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Syngenta opens learning center with day of crop demonstrations
By Jeff Caldwell
Many row crop producers, out of necessary practicality and pragmatism, typically juggle corn and soybean management strategies at the same time.
Yet, crop input companies sometimes take a seemingly one-tracked approach to introducing its products to the consumers.
The result can sometimes be a product that, alone, functions well, but within an entire management system, may lack the effectiveness it does as demonstrated to the crop input decision-maker.
In holding the first demonstration day Aug. 5 at its Learning Center near Keystone, Iowa, Syngenta representatives officially opened the set of field plots to producers and demonstrated a number of crop production systems and combinations of Syngenta input product.
The 80-acre area is broken into 15 different field segments, each of which shows a different production method for either corn or soybeans. According to a Syngenta release, the Keystone learning center, one of two the company has introduced to its customers this summer, uses the juxtaposed fields to "explore the best technical solutions to push the envelope on yield barriers and crop-limiting factors."
Even though the learning centers are designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of Syngenta products in corn and soybean fields, there is a larger objective at hand, according to John Scharingson, Syngenta Seeds Integrated Solutions manager. Since virtually no producer can single out one crop on which to focus all the time, Scharingson says oftentimes, product promotion lags in practicality, since many product endorsements come independent in use and crop from others. Instead, with the mindset of "Integrated Solutions," he says the Syngenta is making an effort to operate more in terms of how the crop producers themselves view their industry.
"Growers think about producing corn and soybeans in an integrated fashion. That's part of their whole enterprise, on a daily basis," Scharingson says. "Historically, we've thought about weed control or insect control as very separate decisions and separate things in our research portfolio.
"We need to get a much better understanding about how those things interact with each other."
Among the issues covered at the demonstration day were soybean variety trials, soybean seed treatments and inoculants, corn and soybean weed management, in-season soybean management, corn hybrid trials and controlling corn insect pests. In addition, Dr. Palle Pedersen, Iowa State University Extension soybean agronomist, led a discussion entitled "How to grow 100+ Bushel Soybeans."
While this presentation fell short of directly pinpointing those management strategies necessary to produce 100-bushel beans, Pedersen outlined three key points vital to maximizing soybean yields: Variety selection, planting dates and field scouting, the latter of which comprises a much different strategy than its row-crop counterpart, corn.
"The scouting of soybeans is very complex. There are a lot of interactions in a soybean crop," Pedersen says. "The things we talk about in the coffee shop won't make a big difference. It's in the management."
Pedersen, who Scharingson says was invited to speak at the demonstration day to help "communicate to growers the importance of managing all their inputs," emphasized scouting and reacting to observed crop traits in the month of August as a particularly crucial part of overall soybean management.
"Everything happens in August. If there is no August moisture, there will be no yields," he says. "There are things out there to help us make more money, and things to help us maximize our yields."
With a number of crop technologies, like glyphosate-resistant corn or corn rootworm trait technology, either available to growers today, or ready for release in coming years, Scharingson says Syngenta will continue its "Integrated Solutions" approach with its customers well into the future. By doing so, the grower will feel the benefits of a coordinated approach to corn and soybean management, while the Syngenta company will be able to maintain the diversity of its product portfolio.
"I really think we're in a pretty unique position to make the best agronomic recommendations to the grower, because it doesn't matter if a guy wants a glyphosate-tolerance for corn weed control or a conventional approach," he says. "We can go and sit down with the farmer, have a consultative discussion with them, and make the best recommendation, because we've got the products in the portfolio."
With this mindset of cooperative communication with the grower as a company mainstay, the Syngenta Learning Centers, like the one near Keystone, will play a vital role in the future.
"These learning centers are all about starting to communicate the fact that we want to make the best agronomic recommendation to the grower, and that's how we're going to earn their trust," Scharingson says. "That's why we're talking about agronomic messages and solutions, rather than just products.
Jeff Caldwell can be reached by phone at 515-280-5405 or by e-mail at jcaldwell@mchsi.com. For more information about the Syngenta Learning Centers or Syngenta products, call 866-SYNGENTA or check with your local Syngenta representative.
Date: 8/24/04
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