make another pass to put down EXTRACT.

Scott - Agricen: EXTRACT is often applied with a pre-emergent herbicide on corn or soybeans, and it also fits nicely if you are applying your pre-emergent herbicide with UAN or a liquid nitrogen application in corn. We’re not asking folks to change their practice, but rather to employ this technology to get more miles out of the nutrients that are already held in the soil.

Dennis - WITY Radio: Talking to Dr. Fred Below at the University of Illinois, it appears that EXTRACT improved plant vigor early in the crop season, getting the crop off to a much faster start. A plant that gets off to a good start is going to be a lot healthier to take a little abuse as the season wears on.

Scott - Agricen: Dr. Below has worked with this product for the last seven years and he has found very consistent results. He was the one who took us down the path of “Hey, if it works this well in corn, how about soybeans?” The ability to release nutrients throughout the course of the season with EXTRACT makes for a healthier plant. If you can help prepare the plant for times of stress, that will pay for itself.

EXTRACT PBA is available from Nutrien Ag Solutions locations.

This interview was edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full interview below or on Agricen's YouTube channel.

Learn more about EXTRACT PBA by downloading the EXTRACT PBA corn bulletin.

Get the Corn Bulletin

 

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Congratulating the 2021 NCGA National Corn Yield Contest Winners
March 22, 2022 — Posted By Agricen

With the recent conclusion of the awards ceremony for winners of the NCGA National Corn Yield Contest at Commodity Classic, we wanted to take the time to congratulate all of the 2021 contest winners, with special thanks and recognition to those who used Agricen's biocatalyst technology in their winning programs.

In 2021, five farmers who came in top place nationally and 23 who won an award in their state incorporated one or more of the following products in their programs: Accomplish LM, Extract PBA, Levitate, Prologue, Maritime, and Titan XC.

NCGA_social-2021

National winners included Michigan farmer Don Stall, who took first place in the "Conventional Irrigated" category with a corn yield of 465.77 bushels per acre, and Virginia farmer Heath Cutrell, who took first place in the "Conventional Non-Irrigated" category with a yield of 391.31 bushels per acre. Both growers may be familiar to you from our Last Stand feature-length film and related short films.

All of the Agricen technologies used in the winning programs are available from our partner, Loveland Products, through Nutrien Ag Solutions.

We are very proud to be part of these growers' winning corn nutrition programs and wish them all the best this season.

Learn more about some of the winning growers who use our technologies by watching Last Stand. 

Watch Last Stand

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Where Do Fertilizer Enhancers Fit In?
February 15, 2022 — Posted By Agricen

The Future Faster PodcastAs growers start crop planning for the upcoming season, where do fertilizer enhancers fit in? 

In a recent episode of Nutrien Ag Solutions' "The Future. Faster." podcast, Agricen's Dr. Brian Cornelious discusses where different fertility enhancement products—specifically ACCOMPLISH MAX, EXTRACT PBA, MARITIME, PROLOGUE, and TITAN XC—fit into growers' programs to help them more strategically manage their inputs.

"A lot of the Agricen products are very focused on nutrient efficiency and nutrient availability. And then, of course, we've got other products that focus on stress mitigation," says Brian.

One of the newer products developed by Agricen and available through Nutrien Ag Solutions is ACCOMPLISH MAX for liquid starter fertilizer enhancement. ACCOMPLISH MAX can help crops better tolerate the effects of environmental stress, while also improving nutrient availability in the soil and uptake by the plant—with the ultimate goal of a healthy, high-yielding crop. 

"If a grower is using an in-furrow or 2x2 application of liquid fertilizer, all he's got to do is bolt that ACCOMPLISH MAX technology into that application," Brian says. "One of the things we do at Agricen is we try to be tuned into the grower environment. If we're coming out with a solution, we'd like for it to be a solution that a grower is actually going to implement. We also want it to fit something the grower's already doing."

TITAN XC is another easy fit into a grower's existing fertility program. This popular product is specifically designed for application on dry fertilizer blends to increase fertilizer efficiency.

