The Cover Crop September 2017 by Monica Springer

The Cover Crop A Quarterly Magazine for Servi-Tech's Owner Cooperatives fall 2017 Edition

husker harvest days September 12-14

Husker Harvest Days Plans moisture using wireless data transmission from multiple locations within a field. Costs can also be reduced by sharing one “gateway” among multiple sensors in one or several different fields, transmitting the information through a single data connection in a more flexible and efficient system.

president & CEO greg ruehle Celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year, Husker Harvest Days is a unique, all-irrigated farm show in central Nebraska, just west of Grand Island. The show draws attendance not only from across Nebraska, but throughout the Midwest and several foreign countries. Servi-Tech has a long history with Husker Harvest Days (HHD) – beginning in the mid-1980’s with a booth inside the Farmland Industries tent. Servi-Tech’s presence grew to a stand-alone tent, and now we maintain a permanent building (space #1110) on Seed Corn Row in the southeast corner of the grounds. To help commemorate HHD’s 40th anniversary, the ServiTech building boasts new signage and improved pedestrian access, especially during heavy rains. Not only has Servi-Tech’s physical presence at HHD changed, so has our outreach to customers and prospective customers. One of the first things you will see at the ST display is the new look and orientation of our company website, www.servitech.com. The revamped site includes descriptions of the broad range of offers from ST, as well as updated photography that helps tell the Servi-Tech story. Additionally, we are launching a new technology product at HHD called TheProfiler Plus. Building on the successes from the initial offering, TheProfiler Plus gives growers more flexibility in measuring soil

You can register for our gun giveaway at Husker Harvest Days. Servi-Tech is also looking forward to our second season with CropView, which will be a featured item at HHD. The initial launch for the current crop season was successful, but was limited due to a later-than-expected introduction date. Even under these limited conditions, CropView showed its value in early detection of pests and

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mechanical problems such as plugged sprinkler heads. The offer for 2018 is set, and I expect a significant number of acres to be signed up in the coming year. CropView includes a distribution model that allows our owner-coops to benefit financially by signing up acres among your patrons. Additional benefits come from early sign-ups and acreage density goals built into the offer. I encourage you to learn more at HHD, or contact your sales representative for more details. Servi-Tech sees great value in the combination of “boots-on-the-ground’ agronomic expertise with cutting-edge technology, including in-field sensors, aerial imagery and data analysis. While the application of these tools at the grower level is easy to see, we continue to find ways to make them relevant to our owner-cooperatives. Look for more information as these programs move forward for the 2018 growing season. Back by popular demand is our HHD firearm giveaway. This year, we will have a drawing for three guns offered by Twin Oaks Firearms of Aurora, Nebraska. Twin Oaks is owned by Harlan Schafer, retired Agronomy Lead at CPI in Hastings and former ST Board member. On-site registration is required to be entered into the drawing. If you attend, I encourage you to visit Servi-Tech near the south-east corner of the show grounds. Take a few minutes to learn more about how these high-tech offerings, combined with “boots on the ground” expertise, can help you Make the Planet More Productive! I hope to see you there.

Servi-Tech, Inc. Servi-Tech was formed in 1975 by three farmer-owned cooperatives that saw a need to provide technical services for agricultural producers in southwest Kansas. Servi-Tech is organized as a federated cooperative owned by 60 farmer-cooperatives across six states. In the 42 years since our founding, we have expanded into Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, Texas and South Dakota. Servi-Tech began with 100,000 acres under contract in 1976. Today, we provide consulting on almost 1 million acres on behalf of both individual growers as well as cooperatives and retailers of all sizes.

Above: Kurt Stover and Michael Murphy, both Servi-Tech agronomists in Iowa, meet with SST to improve their software performance. On the cover: Servi-Tech made a few improvements to its Husker Harvest Days building and grounds. On the outside, we added a new sign and did some concrete work. On the inside, we painted the floor and rearranged our floor to ceiling panels. Look for more improvements in the future and for years to come! Did you know? Husker Harvest Days is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Servi-Tech has exhibited at the show for more than 25 years. In the beginning, Servi-Tech had a booth, then we moved to our own tent. We then acquired our current building, which is on Seed Corn Row.

