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Lineage Logistics Acquires Turvo
Management and software company will drive more sustainable supply chain
Lineage Logistics, LLC, an innovative temperature-controlled industrial REIT (real estate investment trust) and logistics solutions provider, announces it has acquired Turvo Inc., a leading provider of supply chain management, collaboration, and visibility software. The acquisition is an extension of the companies’ long-standing partnership, including a previous investment in Turvo by Lineage Ventures, and combined vision for supply chain collaboration. With Lineage’s backing, Turvo will continue to focus on its customers, accelerate innovation in its technology offering and expand into new and adjacent markets under its own brand as a wholly owned subsidiary of Lineage. “Lineage’s acquisition of Turvo was a natural extension of our partnership, through which we successfully launched Lineage Link™ last year,” says Adam Forste, co-executive chairman of Lineage and cofounder and managing partner at Bay Grove, which founded and manages Lineage. “We wholeheartedly believe in Turvo’s mission to increase visibility and synergies within the supply chain, and we see this as an opportunity for additional value creation for both Lineage and Turvo customers,” Forste remarks. “I look forward to leading the new Turvo Board of Directors and working with leadership to advance its roadmap to drive smarter, more sustainable supply chains,” he adds.
SUPPLY CHAIN DIGITIZATION
“Today is an exciting time for Turvo’s employees, customers, and partners,” says Scott Lang, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Turvo. “With backing from Lineage and Bay Grove, Turvo will accelerate innovation with much greater reach and scale than ever before, further advancing supply chain digitization globally.” “Our customers will benefit from greater investments into our vision and our technology,” Lang states. “The acquisition comes amid a spike in demand for transportation and warehousing and at a time in which the supply chain faces unprecedented challenges,” explains Sudarsan Thattai, Lineage’s chief information and transportation officer. “In joining forces with Turvo, we have a unique opportunity to alleviate the impact of those challenges for customers,” Thattai stresses. “Driver shortages and port congestion, for instance, are addressable by decreasing the number of trucks or containers required to deliver a product from farm to fork.” “Turvo’s platform matches customers to truck, rail or container assets that would otherwise be underutilized,” Thattai states. “Deepening our relationship with Turvo shows how committed we are to innovation that furthers our purpose of transforming the food supply chain to eliminate waste and help feed the world,” says Greg Lehmkuhl, president and CEO of Lineage. “Through this investment, we will accelerate industry-leading technology that leverages supply chain synergies at scale,” he remarks, “addressing issues of density and utilization across the network and decreasing complexity and waste in the supply chain for all participants, from customers to shippers to carriers.”
The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) announced 15 projects have been selected to receive more than $1.16 million in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Specialty Crop Block Grants. These recipients were selected from 19 funding requests totaling more than $1.48 million. Grants are awarded to projects intended to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crop industries through research, education, or market development. Recipients are required to provide 25 percent of the grant funds as a matching contribution. Funding for Specialty Crop Block Grants is provided by the USDA, which defines specialty crops as fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, and nursery crops including floriculture. “These grants benefit Wisconsin’s specialty crop industries in a variety of ways, from pest and pathogen mitigation to innovation, education, and marketing efforts,” says DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski. “We are pleased to continue supporting Wisconsin’s thriving specialty crop industry through these important projects,” Romanski states. The grant recipients and their projects are:
DATCP’s Division of Agricultural Resource Management
• Survey the potato growing regions of Wisconsin for the presence of potato mop-top virus. ($25,747.59) • Expand on past work to improve honeybee health and reduce hive mortality. ($67,919.97)
Ginseng Board of Wisconsin
• Conduct field research to ensure exported fresh ginseng roots will
meet pesticide residue standards established by Taiwan. ($99,920)
Savanna Institute
• Stimulate farmer adoption of chestnuts in Wisconsin. ($81,514.28)
Two Onion Farm
• Evaluate cordon trellis system of growing currants and gooseberries as a method to reduce labor needs and improve fruit quality. ($41,900)
University of Wisconsin (Madison)
• Improve understanding of how variation in the landscape influences the quality of pollen collected by honeybees. ($99,868) • Develop an open-source web-based tool for in-season potato yield predictions at the field scale to improve irrigation management and provide dissemination or research results. ($99,745) • Increase vegetable crop production and quality by reducing competition with weeds through the timely, practical, and affordable use of natural plant hormones that enhance crop growth and eliminate early season weeds. ($97,067) • Explore the microbiome in relation to potato and vegetable crop, soil health, and productivity ($90,000) • Reduce economic impact of potato tuber necrotic viruses. ($92,171) • Assess and optimize hot water treatments of cranberry vine cuttings as an environmentally friendly and sustainable option for the management of fruit rot fungi in Wisconsin cranberry marshes.
