Everything You Need to Know to Build a Sustainable Ag Plan for the 2025 Growing Season

It's that time of year when growers are trying to plan for next year, while also trying to bring in this year's crop.

And we know that it can be easy to fall into the trap of rushing through that process without exploring some of the new products, practices or incentive programs that are available to help you improve your sustainability footprint and your bottom line.

So in this episode, we're looking back at some of the most valuable insights from the past year of the podcast to make sure you're considering all the latest advances in your cropping plan for 2025.

We'll hear from Ron Calhoun, Senior Marketing Manager, Plant Nutrition for Loveland Products, about how to leverage enhanced efficiency fertilizers and other offerings from the Loveland Products line.

Danny Carmony Jr., Nutrien Ag Solutions Division Manager for Central Indiana, will discuss practices that are helping growers qualify for a new incentive program in the Midwest.

And we'll explore new features in the Agrible platform with Nutrien Ag Solutions Director of Digital Sustainability Ryan Adams.

Visit agrible.com to sign up for Nutrien Ag Solutions' free digital toolkit, and info.nutrienagsolutions.com/SNO to learn more about Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes.

Episode Transcript

Sally Flis

Once we get through harvest and we have those final yield numbers, we can really go back and kind of fine tune some of those discussions we had earlier in the crop season.

How do we maybe need to change our management for that crop as we move into new fields for the 2025 cropping season?

Dusty Weis

Welcome to the FARMSMART Podcast presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions, where every month we're talking to sustainable agriculture experts from throughout the industry. 

As the leading source of insight for growers on evolving their sustainability practices while staying grounded in agronomic proof, FARMSMART is where sustainability meets opportunity.

Sally Flis

We don't just talk change, we're out in the field helping you identify the products, practices and technologies that bring the future to your fields faster. 

I'm Dr. Sally Flis, Director of Sustainable Ag Program Design and Outcome Management.

Dusty Weis

And I’m Dusty Weis. 

And, Sally, it's getting to be about that time of year where growers are just absolutely getting crushed. And I know that's a feeling that you can relate to right now too, but growers, with everything that they have to do to finish up this year's harvest and everything that they have to do to plan for next year's planting, it's just a lot. 

So how do you think that most growers approach that job of ordering their inputs for next year? And how do you keep as a grower from falling into the trap of just copy-pasting last year's plan.

Sally Flis 

Dusty, it's a great question. And ideally, we start this process with growers in like July or August as we're monitoring the progress of the practices and products that we've implemented in the current cropping season to see what's working and what's not. 

Sometimes we're fixing things mid-crop season because of weather or pest impacts, but it helps us have that information to plan for the following cropping season so that once we get through harvest and we have those final yield numbers, we can really go back and kind of fine tune some of those discussions we had earlier in the crop season. 

There's lots of things that throw a wrench in that plan. Obviously, I mentioned weather, but also crop rotation, because we're going to see how a crop and a practice performs in one field this year. But as we move to a new field next year, that'll go and look at maybe two or three year old data to see how did this crop perform in that field last year and how do we maybe need to change our management for that crop as we move into new fields for the 2025 cropping season?

Dusty Weis 

Well, you say that ideally this is a process that starts in July, but knowing my tendencies personally, I know that sometimes things get pushed off a little bit. And certainly a lot of growers are in that do-or-die phase of their planning right now.

So knowing all that, we wanted to take a look back at the last year of the podcast and pull out some important bits that are going to be hyper-relevant to growers as they're looking ahead to next year. Some new products that they might want to consider, some new practices that they might want to try, and some new revenue streams that all of that could unlock. 

So we're going to start with episode 48, where we talked to Ron Calhoun, Senior Marketing Manager of Loveland Products, who not only told us how to leverage enhanced efficiency fertilizers… but he also gave the best description of what Loveland Products is that I’ve ever heard. 

Ron Calhoun

A lot of times I'll use the example of Kirkland products at Costco, right? So you have these very high quality products that are available at Costco, but it's a way to get a better quality product sort of at that same wallet ask.

So that sometimes is a way that I'll try to describe that, you know, Loveland started as an adjuvants company over 50 years ago and was part of the crop production services, was part of Agrium and then became part of Nutrien Ag Solutions back in maybe 2016/2017 with the merger that happened. 

So our Loveland products, we have four shelves that we talk about adjuvants, which is sort of what built Loveland Products. So we're wholly owned by Nutrien Ag Solutions. We have adjuvants, we have the plant nutrition shelf, we have crop protection, we have seed treatments. And so there's those four areas that we work on. 

There's two ways that we go to market within that. One of those would be like within crop protection, trying to do more of like an inventory consolidation play for folks so giving them we might do generic products or that kind of thing, putting things in a Loveland box.

But where we really have gained our horsepower is by having Nutrien Ag Solutions be willing to make some investments in some technology companies where we can then bring those technologies into products, bring some things together that aren't available in other ways and that really comes to bear in the area of adjuvants and plant nutrition, where we now have a portfolio of products that have some technologies in them and that are unique to us. And then we can bring those to market. 

So I don't know if that helped you at all. I love talking about it, so I'd be happy to answer more questions if you have a follow up there Sally.

Sally Flis

No, I think that's a great overview of what Loveland Products is and the different places that retail can interact with the brands and the products that are developed by that. And I agree, it's really great to be working for a company that invests in a lot of the things that your average retailer isn't going to invest in in order to keep driving the business forward.

So one of the programs we have in the field right now is our Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes program, where we incentivize growers to make a 5% rate reduction following a carbon protocol that we can pay them for those carbon equivalent emission reductions. And one of the things that can really drive that emission reduction for that grower on that field is the use of enhanced efficiency fertilizer products.

Can you go into a little bit for us what an EEF is and how they work?