Since our founding, Servi-Tech has been dedicated to providing growers and cooperatives with the solutions they need to make more productive decisions in the field. Combined with the new technology developed through Servi-Tech Expanded Premium Services, LLC (STEPS), our precision ag experts, and the world-class laboratories in Dodge City, Kansas, Hastings, Nebraska, and Amarillo, Texas, Servi-Tech provides the ultimate in agronomic knowledge for cooperatives and growers alike. To learn more about how Servi-Tech can help you serve your growers, visit us online at servitech.com for the full list of services, or call us at 1-800-557-7509.

EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT TEAM

To Submit Content:

Greg Ruehle

Jeff McDaniel

Steve Soden

Kaci Davignon

President and CEO Chief Financial Officer greg.ruehle@servitech.com jeff.mcdaniel@servitech.com 1-800-557-7509 ext. 1215 1-800-557-7509 ext. 1201

Chief Crop Service Officer steve.soden@servitech.com (308) 340-5997

Jeff Hiers

Randy Royle

Jeff Kugler

Monica Springer

Chief Operating Officer jeff.hiers@servitech.com 1-800-557-7509 ext. 1214

Chief Laboratory Officer randy.royle@servitech.com 1-800-557-7509 ext. 1110

CEO of STEPS, LLC jeff.kugler@servitech.com 1-800-557-7509 ext. 1199

The Cover Crop September 2017

Communications Specialist kaci.davignon@servitech.com 620-801-4134 Communications Specialist monica.springer@servitech.com 620-801-4147

One giant STEPS for soil moisture Learn more about TheProfiler Plus, a soil moisture monitoring unit, and CropView, an aerial imagery program offered by Servi-Tech Expanded Premium Services The improvements include lower hardware costs, faster and easier hardware install, additional in-field data points to capture soil moisture variability due to changes in soil characteristics, and the unlimited potential for expanding into the future of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. For the past eight years, Servi-Tech Expanded Premium At the center of the new system is a new type of in-field Services has provided remote soil moisture monitoring telemetry box, which we refer to as a “gateway.” The gateway for many of our partner cooperatives and their growers. is a small box with a solar panel that is able to receive Using the knowledge the data from gained from years surrounding of private and devices, up to university research, several miles we are able to turn away, depending the raw data from on conditions. time-proven sensors It then uploads into actionable the data to our irrigation advice, secure servers by showing growers for our website how many inches to deliver a fast, of water remain for meaningful the crop, and how summary to much additional growers. This water their field is gateway can be able to hold. This mounted on a step of going beyond pivot to give the a graph to provide added benefit actual inches of of real-time TheProfiler Plus, a soil moisture monitoring unit water measurements pivot status and has set our product location, or on apart from the rest of a grain bin or the industry, and our website has led the way in providing elevator to provide a greater area of coverage. The gateway growers with a fast, but accurate assessment of the soil will be semi-permanently mounted out of the way of field moisture conditions for every field that they are monitoring. operations, so once it is in place it can operate for years Since the introduction of TheProfiler, STEPS has made maintenance free. steady improvements in the hardware, website, mobile app The in-field hardware, which we refer to as “soil stations,” and in-field service of the hardware. will still use the same watermark sensors that researchers In the upcoming 2018 summer season, STEPS will praise for their accuracy and growers prefer for their ability be making an improvement to the way we monitor soil to measure inches of available moisture. (In the future, moisture, with a system that we are calling TheProfiler Plus. capacitance-style probes could be an option to add to the