($82,422) • Evaluate performance of new table grape varieties by establishing replicated performance trials. ($74,133) • Perform a two-year study at the
University of Wisconsin Hancock
Agricultural Research Station to explore use of hyperspectral remote sensing technology to monitor inseason plant nutrient status and predict end-of-season yield of three processing vegetables. ($69,489) • Assess impact of attract-and-kill as an alternative management strategy for Japanese beetle to reduce this pest’s population while reducing environmental impact and non-target effects on pollinators. ($62,521)
Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association
• Raise awareness of cranberries and the cranberry industry to produce more demand for the crop through education on the history, current state, and future of the cranberry industry. ($83,029) Since 2009, DATCP has received 441 Specialty Crop Block Grant proposals requesting more than $27.2 million. The USDA has funded 286 of those grant project proposals, totaling more than $14 million. For more information, visit https:// datcp.wi.gov/Pages/AgDevelopment/ SpecialtyCropBlockGrants.aspx.
REGEV® Wins Best Biochemical Product of the Year
Hybrid fungicide from STK Bio-Ag Technologies delivers row crop disease control
STK Bio-Ag Technologies, a pioneer in the development and marketing of botanical-based and hybrid solutions for crop protection, received the Best Biochemical Product of the Year Award from the World BioProtection Forum at an award dinner and ceremony held May 23, in Birmingham, United Kingdom. The award was for REGEV®, the first-ever hybrid fungicide. Accepting the award were STK Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Arye Tenenbaum and Vice President of Research & Development and Business Development Shay Shaanan. The “Best Biochemical Product of the Year” was awarded to STK’s REGEV hybrid fungicide based on the “innovativeness, scientific value/ uniqueness and market impact of the product,” according to the World BioProtection Forum’s criteria. An international panel of 20 senior agricultural executives and research scientists evaluated many successful products based on a point system. The judges’ collective decision to award this honor to REGEV was based on what the STK scientific and development team had discovered, tested, proven, and successfully commercialized in diverse countries and regions of the world. REGEV hybrid fungicide is a marriage of chemistry and biology. It is the first product of its kind, a hybrid solution that delivers effective and sustainable disease control for a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, row crops, and broad acre crops. It serves as an easy bridge for most growers who have never tried any product having biological content. That’s because REGEV is used in the same way as the grower’s current synthetic chemical pesticide, with no mixing or anything different in applying, storing, or learning new biology.
RESISTANCE MANAGEMENT
With REGEV, the grower substantially improves resistance management due to REGEV’s multiple modes-ofaction. The grower also reduces chemical residues on produce significantly, making the crop more exportable to countries, regions and food chains having strict chemical maximum residue limits (MRL’s). REGEV substantially reduces any harmful effects to farmers, consumers and on the environment, enabling growers in all sectors and geographies to reduce their ecological footprint and thrive economically. REGEV is a preventive, double kickback curative and anti-sporulant. “The STK team is proud to have REGEV hybrid fungicide selected as the Best Biochemical Product by
Above: From left to right, Shay Shaanan, vice president of research & development and sales development for STK Bio-Ag Technologies, and STK Bio-Ag CEO Arye Tenenbaum receive the Best Biochemical Product of the Year Award from World BioProtection Forum CEO Mark Whittaker.
the World BioProtection Forum,” Tenenbaum says. “STK is achieving its mission of providing the best possible solutions for sustainable agriculture and food protection throughout the value chain, from field to fork.” “REGEV is successfully used by growers throughout the USA, Latin America, East Asia, parts of Europe and Israel,” Shaanan explains. “Based on REGEV’s popularity and commercial success, STK is developing new hybrid products that are so effective and easy for growers to use, we believe they will be the future of sustainable agriculture.” For more information, visit www.stkag.com or contact Merav Fishelson at +972-546831083 or meravf@stk-ag. com.
Award recognizes young, beginning, and small farmers making a positive ag impact
Compeer Financial, a farm credit cooperative based in the Upper Midwest, is pleased to announce nominations are now open for the 2023 GroundBreaker of the Year Award. The deadline to enter is August 31, 2022. The award recognizes young, beginning, and small farmers who have an unparalleled passion for agriculture and who are making a positive impact in the agriculture industry. Nominees must be actively involved in farming in Wisconsin, Illinois or Minnesota and meet at least one of the following criteria for a young, beginning, or small-operation farmer: • Age 35 or younger • 10 years or less of farming or ranching experience • Generate less than $250,000 in annual gross sales Potential award recipients may nominate themselves, or be nominated by a family member, friend, colleague, partner, or acquaintance. Nominees will be evaluated on their agricultural leadership and advocacy, community involvement, perseverance and commitment to the agriculture industry. Nominations are now being accepted at www.compeer.com/ groundbreakeroftheyear through August 31. The winner will be announced at Compeer Financial’s GroundBreaker’s Conference in early 2023 and will receive a $5,000 cash award. The winner will also be featured in a video, an article in Compeer’s Cultivate Magazine, on social media, within a press release and more. In 2022, Compeer Financial named Lindsay Baneck of Helenville, Wisconsin, as the GroundBreaker of the Year.
