Sauder's New Vision
Control the Plant
TREMONT, Ill. (DTN) -- Gregg Sauder stood before hundreds of farmers this week to explain his new mission. The Illinois farmer and his wife, Cindy, spent the last two decades tweaking planters to gain perfect seed placement. They sold their planter technology firm, called Precision Planting, to Monsanto in May 2012.
The entrepreneurial couple didn't stay fallow for long. This spring they emerged with a new agronomic enterprise called Yield360. The effort is aimed at identifying factors that limit yield potential in crops and supplying tools to growers to detect and deliver inputs to cover the deficiencies.
Think intensive vegetable production tactics applied to broad-scale production agriculture. "Corn has the potential to yield 500 bushels per acre," Gregg Sauder explained to farmers seated on straw bales beneath a football-field-size tent overlooking a soil pit where corn roots had been meticulously teased from the rows of fertile soil to show rooting capacity and how tile and irrigation fit into the soil profile.
P[L1] D[0x0] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
By comparison, USDA pegs average corn yield at 158 bushels per acre. "Think about what adding 80 bushel would do to your averages," Sauder challenged. "There are a lot of you sitting in here at 215 to 220 [bushels per acre] that can hit the 300-bushel yield goal over the next two years. Everything we're designing at 360 is aimed at capturing that potential."
Controlling water and nitrogen are central to Sauder's plan. Managing water the Sauder way starts with pattern tiling with 4-inch tile at 33 inches to take water off fast, and then putting it back on at the right times through a subsurface drip irrigation system. The system is currently being tested on his Tremont, Ill., farm.
Sauder also wants nitrogen spoon fed in a more precise manner. "One and done" fall nitrogen programs aren't efficient, he maintained. He criticized split applications as well because he says growers are typically guessing at application rates. He urged growers to take advantage of natural nitrogen-building mechanisms such as using crop rotations and cover crops.
The company's initial product offerings include 360 Y-drop attachments that can be retrofitted to high-clearance sprayers to apply nitrogen and other liquids to cornfields at V6 growth stage and beyond. A football-shaped multi-directional spray applicator called 360 UnderCOVER can be mounted to the Y-Drop to deliver fungicides, insecticides and nutritional products inside the canopy.
"Sense. Decide. Apply. The plants are always telling us what they need. The system allows the farmer to listen to the crop, provides tools to interpret the message and then take action. The system allows farmers to listen to the whole environment, which is both above and below the soil -- both visible and invisible," Sauder said.
"It's about exposing problems and solving them," Sauder said. "Yield360 is building a comprehensive set of tools designed to equip farmers with information and products that give them control."
Pamela Smith can be reached at pamela.smith@dtn.com
(AG/SK)
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