STEPS

austin bontrager

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IoT environment.) The sensor wires will plug (without tools) into to a small box called a soil station that is equipped with a cuttingedge long range low power (LoRa) radio transceiver that communicates with the gateway. Dozens of LoRa enabled devices can connect to the same gateway as long as they all are within range and have acceptable line-of-sight. The installer simply needs to slide the soil station onto a 3-6 foot length tubing. STEPS has simplified the watermark installation and removal process with a unique insertion/ extraction tool that has been developed by STEPS. The new soil station/gateway setup manages to lower both the cost of hardware and connection fees, as well as greatly reduce the amount of labor that goes into the

installation and maintenance of each moisture monitoring location. Building on the successes from the initial offering, TheProfiler Plus gives growers more flexibility in measuring soil moisture using wireless data transmission from multiple locations within a field. Costs can also be reduced by sharing one “gateway” among multiple sensors in one or several different fields, transmitting the information through a single data connection in a more flexible and efficient system. If a grower has CropView aerial imagery of that field, then the STEPSPRO.COM website will bring together soil moisture data and crop health imagery to get an unmatched view of which acres are best represented by each soil station in the field.

What can aerial imagery do for you? Q&A with

Q&A with

monte roetman

pat mai

What kind of issues have you found since your growers starting using CropView? Monte: The biggest thing I’ve found is catching problems with sprinklers and where they’re not working. One sprinkler was working, but it was partially clogged and wasn’t putting out near as much water as it should have been. The crop started stressing where that sprinkler wasn’t working as well as it should have been. I pointed it out to the farmer and he got the sprinkler fixed the next week. Pat: Compaction, weeds, insects, SDS. What are the benefits of using CropView? Monte: For no more than it costs, you get a lot of good information out of it. It’ll pick up about any situation, including insects, moisture stress and hail damage. It

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picks up things pretty quick. If you see a problem with CropView, you can go right to that spot in the field. Another benefit of using CropView is the cost. Producers seem to like that a great deal. Pat: It helps me pick out problematic areas in the field that might not be seen until harvest. What do you like about CropView? Pat: I like the quality of the images, and how easy it is to view them on any device. Monte Roetman is a technical support agronomist in south central Nebraska, near Kearney. Pat Mai is a technical support agronomist in northwest Iowa.

Solar eclipse Servi-Tech’s Austin Bontrager took these photos near Wood River, Nebraska, on Monday, August 21, between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

From the University of Nebraska-Lincoln:

With soybeans being sensitive to length of the night, will the mid-day total darkness of the eclipse in southern Nebraska affect the maturing of the soybean plant? This is why in soybean fields on the edge of urban areas with street lamps producing near-sunlight levels of light through the night, the plants exhibit delayed flowering. For example, the street lamps on the north side of the university’s East Campus can affect nearby plants; thus, we keep our soybean plants in nurseries at least 50 feet or more from each of the lamps. Fortunately, a bright full moon does not have sufficient light intensity to affect soybean plants, though if you go out in a soybean field at night, you will see soybean leaves drooping downward. (This helps offset their “seeing” direct moon beams!)

No, but that is a perceptive question. Soybeans are sensitive to the 24-hour day/night cycle, but are only sensitive to night length, not day length. In fact, soybean plants can measure the length of the night based on their leaves being able to perceive a “dusk” (i.e., sunset) signal as the starting point for that measurement. This was shown in experiments conducted back in the 1920s. Soybean flowering was delayed if the night was interrupted by a flash of bright light, but not delayed if the day was interrupted by a period of darkness.

The Cover Crop September 2017

Servi-Tech Labs Celebrating 40 years Step back forty years to 1977. Gasoline averaged about 65 cents per gallon. First class postage, 13 cents. Corn price, about $2 per bushel. U.S. average corn yield, 91 bushels per acre. Center-pivot irrigation fuel cost, $6 per acre.

That year, a small handful of local cooperatives in southwest Kansas stepped forward to invest in the future. They built the first Servi-Tech Laboratory to serve their own producer-owners, which went on to provide services across the Plains and eventually the world.

