Yesterday’s AgriEnergy Solutions webinar with the firm’s nationwide sales team reaffirmed AgriEnergy’s ability to field reliable products and solid education. At 85, I’m definitely the oldest rep on AgriEnergy’s nationwide map. In 1990 I traveled the West with AgriEnergy founder Dave Larson, and wrote a LandOwner Newsletter about one of the first “biological farming” consultant conferences that fall. In years following, I freelanced a “Renewable Farming” newsletter for AgriEnergy. That was the genesis of this website. The firm’s ownership has changed twice since Dave passed away in 1996. It’s now backed by a dedicated, farmer-based group led by a seasoned trio: Dean Craine, Ken Musselman and Gary Campbell — and Linda Dickinson as office manager in Princeton, Illinois.
January 12, 2022: By Jerry Carlson AgriEnergy Solutions is exceptional among Renewable Farming consultants and suppliers because it integrates all three essentials for soil health and productivity:
1. Soil tilth: Ideal soil structure for nutrient holding capacity, moisture infiltration, water holding ability, abundant air for microbial life, and carbon content as stable humus.
2. Mineral fertility measured by the full spectrum of NPK and trace element tests. AgriEnergy offers a wide array of fertility products, emphasizing ways you can save expenses by precision placement and season-long applications according to your crop’s changing needs.
3. Robust biological life from a wide array of beneficial bacteria and fungi. AgriEnergy pioneered crop residue digestion microbials three decades ago with Residuce. Many of the firm’s field reps are farmers with years of experience with cover crops that multiply diversity of soil life. A primary biological product in AgriEnergy’s arsenal for years was SP-1, now more diverse and renamed MVP. It inoculates roots and soil with organisms that make nutrients more soluble for crop uptake.
AgriEnergy Solutions will soon greatly expand its new website, www.agrienergysolutions.com. You can already visit that site and review the company’s extensive product manual. We retail AgriEnergy products to our farmer clients, most of whom are here in northeast Iowa. One upcoming feature of the site will be a dealer directory. Many of the reps have worked with AgriEnergy for 20 or more years. And yes… you can buy WakeUP Spring and WakeUP Summer via AgriEnergy Solutions reps.
One hallmark of AgriEnergy agronomists and field reps: They emphasize visiting farms and consulting directly — including during the growing season, to evaluate results. Ken Musselman visited our Renewable Farming research plots several times as we conducted plot trials with their products.
We’re especially keen on AgriEnergy’s liquid nutrients and biologicals which you can apply in-furrow, sidedress, Y-drop, and foliar. Years ago, farmers showed us that in-furrow nutrients applied with just 3 ounces of WakeUP Spring in the solution generated two to three extra bushels of soybeans. Three ounces of WakeUP costs $1.87 per acre at our early-season price of $80 per gallon. An extra 3 bu. of beans at $13 per bushel is about a $20 return per $1 invested. In our randomized strip trials, we found the same kind of yield kick when we mobilized in-furrow products with corn.
AgriEnergy reps also see an important role for foliar nutrients when needed through the season, assuring that your crops keep metabolizing and building yield until full maturity. Early AgriEnergy seminars emphasized seeing a white-shucked ear of black-layered corn hanging from a mostly green stalk in the fall. That goal hasn’t changed, and season-long fertility plus good soil biology can achieve it.
AgriEnergy offers a wide range of nutrients and biologicals for organic growers. One slide at the seminar showed how massive corn roots and root hairs were stimulated by about 5 gallons of MVP in-furrow. That generated 180-bu. organic corn for a southern Wisconsin grower.
AgriEnergy Solutions has published video sections of the Jan. 11, 2022 webinar on the web. You can download a PDF showing all of the webinar presentations, divided into convenient sections. Just click this link. When the PDF page appears on your screen, you can scan the presentation titles, and click on the screen icon for the segment of your choice to start the video playing on your computer.