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Biocatalyst Technologies Are Helping to Transform Grower Productivity
September 26, 2019 — Posted By Agricen

NCGA 2018 accomplish technologiesIn 2018, no fewer than five national winners and seven state winners of the NCGA's National Corn Yield Contest used Agricen's biocatalyst technology on their winning acres. We are fortunate to be represented in the best practices of many leading growers, and humbled by the opportunity to help transform grower productivity.

Before the start of this year's harvest, we had the opportunity to meet up with some of the 2018 NCGA winners to celebrate their success last season. Here are some of the folks we are honored to say have used Accomplish LM, Titan XC or Extract PBA as part of their winning strategy. 

2018 National Winners

  • Don Stall, 1st place, Irrigated Corn Category (477.69 bu/a). Don Stall started farming at age 14, when he began cultivating 31 acres for a school project. Following graduation, he served for six years in the Marines, then operated a beef and cash crop operation. Don eventually moved to an all cash crop operation, and he currently farms 2,800 acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat in Charlotte, Michigan. In his "spare time," he serves his local community, both as the Township Supervisor (as he has done for the past 24 years!) and on the board of his county's fire department.

    Don Stall on farming 2Don has been entering the NCGA Corn Yield Contest since 2003, when he noticed that he was already achieving yields comparable to the growers who were winning the contest. He has been the Michigan high yield champion for nine years in a row. In both 2017 and 2018, Don won first place nationally in the irrigated corn category, and his winning yield of 477.69 bu/a in 2018 also placed him as the overall yield champion in the United States.

    Don credits a systems approach to his success. "There is no one answer to achieving high yields. It is a system approach, and you must understand your soils better than anyone else."

    Don also treats all of his dry fertilizer with Titan XC to help make the most of his applied nutrition, and he has also used other biocatalyst products in his program. As he says, "Biochemistry is intriguing and interesting. I believe these products are needed in today’s farming."

  • Kevin Kalb, 1st place, AA Non-Irrigated Corn (388.07 bu/a), Shawn Kalb, 1st place, AA No-Till/Strip-Till Non-Irrigated (343.0 bu/a) & Nikia Kalb, 3rd place, AA Non-Irrigated Corn (343.23 bu/a). The Kalbs and their four children (including third-place winner, Nikia) grow soybeans and corn in the small town of Dubois, Indiana. They also run a turkey operation, producing over 1.8 million tom turkeys in the last 12 years.

    kevin-shawn-kalb-ncga-2018Kevin and Shawn have been entering the NCGA Corn Yield Contest since 2007, winning 12 national titles in the non-irrigated division. Both Kevin and Shawn have had back-to-back, first-place national wins in their respective categories over the past two years (2017 and 2018).

    In 2018, Kevin achieved his personal best yield in the contest, achieving 388.07 bu/a in the AA Non-Irrigated Corn category.

    The Kalb family can also be seen on the farm reality television show, Corn Warriors.

  • Tommy & Valerie Cartrite, 3rd place, Irrigated Corn (350.63 bu/a). Hailing from Sunray, Texas, Tommy and Valerie also won first place in their state competition.

2018 State Winners

  • Stuart Askew, 1st place, A No-Till/Strip-Till Non-Irrigated, North Carolina (274.58 bu/a) 
  • Connor & Kelly Garrett, 1st place, No-Till / Strip-Till Irrigated, Iowa (326.05 bu/a)
  • Tommy & Valerie Cartrite, 1st place, Irrigated, Texas (350.63 bu/a)
  • David Hults, 2nd place, No-Till/Strip-Till Irrigated, Idaho (299.27 bu/a) 
  • Leslie Lindner, 2nd place, AA Non-Irrigated, Missouri (299.99 bu/a)
  • Chris Lindner, 3rd place, AA Non-Irrigated, Missouri (294.35 bu/a)
  • David Kolb, 3rd place, Irrigated, Minnesota (259.89 bu/a)

It's starting to matter not just what producers grow, but also how they grow it. Biocatalyst technologies play a role by making fertilizer applications more efficient and more cost effective, while also helping growers achieve their best yields. 

As this season's harvest comes in, we wish the best of luck to all of the growers who are competing in the 2019 corn yield contest.

(UPDATE: Learn about some of the 2019 corn yield contest winners who used biocatalyst technology.)

Learn more about biocatalyst technologies by downloading the Biocatalyst Technology FAQ.

Download the Biocatalyst Technology FAQ

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Accomplish LM Is a Great Fit for Potato Growers
August 14, 2019 — Posted By Agricen

We often focus on Accomplish LM in corn, soybean or wheat crops, but the benefits of Accomplish LM technology also extend to specialty crops like potatoes. A recent side by side comparison from a 2019 potato trial in Grafton, North Dakota shows earlier potato emergence and more robust plants when Accomplish LM has been added to the grower's standard potato fertilizer program. In this trial, Accomplish LM was applied at planting with 10-34-0, placed below the seed in a band.

Potatoes-Grafton ND Accomplish LM

This translates into yield benefits as well. In this 2018 potato trial from Bear Lake, Michigan, adding Accomplish LM to the grower's standard practice increased potato yield by 44.6 cwt per acre, with a return on investment of over $400 per acre to the grower. 