“We have come a long way,” says Brenda Rowley, Customer Service Representative. “We have gone from hand-writing our test results, then entering results by hand to having our computer take our information and be able to print it out or email it directly to the customer. The amount of time it has saved us has been tremendous.” “These improvements have not only helped our staff, but our customers. We have been more effective with results and everything has been so simplified that it cuts down on time and errors,” says Rowley. The agriculture industry has time and time again demonstrated the increasing need for timely, accurate information. After 40 years, Servi-Tech has helped fill this need by providing laboratory services to help producers, agribusiness, and many others to make those decisions affecting their return on their investment and in turn, making the planet more productive. “It has always been about the customers,” says Fred Vocasek, senior lab agronomist. “The folks here at Servi-Tech all work very hard to make sure the results come back quickly and accurately. I have seen an incredible amount of change within this organization. One thing that has not changed has been just how dedicated the people are to serving the customer. They realize that every time they handle a sample,

senior lab agronomist

fred vocasek they could be affecting several thousand dollars of a customer’s income. They take that as a serious responsibility.” “I am very proud that our staff has learned to work with the automation and change that has been presented to them throughout the years. It is through their dedication and willingness to adapt, that our laboratory has been so successful. It’s been my pleasure to serve our customers alongside such dedicated staff, ” says Chief Lab Officer Randy Royle. “Technology keeps shrinking our world”, notes Vocasek. “I started using the Servi-Tech lab when I was a field agronomist in northeast Nebraska. I would ship my soil samples all the way to southwest Kansas – 320 miles as the crow flies - and about a week later, I would get an envelope with my results. Today, we have a Ukrainian farm operation some 6,000 miles away that ships to Dodge City and about a week later they get an electronic, PDF lab report. Same turn-around, different continent.” Servi-Tech Laboratories has expanded its footprint

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significantly in on September 21, forty years. The beginning at 11:30 Dodge City facility a.m. 1. became operational “We would especially in 1977; followed like to invite local and by Hastings, statewide dignitaries, Nebraska, in 1989; current and former and Amarillo, Texas, customers and former in 2005. But this employees to attend,” expansion was more said Greg Ruehle, than geography. Servi-Tech President “Our business has & CEO. “The Servigrown and changed Tech Board of tremendously,” said Directors will also be Vocasek. “When on hand throughout I came in 1983, the day.” 2. we were almost Servi-Tech will exclusively a soil give tours of the laboratory. We laboratory, have old were excited that photos and brochures fiscal year because on display, and will we just broke the have a short program 50,000 mark for recognizing this soil samples tested. anniversary. Lunch This year, we hit will also be provided. that same number “This is an 1. Expanding the suite of laboratory services from mostly after just 15 weeks, achievement and a soil analysis into areas involved adding new equipment and technologies, like NIRS analysis for feeds. and just in the major milestone,” Dodge City Lab. said Royle. “We want 2. Growth of laboratory services, sample volume, and customer That doesn’t count to make sure all of requirements has required two major building expansions and four rounds of interior remodeling over the last 40 years. the soils tested our customers know in Hastings and about our celebration Amarillo. And that on September 21. The doesn’t count the thousands of other samples that the success in our business is due to their trust and loyalty three labs test right along with soils.” to Servi-Tech.” Today Servi-Tech offers a wide range of analytical services including those for soils, feedstuffs, water, Who: Servi-Tech Laboratories plant tissue, fertilizer, manure, wastewater, and environmental management. What: 40th Anniversary celebration The laboratory prides itself on satisfying the special requests from customers to meet their individual Where: Dodge City Laboratory, 1816 East needs.

Wyatt Earp, Dodge City, KS

Open House

Servi-Tech Laboratories in Dodge City would like to invite the public to the 40th anniversary celebration

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When: 11:30 a.m. Thursday, September 21

Celebrating 40 years 3.

4. 3. Pictured is a single-channel, manually-operated atomic-absorption (AA) spectrometer formerly used for minerals and micronutrient metals. It has been replaced today by an automated, multi-channel inductively coupled argon plasma (ICAP) spectrometer that has dramatically increased sample through-put. 4. The dedication and commitment of the many employees over four decades of operation has maintained the rapid turnaround and analytical quality that keeps customers coming back for more. 5. The LIMS (laboratory information management system) developed by Servi-Techâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own IT staff captures and connects the data from instruments in all three laboratories. Pictured is an early DOS-based version connected to an analytical balance used to weigh feed samples.

