Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Grower Tour of the NCRS

So yesterday was probably our most important tour so far since it was mainly for growers. Some are already using Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers, and some are just interested and came to take a look at the place. So us worker types assembled at the farm at sunrise to get ready for the 9 am start time. I guess I will say that sunrise now is at around 7 am, so it really isn't too bad. For the morning tour, we divided up into three groups. Stephanie and I each took a group on the field crop tour, and Brian led the specialty crop tour, you know, like vegetables. It was a pretty good sized group of attendees. Most were from Michigan, but others came from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, North Dakota, and probably other states as well. Here is the trailer arriving for the first stop on Farm 7.
Most hopped off the trailer for a closer look at ears and roots pulled and dug from this corn plot.

This is either a treatment comparison or an ear auction.

Would you like to spend your birthday talking to a bunch of people about Navy Beans? Well whether Stephanie liked it or not, she did it.

Even Amanda got into the presenter mode as she took a turn to talk about a soybean foliar fertilizer experiment at a stop on the afternoon tour. (Jeff also took a turn on the morning tour.)

The birthday girl waits on the start of the afternoon tour along with Doug, Phil and Jeff.

Here we see Brian and Tim showing the afternoon vegetable group a field of dead potatoes.

Doug explains the layout of the new fertilizer and chemical containment building. It goes above and beyond what is required, but that's just the type of company we are.

Troy Bancroft provided some additional words about how Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers goes the extra mile in everything we do in order to be environmentally responsible. This pertains to the responsibility of being good neighbors to those living near the farm and manufacturing plant, as well as in product production, delivery and nutrient characteristics. For more information, he suggested visiting the Responsible Nutrient Management Foundation website: www.rnmf.org.

With the tours wrapped up and everyone gone home, it was time for the deer to come back out and continue eating our corn.