Accomplish LM Potatoes - Bear Lake MI

Other trials similarly show that Accomplish LM is a great fit for growers who want to improve their potato yields. At nine sites that trialed Accomplish LM in potato planter bands from 2008-2012, adding Accomplish LM technology to the grower's standard fertilizer program led to an average potato yield increase of 25 cwt/acre compared to the grower's standard program alone.

Accomplish LM -potato-planter-band

We've also seen excellent results on seed potatoes and processing potatoes in Australia, showing the flexibility of this nutrient availability technology in different geographies. 

For more information on Accomplish LM, contact your local Nutrien Ag Solutions location or download the Accomplish LM booklet. 

Download the Accomplish LM Booklet

 

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Top Corn Producers Used Accomplish LM, Extract PBA & Titan XC
June 13, 2018 — Posted By Agricen

national-corn-growersWhen the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) announced the national winners of the 2017 NCGA corn yield contest earlier this year, four of these top corn producers had something big in common. It was their use of one or more biocatalyst technologies made by Agricen and available from Loveland Products. Over the next few weeks we will profile each of those top producers and talk about how they utilized Accomplish LM, Extract PBA or Titan XC as part of their winning program. This week, we start by featuring Don Stall of Charlotte, Michigan. With a yield of 407.22 bushels/acre, Don placed first in the nation for irrigated corn.

Don Stall: 1st Place — Irrigated Corn

Location: Charlotte, MI

Yield: 407.22 bu/acre - $743.04/acre ROI

Hybrid: Pioneer

Products Used: Accomplish LM, Titan XC and Extract PBA

Serviced by: Clay Martz, Branch Manager & Consulting Agronomist, Nutrien Ag Solutions - Woodbury, MI

2017 NCGA National Winner Irrigated Corn-Grower Don Stall (left)-CPS Clay Martz (right)

2017 Irrigated Corn Winner Don Stall (left) is pictured above with Clay Martz (right), Nutrien Ag Solutions Branch Manager.

Don Stall is a sixth-generation farmer who runs an operation near Charlotte, Michigan. A Marine Corps veteran, Don returned to farming in 1986 after spending six years in the service. Today, he lives one mile from his family's original homestead, which was founded after his ancestors migrated from Ohio to Michigan in 1836.

Since first entering the NCGA corn yield contest in 2004, Don has had some very impressive results. In addition to finishing in fourth place nationally several times, he has been the Michigan state winner eight times, including in the most recent competition.

Last year was a first for Don, however, when he won first place nationally in the Irrigated Category. With a corn yield of nearly 407.22 bushels per acre, he nudged just past defending category champion Randy Dowdy (406.06 bushels per acre) in the 2017 competition.

Meet Other NCGA 1st Place Winners

On the farm, Don uses a corn to beans to wheat rotation and minimum tillages practices, employing vertical tillage on corn to soybeans and a chisel plow in the fall so that corn can be planted the following spring. He describes his soil as heavy and "not very forgiving," with clay and sand loam types and a cation exchange capacity (CEC) ranging from 5-11 meq/100g.

As part of his 2017 winning progam, Don used Accomplish LM, Extract PBA and Titan XC, relying especially on the Titan XC technology to release nutrients from his potassium and MESZ fertilizers. First introduced to Titan about nine years ago by Clay Martz of Nutrien Ag Solutions of Woodbury, Michigan, Don hoped that Titan would make nutrients in dry fertilizer available at a faster pace to plants—and it proved to do just that.

“Now I automatically treat dry fertilizer with Titan XC so that nutrients are made available when plants need them,” says Don.

Don Stall Farm Michigan

The Stall farm, located near Charlotte, Michigan. 

Don applies his treated dry fertilizer using variable rate technology (VRT) and says that most of the farm receives 60-70 lbs of treated fertilizer per acre, although some spots receive up to 300 lbs/acre. However, that volume is declining due to increasing soil fertility.

"Soil tests show that Don's soil nutrient levels have been maintained or even increased, with little or no increase in applied nutrients," notes Clay. "That's one of the things we have noticed since using biocatalyst products, which we implemented to improve nutrient availability from fertilizers, residue and the soil."

In the past, Don applied Accomplish LM on crop residue in the fall to facilitate nutrient release. He now uses Extract PBA in the fall, which is the newer residue management product, and has moved his Accomplish LM application to the spring, where he applies it with starter in a 2x2 band.

"Don’s achievements are from a total system program used for about nine years now," says Clay. "Everyone has the same opportunity and no two growers will follow the same program. Identifying when and how an application will work in your operation is key. Knowing your soils and reducing stress to the crop at all times are also critial."

Clay also remarked that having even corn emergence was an important part of Don's success.

"Even hours or a day will make a difference," states Clay. "Don’s harvested crop plants per acre consisted of 96.77 % of planted seeds. This alone was a substantial increase from 2016. What drove it? That's our secret!"

Don's goal for the 2018 NCGA corn yield contest is an ambitious 500 bushels per acre.

"We have more ideas and concepts to put into action," says Clay. "The plan is set and under way now."

(UPDATE: Don won the Irrigated corn category again in 2018 with a whopping 477.68 bu/a yield! Congrats, Don!)

To find out more about the other winners who used biocatalyst products, you can read our profile of Kevin and Shawn Kalb, who won two non-irrigated corn categories, or Jeannie and Wally Linneweber, who placed second in the AA non-irrigated corn category. 

You can also learn more about Accomplish LM, Extract PBA & Titan XC by accessing our Biocatalyst Technology booklet.

Download the Booklet

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