The Cover Crop September 2017

6. Lab methods and procedures have been streamlined and automated over the years to dramatically increase the number of samples each analyst can handle. 7. Servi-Tech employees pose for awards. Servi-Tech crop consultants, agribusiness crop advisors, livestock nutrition consultants, and other professionals use the lab results to help crop producers, livestock managers, and many others to make critical production decisions.

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Fred Vocasek earns American Society of Agronomy award Fred Vocasek, a senior lab agronomist at Servi-Tech, Inc. in Dodge City, has been awarded the Agronomic Industry Award by the American Society of Agronomy. He will accept the award during the scientific society’s annual meeting in Tampa, Fla., in October. The annual awards are presented for outstanding contributions to agronomy through education, national and international service and research. Vocasek provides training, customer service, technical interpretations, and special services to Servi-Tech laboratory customers, including crop and livestock producers. He also helps consultants and crop advisors, agri-businesses, and homeowners. He is frequently asked to present to producer and professional groups about utilizing lab analysis for good soil, crop, water and livestock management. “Fred Vocasek is very deserving of this recognition,” said Greg Ruehle, Servi-Tech President and CEO. “In many academic and professional circles, Fred serves as the face of Servi-Tech. I applaud the ASA for recognizing Fred’s service and dedication to agriculture.” Vocasek has been employed by Servi-Tech for 34 years as a Laboratory Agronomist and Environmental Services Manager. “This award was unexpected, but very much an honor and very much appreciated,” Vocasek said. “There have been so many people who have mentored and helped me over the years. Teachers, family, co-workers, friends, farmers, bosses. Any accomplishment I’ve made has been built on a solid foundation of those people and I wish I could thank them all. Receiving this award helps me know that I have been able to give a little something back to the profession.” Vocasek has served the American Society of Agronomy as UNL Agronomy Club President, as Kansas Certified Crop Advisor Board Chair, International CCA Board Chair, 2010 CCA of the Year, ASA Board Representative, ASA Science Policy chair and other related activities.

He coordinated the ASA Water Security for Agriculture Task Force, which generated two national symposia and a series of invited Agronomy papers during 2015. The agronomic industry award recognizes outstanding performance by Fred Vocasek a private sector agronomist in the development, acceptance, and implementation of advances agronomic programs, practices, and products. The focus will be on agronomic service with associated educational, public relations, and administrative contributions of industrial agronomists and others. The award consists of a certificate, a complimentary ticket to the award ceremony, and a cash award. Evaluation criteria consists of: • Personal relations, professionalism, integrity, and credibility will be highly valued. • The emphasis will be on the individual’s support of ASA goals. • Personal growth in a particular field of endeavor; impact on associates, farmers, and the public at large. The nominee’s influence on company programs and directions or on development of products or varieties. • The individual’s performance on assignments, rather than the variety or scope of assignments, will be the major consideration. • Qualities such as innovativeness and good citizenship as evidenced by community service will be taken into consideration.

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Communications earns state, national awards Servi-Tech Communications brought home several awards in the Kansas Professional Communicators annual contest. Servi-Tech Communications placed first in the following categories: • Page design – Magazine, newsletter, or other non-newspaper publication, for The Cover Crop • PR Materials – Magazines, for The Cover Crop • Specialty articles – Agriculture, Agribusiness, Aquaculture, for The Cover Crop • Videos for Website – Special-interest Monica Springer, communications specialist, also serves as president of Kansas Professional Communicators. Kaci Davignon Monica Springer The KPC awards were given out during a ceremony in Manhattan. Each first place entry went on to a national communications contest through the National Federation of Press Women. At the national contest, Servi-Tech communications received the following awards: • First place, videos for website – special-interest • Third place, Magazines for The Cover Crop The National Federation of Press Women will hand out the awards at the 2017 NFPW Communications Contest Awards Banquet Saturday, Sept. 9 during the organization’s annual Communications Conference in Birmingham, Alabama. NFPW is a nationwide organization of women and men pursuing careers across the communications spectrum, including print and electronic journalism, freelancing, new media, books, public relations, marketing, graphic design, photography, advertising, radio and television. A distinguished group of professional journalists, communications specialists and educators judged 462 entries from across the country in a wide variety of categories. Only first-place winning entries at the state affiliate level are eligible to enter the NFPW National Contest. All entries were published or broadcast between Jan. 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2016. Stay connected with us online! Servi-Tech has a new website and a new look! Go to the new site to learn more about our offerings, including crop consulting, laboratory services, and the latest technology offerings. Go to servitech.com for more information.

