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NOW NEWS
Farmer-Led Conservation Support Bill Signed into Law
On April 8, a bill supported by the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association (WPVGA) and Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation (WFBF) prioritizing farmer-led conservation efforts to optimize nitrogen application on farms was signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers as Wisconsin Act 223.
“Wisconsin Farm Bureau appreciates Gov. Evers’ support for this bill,” says WFBF President Kevin Krentz. “Wisconsin farmers appreciate the continued bipartisan support for this initiative and the opportunity this will provide for farmers to continue finding ways to utilize nitrogen efficiently on their farms.” Authored by Sen. Rob Cowles (R-Green Bay) and Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay), the bill supports farmer-led conservation efforts across the state and enables growers to continue finding ways to enhance nitrogen efficiency on farms. “Wisconsin farmers want to be leaders in the development of improved water quality practices on farms,” says WPVGA Executive Director Tamas Houlihan. “The new programs created in this bill support those incredibly powerful and
A bill supported by the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association and Wisconsin Farm Bureau was signed into law, April 8, at the Wisconsin State Capitol by Gov. Tony Evers. Wisconsin Act 223 prioritizes farmer-led conservation efforts to optimize nitrogen application on farms.
successful farmer-led conservation efforts that we have seen develop across Wisconsin.”
Act 223 includes a commercial nitrogen optimization pilot program that will incentivize farmers to engage in new practices to better utilize nitrogen on farms and share
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their project findings with other farmers across the state.
Also included is a cover crop insurance premium rebate program that will provide additional support to farmers who plant cover crops. The act also allows for the creation of an additional, limited-term hydrogeologist position at Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey to continue to develop reliable soil depth-to-bedrock maps to help provide accurate data for Wisconsin farmers.
“These tools will further empower farmer-led conservation efforts across the state,” Krentz says. “We are excited for the opportunities this act creates while providing additional tools for farmers to address clean water solutions.”
Company responds to global supply uncertainty resulting from crisis in Ukraine
On March 16, 2022, Nutrien Ltd. announced that, in response to the uncertainty of potash supply from Eastern Europe, it plans to increase potash production capability to approximately 15 million tonnes (2,204.6 pounds per European tonne) in 2022, an increase of nearly one million tonnes compared to previous expectations. Most additional volume is expected to be produced in the second half of the year. “Our thoughts and sympathies are with those impacted by the crisis in Ukraine, and we hope for an immediate de-escalation of this conflict,” says Ken Seitz, Nutrien’s interim president and chief executive officer. “The impacts of this conflict extend beyond Eastern Europe, as a disruption in supply of key agriculture, fertilizer and energy commodities could have implications for global food security,” he remarks. “Nutrien is responding to this period of unprecedented market uncertainty by safely expanding potash production to help provide our customers with the crop inputs they need,” Seitz adds. “We continue to closely monitor market conditions and will evolve our long-term plans to ensure we utilize our assets in a safe and sustainable manner that benefits all our stakeholders,” he concludes. Nutrien’s 2022 potash production is expected to increase by nearly 20 percent compared to 2020 and account for more than 70 percent of global production added over this period. The company expects a small increase in 2022 capital expenditures and will be hiring additional employees across its network of low-cost potash mines in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Nutrien’s 2022 potash production is expected to increase by nearly 20 percent compared to 2020 and account for more than 70 percent of global production added over this period.