"TITAN XC is designed to break down dry fertilizer to make the fertilizer more available to the crop faster," he says. "Because what we often see is that dry fertilizer is not that efficient. So the TITAN XC helps with the accelerated breakdown and increased availability of nutrients in those dry blends."

Brian also gets into the details on EXTRACT, PROLOGUE, and MARITIME. EXTRACT is designed to help free up nutrition that may be bound in the soil profile and not available to the crop. PROLOGUE helps to increase phosphorus availability while also serving as a zinc source. MARITIME is a solution of biologically extracted kelp that can help crops better tolerate stress. The technology in MARITIME is also found in ACCOMPLISH MAX.

"With EXTRACT, we can do a broadcast application across a manured field, or we can do it with a weed and feed. There are also sidedress opportunities," Brian says. "PROLOGUE is generally designed to go in-furrow with a starter blend, whether it's 10-34-0 or an ortho blend, where zinc is needed in that system. MARITIME can be applied as a foliar spray, or that same technology can be used in a starter application in the form of ACCOMPLISH MAX. It does a very good job of allowing plants to manage stress."

You can listen to the full podcast here.

Listen to the Podcast

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TITAN XC Plays a Big Role on Indiana Grower's Farm
January 31, 2022 — Posted By Agricen

evan matlock titanEvan Matlock, a farmer from Greenfield, Indiana, first started using TITAN XC on his farm about five years ago. In his first year of testing it, he applied TITAN XC-treated dry fertilizer on a partial field of soybeans and a partial field of corn. There was an obvious difference between the parts of the field where TITAN XC had and had not been applied.

“You could see it visually and we saw it on aerial imagery throughout the year,” he says. “When we took it to harvest, the corn stood out about 4.8 bushels better (with TITAN XC) and the soybeans were 2.8 bushels better.”

With those results, Evan had a feeling that TITAN XC might be a product he wanted to implement on a broader scale at the farm. That next year, he tested TITAN XC-treated dry fertilizer on about half of his acres.

“The next year, we continued to see a yield increase,” he says.

Five years later, he uses TITAN XC-treated fertilizer on every acre at Matlock Farms.

“We use it on corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, sorghum and sudan grass,” says Evan. “It works great.”

Today, Evan spreads TITAN XC with his fall dry fertilizer application in front of wheat and spreads his corn and other crop acres in the spring.

“We mix the TITAN XC in with potash, MESZ 10, elemental sulfur and ammonium sulfate,” he says. “We’ve built up our soil profile over the last couple of years by using TITAN XC. We’ll continue to use it here on every ton of dry fertilizer that’s spread from here on out.”

In the five years he has used TITAN XC, Evan calculates that his corn yields have increased by anywhere from 4.8 to 7.1 bushels per acre and his soybean yields have increased in the range of 2.2 to 3.9 bushels per acre. He has recently gone back to growing wheat and saw a 7.1 bu/a yield increase with TITAN XC-treated fertilizer compared to check in his latest wheat trial. 

“That really helps out your bottom line at the end of the year,” he says. “TITAN XC will be a product that will be used here at Matlock Farms from here on out, and I would highly suggest everyone take a look at it.”

You can hear him talk about his experience in his own words by watching the video below or visiting our YouTube channel.

Learn more about TITAN XC and dry fertilizer efficiency by downloading the TITAN XC corn bulletin.

Download the Bulletin

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How ACCOMPLISH MAX Helps Mitigate the Effects of Salt Stress on Crops
January 24, 2022 — Posted By Agricen

Although crops take up many salts in the form of nutrients, they can be adversely affected if more salt is added to the soil system than can be taken up by the plant or flushed out of the root zone. This is especially a concern in irrigated cropping systems, where dissolved salts from irrigation water can lead to soil salinity problems that compound over time. Salts in applied fertilizers can also contribute to soil salinity.