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news from around servi-tech Southwest Kansas

Corn harvest for grain is underway in the south central part of the territory. Silage chopping will start soon for the western part of the territory. The soybean crop is looking good, as is the cotton crop. If we can get a few more decent and timely rains, we could be in for a bumper cotton crop. We’re starting to see some armyworm (beet and fall) infestations in the soybean crop in the central part of the state that are being treated. To date, the team is just starting to find a few fields with sugar cane aphid activity. The biggest issue in the sorghum crop is headworm, for which we are currently putting out recommendations. Driving through the territory, I am amazed at how lush and green everything is. We have been extremely fortunate in most areas with rainfall. Over the last few weeks, we have begun to see some grid sampling orders come in. We have been able to get on them at a timely rate and are looking forward to helping our customer base with any of their sampling needs. We have unveiled a more customer centered price point on our grid package to better serve our customers. If you would like to know more about this, please feel free to call your local agronomist and we would be happy to talk to you in more detail to help you and your customer base.

Eastern Colorado

It is starting to feel like fall most days with morning temperatures into the mid 50’s. Early planted crops are in good shape even with the cool weather

in late July and early August. Anything planted late or double cropped after an early silage or after wheat harvest will need some extended heat and time to reach maturity. There is still way too much late corn and milo that is just tasseling or heading to think all acres will make a grain crop. Hail seems to have cut some wide swaths this year, so damage pockets have cut bushels substantially. Soybeans are a little different situation since they respond to night length to determine pod set time. Some of the early soybeans are exceptionally tall and only time will tell if the pods match the plant size. More incidence of white mold in the bean crops this year than usual. About every irrigated field has some level of palmer amaranth infestation and that will be a topic for winter meetings! Driving around the country there are still way too many unsprayed wheat stubble fields that are green with volunteer and other potential plants that can support wheat curl mites. Some growers have resorted to tillage due to kochia pressure and if dry, it has met the needs. We hope to avoid a repeat of last year’s wheat streak mosaic problems, but it will take a community wide effort to make that happen. One heavy volunteer field can be the green bridge for a couple miles around it if allowed to persist to drilling time. We need 2-3 weeks of brown before planting to crash the wheat curl mite vector numbers. Most areas have had some precipitation to get set for wheat drilling. The other management choice is to delay wheat planting later into the fall when it cools off and the vector is

The Cover Crop September 2017

not as active.

Central Nebraska The 2017 growing season is quickly winding down and as a testament to that was the beginning of seed corn harvest on Tuesday, August 29. Overall, both the corn and soybean crops look solid with good yield expectations. Our central Nebraska staff of agronomists will soon be shifting to a fall focus, which centers on securing business for the 2018 season. We are prepared to handle the fall soil sampling work load with emphasis on grid sampling. Many of the local growers are in their 4th or 5th year of their grid programs and are due for a new set of nutrient sample data. We have had good success with the use of aerial imagery and remote soil moisture sensing and we will emphasize the implementation of more of these technologies going forward. Both aerial imagery and soil moisture probes provide us with up to date agronomic information that can quickly be used to modify crop management decisions. The use of these products coupled with “boots on the ground” have a great fit in crop production and are a vast benefit to area growers.