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Fairchild Equipment Receives Eighth Industry Award
Prestigious MPV (Most Valuable Partner) based on its accomplishments in 2021
Fairchild Equipment has been awarded the prestigious Most Valuable Partner (MVP) Award for 2022, based on accomplishments in 2021. For the eighth consecutive year, Fairchild Equipment has earned the MVP Award from the industry’s trade association, Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association (MHEDA). To qualify for the MVP Award, each recipient must satisfy a rigorous set of criteria, with less than 10 percent of the association’s membership earning the award. As a 2022 MVP, Fairchild Equipment has successfully demonstrated a commitment to business excellence, professionalism, and good stewardship. To qualify for the annual MVP Award, companies are required to provide evidence of commitment to their partners in business, including customers, employees, and suppliers. They must satisfy criteria in the following important areas: • Industry advocacy • Customer service and safety practices • Business networking
• Continuing education • Business best practices “I know I say it every year, but this award means everything to our company,” Van Clarkson, Fairchild Equipment’s president and MHEDA Board member, says. “It embodies our core values, how we want to be perceived in our markets, by our customers and by our employees,” Clarkson adds. “It is truly an honor to achieve this status and a testament to the hard work from our family of employees.” “Achieving the MVP Award demonstrates a company-wide effort to maintain the highest business standards, customer service, employee development and commitment to the betterment of the material handling industry,” Ted Springer, president of Springer Equipment Co., Inc. and 2021 MHEDA chairman, says. “MHEDA is very proud of our award-winning members.” Fairchild Equipment strives every day to provide a dynamic and comprehensive customer experience, with a team that is dedicated to industry experience, knowledge, and customer service. 22-05 Badger Common'Tater (7.25x2.25).v1.pdf 1 2022-04-06 10:44 AM
Achieving the MVP Award demonstrates a company-wide effort to maintain the highest business standards, customer service, employee development and commitment to the betterment of the material handling industry.
To learn more about Fairchild Equipment and its core values, visit: www. fairchildequipment.com. The Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association (MHEDA) is the premier trade association representing close to 600 companies and dedicated to serving all segments of the material handling business community. Located in suburban Chicago, the association provides services to companies seeking to improve their business through education, networking, benchmarking, and best practices. For more information, visit www.mheda.org.
Compeer and Indigo Work on Carbon Initiative
Compeer Financial, a farm credit cooperative based in the Upper Midwest, has announced a new collaboration in the growing carbon market with Indigo Ag, creating an easier path to credit creation. The collaboration will help Compeer’s clients navigate a fast-growing soil carbon market to get started on their carbon farming journey and maximize long-term profitability potential. “Compeer is deeply invested in the financial and agricultural health of our member-owners’ operations,” says Terry Hinds, chief asset quality and assurance officer at Compeer Financial.
“Our financial officers and crop insurance teams already have a lot of deep experience understanding and supporting clients looking to make the most out of their acreage,” Hinds remarks.
“As the carbon market develops, we want to give our clients a seat at that table,” he adds. “Working with Indigo allows us to offer farmers a scientifically rigorous, high-quality carbon program to help them maximize income and soil health benefits.” Through its industry-leading carbon farming program—Carbon by Indigo—Indigo connects farmers adopting practices that result in carbon sequestration and abatement with carbon buyers looking to incorporate high-quality offsets as part of their long-term sustainability strategies.
INITIAL PAYMENTS
Launched in 2019, the program recently issued initial payments to 267 farmers whose efforts in the 2019 and 2020 crop years will result in the world’s first crop of registryissued agricultural carbon credits generated at scale this spring 2022. Today, Indigo’s carbon program counts thousands of participating farmers and over 3.5 million enrolled acres.
“Compeer has been a leader in its commitment to serving and supporting farmers,” says Chris Harbourt, global head of carbon at Indigo Ag. “We are excited to work together with Compeer, an organization that has a shared value of putting farmers first,” he adds, “to build understanding of the carbon farming opportunity and help farmers take advantage of this new revenue stream in a way that maximizes success in the years to come.” Compeer and Indigo are working closely together to make data collection, soil health practices and a clear path to carbon farming easier for farmers.
Compeer Financial clients can participate by communicating with their existing crop insurance specialist or financial officer who will work with a carbon programs expert. Compeer will continue to be a trusted partner with client information and reliable source for market transparency. “Understanding the opportunity that carbon markets are developing is one more way we can support clients looking for revenue diversification,” Hinds concludes. “For those growers who are serious about getting into the market, this partnership takes them one step closer.”
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Treat Your Soil Like the Rock Star It Is!
