Titan XC technology for dry fertilizer is available in several countries around the world, including in Canada, where it is sold under the brand name Atlas XC.

While attending a recent farm expo in Canada, Agricen’s Steve Sexton spoke with Kurtis Wandler, a grower from Western Saskatchewan, about his experience with Atlas XC.

We are proud to announce that our farming film, Last Stand, and three related short videos took home Telly Awards this year. The Telly Awards honor excellence in video and television across all screens.

Last Stand, a movie about the joys and challenges of being a farmer that was filmed during the 2020 growing season, was recognized with both a Silver and a Bronze Telly. It is available to watch as both a short, 20-minute version and an in-depth, hour-long film.

The other Telly Winners were the short videos Religious Experience, You'd Never Go Without It, and The Whole World Can Benefit, which can be viewed below. All of the winning videos were produced by the team at Light Work Productions.

Religious Experience

Silver Winner: Non-broadcast - Lifestyle Category

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.

As 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.

Evan 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.

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.

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.”

Agricen’s Scott Lay recently spoke with Hoosier Ag Today about how growers can maximize their dry fertilizer investment with Titan XC.

Hoosier Ag Today: One of the first decisions for farmers regarding next year's crop results relate to dry fertilizer. With fertilizer prices surging, growers are trying to find ways to maximize their investment. Lay says that's where Titan XC comes into play.

When faced with higher fertilizer prices, many who apply fall fertilizer will wonder if reducing their fertilizer rates makes sense in light of current farm economics.

It's practical to fertilize this fall to meet the anticipated needs of next year's crop, taking into consideration local recommendations based on soil tests. Reducing fertilizer rates can potentially increase an existing problem, namely the limited availability of nutrients from applied fertilizer in the first season after application. Only about 10-30% of applied P and 20-60% of applied K is typically recovered, or used by the growing crop, in that first season.

To get the most utilization out of dry fertilizers, many farms turn to Titan XC as a tool to maximize fertilizer efficiency without requiring a big investment. This is important whether a full rate or reduced rate of fertilizer is applied.

Farmers have a story to tell, and we wanted to capture it. During the 2020 growing season, Agricen hired a film crew to document the experiences of growers from four different farm operations in the United States. The result is Last Stand, a movie that follows some of America's top farmers as they try to grow the highest yields possible in a season full of challenges. The film can be watched by visiting LastStand.ag.

“While you can never predict what the growing season will be like, the 2020 season certainly did manage to throw many surprises into the mix. Excessive rain and hurricanes, the historic derecho in Iowa and across the upper Midwest – and that’s just the weather,” says Michael Totora, president and CEO of Agricen. “We think this is an important film that not only gives viewers a unique glimpse into the lives of the featured farmers, but also into the lives of farmers across the U.S. in 2020.”