Soils that are high in salts can limit water uptake, impede nutrient uptake, and negatively impact seed germination and crop development. Plants that do survive will exhibit less vigor, have slower physiological development and show signs of stress, preventing full yield potential from being realized. Taking steps to manage soil salinity is therefore critical to having balanced soil for optimal plant growth and productivity.

ACCOMPLISH MAX, which is available through Nutrien Ag Solutions, is a next-generation biocatalyst designed to help plants better tolerate salt and other abiotic stresses.01-21 Accomplish Max saline environmentPlant germinated in presence of 120 mM salt, with and without ACCOMPLISH MAX. Images were taken 10 days after treatment. Note longer roots, more vigorous plant with ACCOMPLISH MAX.

ACCOMPLISH MAX mitigates salt stress with a three-pronged effect:

  • Frees up calcium from soil chemistry, which allows sodium to be displaced from the exchange site and flushed from the root zone.
  • Encourages plants to uptake additional potassium, which increases the K+/Na++ ratio to offset the toxic effects of sodium.
  • Breaks soluble salts apart, thereby lowering electrical conductivity.

Recommended for use in liquid starter applications, ACCOMPLISH MAX contains biochemistry proven to increase nutrient availability in the soil combined with a highly soluble kelp-based extract to increase crop tolerance to abiotic stresses like salinity from applied fertilizers. ACCOMPLISH MAX can be an important addition to any fertility or management program for crops affected by salt stress.

Download the ACCOMPLISH MAX salt stress bulletin.

Download the Bulletin

 

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[Watch] Minimizing Crop Stresses for Increased Yields
January 18, 2022 — Posted By Agricen

Crop-Stresses-webinar-landing-pageTypical spring conditions create a challenging environment for a young crop. Too much or too little water, cold temperatures, and fertilizer salts may slow early season plant growth and can rob you of yield potential. 

Accomplish MAX, a new product available through Nutrien Ag Solutions, is designed to help you take on these challenges while also driving yield.

Watch our on-demand webinar, "Minimizing Crop Stresses for Increased Yields," to learn:

  • How Accomplish MAX can help your crops succeed with "More Nutrients, Less Stress"

  • Why this combination of proven biochemistry and cutting-edge kelp technology provides significant agronomic benefits

  • How Accomplish MAX has performed in recent corn and cotton trials
Accomplish MAX, a next-generation biocatalyst designed for use in at-planting applications (including with in-furrow liquid starters and 2x2 placement of liquid fertilizers), is formulated to improve nutrient availability to a growing crop while also increasing crop tolerance to environmental stressors like cold temperatures, drought conditions and salinity from applied fertilizers. 

Watch the webinar today to learn how to get more nutrients into your crop and mitigate crop stress with Accomplish MAX.

Watch the Webinar

 

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Loveland Products Launches Accomplish MAX for Row Crops
January 3, 2022 — Posted By Agricen

Accomplish MAXAccomplish MAX, a next-generation biocatalyst that provides nutrient efficiency and crop stress tolerance benefits, is now available from Loveland Products through Nutrien Ag Solutions retail locations. It is designed for use with in-furrow starters, 2x2 placement of liquid fertilizers, and liquid sidedress applications.

Accomplish MAX is a proprietary combination of proven Accomplish biocatalyst technology, which growers have used for over a decade to improve nutrient mineralization and uptake on millions of acres across the United States, and cutting-edge kelp technology designed to enhance crop tolerance to abiotic stressors such as cold temperatures, drought and fertilizer salts. 

Key benefits of Accomplish MAX:

  • Increases nutrient availability and uptake by mineralizing nutrients in the soil
  • Improves plant tolerance to abiotic stresses such as cold temperatures and salinity from commercial fertilizers
  • Enhances overall plant performance to help growers reach their yield potential

Common stressors like cold temperatures, drought and fertilizer salts can slow early-season plant growth, robbing growers of yield. By incorporating Accomplish MAX into their existing fertility programs, growers can help their crops better endure some of these environmental stresses, ultimately leading to better results at harvest time.