By Dean Konieczka, consultant agronomist with OMEX Agrifluids
You’ve probably heard the stories of rock stars and backstage demands. They request bowls of M&Ms, all blue, or orange juice for evennumbered dates and tropical juice on odd numbers. They want their dressing rooms at precisely 78 degrees and potted plants taller than four feet, but no more than five. Truth is that soils are no different. They’re just as picky. If they are to deliver optimum performance, we need to cater to their every whim. But we don’t. Instead, we fumigate and fertilize them and drive machinery over them in wet weather. We wouldn’t do any of that if we were truly putting our soils first, because all those actions, plus the cultivations to grow and harvest a standard potato crop, create intense conditions within the soil that result in organic matter loss. Organic matter is vital for soil health. The billions of soil microbes in every teaspoon of soil can’t survive, let alone function, without a minimum of organic matter. In today’s clean world, we’ve become conditioned to seeing microbes as undesirable. Yet while some of them pose a threat to healthy crops, not having any poses an even bigger threat. Soil is nothing without them. A thriving population of soil microbes makes applied fertilizers effective, for example. Plants rely on microbial activity for adequate nutrient absorption, uptake, and utilization. Soil bacteria such as rhizobium, and the fungus mycorrhizae, produce a range of substances, among them polysaccharides and various nutrient salt complexes.
WATER RETENTION
Such substances bind soil particles into larger aggregates, improving water retention and preventing soil erosion.
Another type of microbes, protozoa, produce as much as 80 percent of the soil nitrogen that eventually ends up in plants. They also provide a valuable food source for organisms further up the soil food chain, such as the insect invertebrates.
Above: Plants rely on microbial activity for adequate nutrient absorption, uptake, and utilization.
Think of all these soil elements as the rock star’s performance: the concert playlist. If we’re to get the full set, the greatest hits, the album favorites, the early classics and of course the encores, then how do we make sure the backstage requests are honored? A lot of experts consider organic acids to be those all-essential blue M&Ms. These weak chemical acids are formed during breakdown of the organic matter in the soil, such as plant residue. Research shows they play a crucial role in mineralization and solubilization. These are the processes needed for fertilizer to work, and we know organic acids contribute to the uptake of applied nitrogen, as well as nutrient complexes such as DAP and MAP. They also play a role in the carbon cycle and metal detoxification. There’s no single organic acid classification. They comprise a variety of biological compounds arising from biotic and abiotic soil processes.
SOIL BINDING
Humic acid is insoluble in water and one of the key components instrumental in soil binding. Conversely, fulvic acid is watersoluble, plays a vital role as a nutrient facilitator and acts as a chelator. This means it stops nutrients such as phosphorus, calcium, and iron from binding together and becoming inaccessible to the plant. What the two compounds, and another called humin, have in common is that we’re still working to understand them.
While observations in soil research, such as those conducted by the universities of Ohio State and North Carolina, show that relatively small doses of humic acids increase plant growth and root mass, the chemistry and function itself remain the subject of much debate.
This somewhat clouded mode of
– Agronomist Dean Konieczka
action has left organic acids on the margins of crop nutrition. Naturally occurring, they can’t be protected by patents, so there’s little incentive to conduct commercial research.
Vitamin D in human health is a good parallel. We know it can help protect us against respiratory disease, but not why or how, and no drug company will fund such research without the prospect of a financial return. But at OMEX, we want to encourage growers to nurture their rock-star soils. So, we’ve somewhat stubbornly stuck with organic acids.
INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY
We think growers need all the help they can get to cope with changing weather patterns and pressure to increase productivity. Hence, our development of Cell Power® SLYCE®, a complex liquid formulation derived from calcium nitrate, humic acid, and fulvic acid.