Eastern Nebraska

The old adage is, “rain makes grain.” In eastern Nebraska, we are hopeful these August rains will position us for tremendous 2017 harvest. It’s certainly been a wild growing season again, from a wet, cool spring, to an extremely hot dry vegetative period to a fairly temperate grain fill period in Nebraska. Despite

the challenges, we are encouraged by the quality of the crop in the field and look forward to the coming months of getting it in the bin. We still have a few weeks of checks left on most fields, thanks in large part to the cool temperatures slowing the crop maturity, but that hasn’t stopped us from signing up contracts for 2018. We continue to work closely with our sales staff and retail owners trying to create value driven relationship that offer wins for us, wins for our owners and wins for our farmers. As we’ve finalized some of our service offerings for the coming year, we have been particularly busy reaching out to new potential retail business hoping to deepen our footprints. As we look toward capping off this fiscal year, we are confident that we have put some important pieces in place for growth in 2018. We have some exciting proposals out with new retail partners, and the new STEPS product offerings will fit well with our strategic goals moving forward. CropView has been a lot of fun to monitor this season and we look forward to getting more eyes from the air on more acres next year. TheProfiler Plus trials we have looked at in eastern Nebraska have also been promising as we always look for more ways to drive value with our customers. Multi-site soil moisture has so much application and the TheProfiler Plus in conjunction with CropView and consulting has so much potential for a truly value-driven offering to our growers. Exciting things are ahead in the eastern Nebraska territory.

Iowa

We are fast approaching harvest in Iowa. We will probably see large swings in yields within small distances just due to rainfall patterns. After a rough start, dry middle and hopefully a strong

finish to the growing season, we will have a “normal year” with good yields in many areas. It’s getting that time of the year to be asking the questions about grid sampling for the fall and making cropping preparations for next year. This year we will be starting out much earlier in promoting CropView imagery with an even better package to offer to the growers for 2018 so be sure to ask your local Servi-Tech crop specialist all about it! Our Iowa team is ready for harvest season and have a stronger team than ever to get the job done for any of your grid sampling, consulting, precision ag, imagery, or calibration needs.

Dodge City Laboratory

Laboratory renovations are underway and almost complete. We are replacing some of the original sinks, work surfaces, and cabinets, and upgrading fume hoods. Some of these original furnishings have lasted 40 years. Some of the work surfaces had become pitted with time and exposure to chemicals. Metal cabinets near the sinks had deteriorated beyond their useful function. As we prepare to celebrate 40 years of laboratory testing, we can say that laboratory equipment, instruments, computers, facilities and even people, do not last forever, but our mission continues. We are a service oriented company, and to paraphrase our old mission statement, strive to serve you, the customer, providing the finest service and technology for your benefit. Please contact our laboratories if you have any questions about the analytical services we offer.

Amarillo Laboratory

The Amarillo Laboratory has completed the biggest part of plant season and is now planning for the upcoming soil season. We have

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expanded our soil scooping tables to accommodate up to four times the amount of soils. In addition, we are expanding our soil drying space to allow more soils to be added to the drying room. It seems to be an average year for plant tissue testing, but the number of feeds is steadily moving up from last year’s numbers. The sales team’s focus on new and additional feed business is beginning to pay off. Our thanks goes out to Charlie Carter for all of his hard work on feeds.

Hastings Laboratory

The new storage facility is almost complete. We’re just waiting for the loft to be painted this week. We just completed an unannounced audit on our waste management by the Nebraska Department of Quality Control. We had a very good report back and have a few minor things to address. No citations were issued. We have plans in place to help with more efficient throughput during our peek soil season this year. There will be about 10,000 samples diverted to the Dodge City Laboratory to make room for some new customers in the Hastings Lab. We have also made some process and logistical changes that will help to get more samples through per day. We had an audit by the State of Iowa to get our certification to analyze wastewater in Iowa. Nebraska does not have a certification program for wastewater (Clean Water Act) and we have potential for some new clients in the Iowa area that will use us once our certification process is completed. We were already certified for solid waste, so the additional certification was relatively minor to complete. We are waiting for the final report and a provisional certificate so that we can start marketing in that area.

The Cover Crop A Quarterly Magazine for Servi-Techâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Owner Cooperatives

All rights reserved. The information and opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily the opinion of the board of directors, executive management team, or other staff of Servi-Tech, Inc.