Testing Ground: Daviess County home to Nutrien's oldest innovation farm
May 13—When it comes to growing crops in 2023, it's rare these days for farmers to plant seeds in the ground and hope for the best.
Instead, they rely on agri-businesses such as Nutrien Ag Solutions, 2760 Keller Road, to gather data and test agriculture products before they go to market.
To aid in that endeavor, Nutrien has a dedicated 120-acre innovation farm on Wayne Bridge Road that's used in evaluating any agriculture-related product that could benefit farmers.
"It's seeds, chemicals, fertilizer — everything that you can imagine, we have our hands on," said Ryan Neely, who manages the innovation farm and has been with the company since 2007.
Along with Neely, John Hagan, senior principal research agronomist, and Luke Wilson, senior research agronomist, are there overseeing each product as they go through testing phases.
Neely said Hagan handles the small plot side, which evaluates experimental agriculture components that come from Nutrien or the manufacturers.
"We're evaluating performance of those products to see if they're going to advance forward and become a commercial product," Neely said.
Neely said Wilson is in charge of the large-scale field strip trials.
"After it passes the experimental stage and becomes a commercial product, Luke's job is to demonstrate the performance of it and to show growers how that can be entered into their operations and what kind of performance to expect."