It promises headline benefits of increased soil available fertility and faster nutrient release, a boost to the
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crop’s ability to counter stress and disease, and more efficient delivery of calcium, which plays a crucial role in plant structure above and below ground. Typically, we see the effect of SLYCE in vigor, specifically both good shoot and root development. But it also promotes chlorophyll development and improves potassium transport, both of which increase the plant’s ability to cope with stress situations later in the season, such as hot weather and drought. Developing the proper form, timing, and rates of organic acids through the growing cycle is crop and climate specific. You or your agronomist should consider factors such as nutrient use and water availability. The most important aspect is soil type. After
We’ve become conditioned to seeing microbes as undesirable. Yet while some of them pose a threat to healthy crops (such as the potato plant shown), not having any poses an even bigger threat. Soil is nothing without them. Photo courtesy of Specialty Potatoes & Produce
all, you can’t have the M&Ms in the wrong dressing room. If you and your agronomist need help in using organic acids to keep your rock star soil content for a good crop of potatoes, contact OMEX for more information. Visit www.omexusa.com.
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Marketplace
By Dana Rady, WPVGA Director of Promotions and Consumer Education
Spudmobile on the Road with Open Doors
I can’t decide if it feels like two years since the pandemic began or not. On the one hand, it seems like forever and a day ago because so much has transpired since. On the other hand, it feels like just yesterday as we continue to experience some of its various aftereffects. Regardless, life is forever changed in many respects and is returning or trying to return to normal in others. The latter is the case with the Wisconsin Spudmobile. Many events were canceled in 2020, and last year when they started occurring again on some level, the Spudmobile attended but remained closed due to the challenges of keeping everything adequately sanitized and maintaining social distancing inside. In lieu of welcoming visitors inside, though, WPVGA’s Spudmobile Education and Outreach Administrator Doug Foemmel would set up a tent and table just outside the vehicle and continue to educate about the industry while also handing out brochures and giveaways to passersby. But here we are in a new year and entering what is typically the busy season for Wisconsin’s traveling billboard. Event requests have been and continue to roll in as the calendar
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WISCONSIN CERTIFIED SEED POTATOES WISCONSIN CERTIFIED SEED POTATOES WISCONSIN CERTIFIED SEED POTATOES
BADGER STATE
Visitors enjoy playing the Bug Game inside the Wisconsin Spudmobile at the 60th Annual WPS Farm Show in Oshkosh, March 29-31.
fills up with new and recurring activities. One of those recurring events is the Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) Farm Show that was held at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Grounds in Oshkosh, March 29-31. The show also took a two-year break due to the pandemic but was back in person to welcome more than 20,000 visitors over the three scheduled days.
ALL THINGS AGRICULTURE
The WPS Farm Show is an opportunity for all things agriculture to be in one place and for those attending to learn about the latest and greatest in “agricultural equipment, services and technology.”
Merrill (left) of Mad Dog and Merrill’s “Midwest Grill’n” TV show is happy to be promoting Wisconsin potatoes with WPVGA’s Director of Nutrition Sarah Agena at the 60th Annual WPS Farm Show. Mad Dog (far left) of Mad Dog and Merrill’s “Midwest Grill’n” TV show sits next to a group of FFA students happy to visit the Wisconsin Spudmobile at the 60th Annual WPS Farm Show, in Oshkosh.
The 60th Annual WPS Farm Show was the first event where the Spudmobile opened its doors to visitors in over two years. Foemmel says it was a breath of fresh air to see people inside the vehicle again. “It was very enjoyable to have all the resources the Spudmobile has inside as I talked with visitors,” he remarks. Although the weather left much to be desired, the first two days saw above average attendance while the third day slowed down a bit as the forecast delivered cold, freezing rain and snow. Despite the weather, the Spudmobile remained open from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. each day along with the other 400 exhibiting companies present. Exhibitors come from throughout the United States and Canada every year. The Spudmobile was also featured on Green Bay’s WFRV-TV morning show thanks to its educational component. Doug spoke with a reporter about everything the vehicle has to offer and showcased the “Field to Fork” story it promotes. You can check out the interview here: https://www. wearegreenbay.com/news/localnews/oshkosh-welcomes-back-wpsfarm-show/. While the Spudmobile has continued putting on miles even through the challenges the last two years posed, it’s great to have it fully functioning again with its original intent—having people come through the doors and experience the art of farming!