“For years we’ve been driving crop yields with Accomplish LM. In Accomplish MAX, we’ve combined that proven biocatalyst technology with powerful kelp technology to both enhance nutrient use efficiency and improve abiotic stress tolerance, providing a significant agronomic advantage,” says Taylor Ivy, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Plant Nutrition, Loveland Products.

Accomplish MAX was extensively validated in corn, cotton, and soybean crops during the 2021 growing season, both at the Loveland Products Research farms in Kentucky and in 60 replicated on-farm trials and 20 replicated trials at third-party cooperators and university sites.

Accomplish MAX is manufactured by Agricen.

Learn more about Accomplish MAX by downloading the Accomplish MAX booklet.

Download the Booklet

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Striving for Record Corn Yields
December 8, 2021 — Posted By Agricen

How high can corn yield go? In our short video, "Striving for Record Corn Yields," you'll see how some corn growers try to test the limits and push for record-setting yields.

"I wish I could tell you that high yield is a recipe, like following the cookbook. By gosh, it isn't that way. High yield...it is an art form," says Dr. Fred Below of the University of Illinois in the video.

The growers featured in the video faced multiple obstacles during filming in 2020 — from hurricanes and tropical storms in the East to a derecho that flattened crops and caused billions of dollars worth of damage across the Midwest.

"We had a tremendous crop out there. The storm just took part of it," says Iowa farmer Kelly Garrett, whose farm was in the path of the 2020 derecho that made records as the most destructive and costliest thunderstorm disaster in U.S. history.

"We had a hurricane come in here the other day. Raise a good corn crop and then it's sad to come in here and watch it laying on the ground the way it is, broke off," says Heath Cutrell, who farms in Virginia and North Carolina.

In addition to Kelly and Heath, the video features growers Don Stall (Michigan) and Kevin Kalb (Indiana). These farmers all have had winning entries in the NCGA Corn Yield Contest in recent years. Agricen's product technologies, including ACCOMPLISH, EXTRACT PBA and TITAN XC, have been part of their winning programs.

"You have to use products that work if you want to be chasing these kind of yields," says Kevin.

See their stories below.

You can also hear more from each grower by watching the full version of Last Stand, also available on our YouTube channel.

Watch Last Stand

 

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Illinois Farmer Sees Consistent Corn & Soybean Increase with TITAN XC
November 17, 2021 — Posted By Agricen

When Illinois farmer Benjamin Rice first heard about TITAN XC, he thought it sounded too good to be true. But he was trying to find a way to increase the efficiency of the dry fertilizer he was spreading on his farm, so he decided to take it to the field and try it.

Benjamin took two different 80-acre fields, split them in half, and spread the north half of each field with TITAN XC-treated dry fertilizer and the south half with untreated dry fertilizer in the fall. He also took two different 40-acre fields and did the same, but spread the treated and untreated dry fertilizer in the spring.

He wanted to commit multiple years to the trial to see if TITAN XC consistently worked. For three years, he repeated the side by side trials on the same fields.

“We’re on a corn and beans crop rotation. After the first year I saw a yield increase consistently on the side of the field treated with TITAN XC,” he says. “After all three years, both spread in the fall or spread in the spring, my field averages made 6.8 bushel better on corn and 2.6 bushel better on beans.”

Benjamin was also conscious of costs, and wanted to make sure he was really getting value from the TITAN XC when applied to his MAP and potash.

“I knew that TITAN XC was going to be an additional cost,” he says.

On the parts of the field where he spread TITAN XC-treated fertilizer, he pulled back on his fertilizer by 10 percent to offset the cost of the TITAN.

The results showed him just how well TITAN XC can help drive dry fertilizer efficiency.

“Every field, every application where there was TITAN XC, it had 10 percent less MAP and potash spread and yet we consistently, every time, made more corn and beans where we used TITAN XC,” he says. “After I saw that on my farm, I will never spread another acre without TITAN XC.”

You can hear him talk about his experience in his own words by watching the video below or on our YouTube channel.

Learn more about TITAN XC and dry fertilizer efficiency by downloading our fall fertilizer booklet.

Download the Booklet

 

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