Colorado Certified Potato Growers Association “Quality as High as our Mountains” ColoradoCertifiedPotatoGrowers.com
Colorado Certied Potato Growers Association P. O. Box 267 Monte Vista, CO 81144
ColoradoCertiedPotatoGrowers.com Lorem ipsumLyla@ColoradoCerti (719) 274-5996 edPotatoGrowers.com
Are Prairie Mixes the Only Option for Crop Field Borders?
Study investigates ecosystem benefits of five perennial grains as alternatives
Submitted by sciencesocieties.org
Planting beneficial plants next to gardens and crop fields, large and small, has been a standard practice for decades, even centuries. The plants provide what are known as ecosystem services. These include attracting pollinators and preventing weeds. In the grassland regions of North America, prairie mixtures are thought to be the best at providing these services. However, the quality of some of the services they provide can be unpredictable. This is because it is difficult to tell exactly what plants in the mix will grow well. Ebony Murrell, a crop protection ecologist for The Land Institute, Salina, Kansas, and her team decided to test five perennial grains as alternatives to a nine-species prairie mix. They studied Kernza, silflower, cup plant, sainfoin, and alfalfa. Murrell presented at the 2021 American Society of Agronomy/ Crop Science Society of America/Soil Science Society of America Annual Meeting held in Salt Lake City. She and her team looked at five different ecosystem services. These included how many and what kind of pollinators the plants attracted, as well as biomass production, weed suppression, and forage quality.
Above: Silflower performed well in the tests by providing an ideal balance of ecosystem services, such as weed suppression, pollinator characteristics, and forage quantity and quality. Left: Researchers at the Land Institute in Kansas found that cup plant was another quality alternative for growers to produce on the edges of farm fields. Its large leaves shaded out weeds, for example. Photos courtesy of Ebony Murrell
The specific characteristics of a plant can make it better or worse at providing certain ecosystem services.
VARIETY OF SERVICES
For example, the shape and color of a flower can be more attractive to local pollinators. Or a plant can produce a lot of roots near the soil surface that prevent weeds from growing. Large leaves of a species like cup plant may also shade out weeds.
“I’ve learned in my career that people are more interested if you have data that shows those species can provide a variety of services,” Murrell says. “The goal of this project was to quantify how well a suite of crops provided these services.” “This allows interested growers to decide which one[s] to plant based on their individual needs,” she adds. The results revealed many important details about the services provided by the alternatives. Murrell says three findings rise to the top. “I seek to demonstrate that perennial grain candidates as border crops can provide relevant services and encourage farmers to grow these crops and improve diversity on their farms.”
– Ebony Murrell,
As the researchers predicted, the prairie mix did provide the best pollinator services in terms of diversity and abundance throughout the season.
Two of the alternatives they studied, silflower and cup plant, exhibited a great balance of services. They provide good weed suppression, pollinator services, and forage quantity and quality. The researchers note that they may be the best overall alternatives. Lastly, an alternative called sainfoin did poorly because it was not competitive with weeds, suggesting that, in Kansas, it would not serve well as a border crop.
continued on pg. 58
While it hasn’t been tested, the researchers note that these crops may provide other services like increased nitrogen, healthier overall soil, and reduced erosion.
GOOD OR BAD BORDER CROPS?
Murrell stresses that there are no “good” or “bad” border crops, because the definitions depend on the services needed in a specific field. “I don’t think it’s as simple as that,” she says. “What growers elect to plant as border crops will depend on what services they’re seeking, their planting and harvesting requirements, and the equipment needed to manage the border crops, etc.” “A study like this is an excellent starting point,” Murrell states. “However, it is only one point to consider when making recommendations on what border crop species to plant.” At the end of the day, the most important aspect of this work, she
Prairie mixtures are considered the gold standard for not only planting on crop field borders, insofar as the native ecosystem services they provide, but also for complete restoration on unused fields or those abutting production crops. This nearly five-acre parcel was planted, in 2018, as a prairie restoration site on Alsum Farms & Produce land near Arena, Wisconsin, and it’s looking fantastic! Left: Jason Behrends, restoration operations manager for Heartland Ecological, stands in an upland prairie that is part of the Little Plover River Watershed Enhancement Project in Plover, Wisconsin. Above: Shown are stands of different species the researchers studied for their ecosystem services. Their findings will allow growers to plant a more diverse mix of plants on the sides of farmland. From left to right are cup plant, alfalfa, Kernza, and silflower. Photo courtesy of Ebony Murrell
explains, is to increase diversity of plants in farming systems. Murrell understands how difficult this can be for farmers. She wants to show how planting perennial grains as border crops can provide valuable services and increase diversity. “I seek to demonstrate that perennial grain candidates as border crops can provide relevant services and encourage farmers to grow these crops and improve diversity on their farms,” she says. “This would be without asking them to make financial sacrifices,” Murrell qualifies. “In my opinion, this is the most realistic way to help improve diversity in our agricultural landscapes.” This project was supported by a Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Conservation Innovation Grant (Grant ID NR186215XXXXG004).