Ron Calhoun

Sure. So let's start like with granular nitrogen, for instance. You know, you have a product that's water soluble like urea or something like that. That product is not enhanced in any way as far as its availability. It's going to become soluble pretty quickly. It's going to interact with the microbes in the soil, become plant available very, very quickly.

But then there's a set of nutrition, nitrogen products that might have some sort of protection on it, that there might be like a poly sulfur coated urea, right. Where we're using sort of a physical barrier to hold down a percentage of that release over a period of time. Well an enhanced efficiency fertilizer is something that's like another step beyond that.

We're actually trying to regulate the release of that. And so the most common one for us would be the ESN Right. So we have an actual polyester coating that's on that urea that is then driven by moisture and soil temperature to drive that. And what's nice about that, because of that temperature component, you can get that release to sort of match a lot of times what will line up with a plant demand.

So an enhanced efficiency fertilizer is something that has just a little bit more control over how that is being released to the crop.

Dusty Weis

And of course, Ron. I mean, when we could talk about the technology, we can talk about the plant health that's in play here. These are things that we get kind of excited about. But at the end of the day, it's something that's got to make sense from a bottom-line perspective as well. 

So when we're thinking about measuring a return on investment, when we use Loveland Products plant nutrition line, what are some of the factors that we should be considering as growers?

Ron Calhoun

Yeah. So Sally set us up with enhanced efficiency fertilizer. When I talk to people, you know, we might have 100 different plant nutrition products and it can get a little bit overwhelming. And then you have these different technologies that are in there. What I'll tell them is this common thread that goes through all of these things is this idea of nutrient use efficiency, right?

So whether we're doing something that is affecting how the soil interacts with those nutrients, trying to mine nutrition out of the soil, trying to get the plant to assimilate it in a way that is more efficient, that common thread through all of our technology, you want to look to see how we are investing in proprietary plant nutrition products.

It's that nutrient use efficiency thread that goes through all of those things. And so as you mentioned, that return on investment with the area of plant nutrition, obviously we're trying to look at yield a lot of times with that. There are other ways though, where parts of what we might be doing are setting up so that we have success for that next part of the growing season, right?

So if I'm playing a football game, I don't win the game in the first quarter, but it's nice to have a lead, right? And so when we think about something like an in-furrow starter, that in-furrow starter isn't supposed to win the day for us, but man, if we can get uniform emergence, if we can get a few quicker days to canopy closure, if we can set things up for that win, it allows that second, third and fourth quarter to come along. 

So we can’t go to sleep on it, but we don't always do a one-to-one with some of those early activities and how that goes to yield, but it certainly helps.

Sally Flis

Ron, as you talk about kind of through that growing season, what are the different points at which we have Loveland products that can be an intervention either to help continue to support that good crop health that we've established at the beginning of the season or to have maybe correct or serve as an emergency treatment, as we look at some of this, so we can keep driving that efficiency and yield per acre.

Ron Calhoun

And so, Sally, that starts with sitting down with the grower and developing a plan, first off. Because we are so blessed to have so many different technologies, one of the things that I like to focus on is how can we get that technology where it can be a help into your program in a way that doesn't make you change your practices per se, right?

If you have an in-furrow system, we want to be making sure that we're setting you up for having some zinc availability early on in the season when we have cold, wet soils. If you're in a dry situation, what are the opportunities that we have to bring those technologies to your dry portion?

And so whether that's at-plant, whether that's a granular or liquid side-dress opportunity, whether that's in season, where we're doing some tissue testing, coming by, maybe partnering something with a fungicide application, or whether that's after we're done with the crop and we're coming in, we're doing a burn down and we're putting out our granular for the next year we're looking at those times that you're in the field, right?

Is it aerial, is it in the soil? And how can we fit into the things that you're already doing? Those are where we want to look at first. How can we fit into your crop plan and get the most out of it?

Dusty Weis

Ron we’ve certainly heard from growers before that they may be a little bit hesitant to reduce the applied nitrogen rates as they're putting their crop in and fertilizing it throughout the year. Of course, due to nitrogen’s critical impact on crop growth. 

What research or what farm trial data do you have that confirms that a grower can make these nitrogen reductions, pair it with a Loveland product, plant nutrition product, and still receive consistent or increased crop quality and yield?

Ron Calhoun

And so that's going to be a situation where we really want to look at the individual grower and understand where those opportunities might be. You know, I can remember it wasn't that long ago, where we might be talking about two pounds of N per bushel, right? And now we're talking about 1.1 or even one…

So whether it's genetics, whether that's the ability for us to deliver nutrients in a more efficient way, we've already seen some of that happen. So Dusty I think one of the things I come back to is you can't know what you don't measure, right? And so sometimes our memory of something is not quite as accurate.

And when we write things down and we actually know and can look back and track these things, and so we see things, whether it's the Plant Nutrition Institute, Iowa State, American Society of Agronomy, you know, the sorts of data that they publish on nutrient use efficiency from things like nitrogen sources or potassium sources or phosphorus in this can vary widely from 15 to 30%, 40%.

There's so much meat on the bone here… if I can do it with this much nitrogen right now, and I still have 40%, that somehow is not ending up in the plant, it stands to reason that we're going to be able to continue to chip away at that. And that's exactly what we've seen over the last 25 years. 

So I don't know that I'm going to give you a number, Dusty, like, you know, reduce it by five pounds or 25 pounds. But in a lot of instances, as we go out and we look at an 80% replacement, 75% replacement, 60% replacement, it is very surprising to me even where we're not doing the nutrient use efficiency product, we see that we had some headroom and as we bring those other things to play, we can get the same or better yield with an 80% replacement if we're using some of these products and in some cases we can reduce that even more.

But it's not the sort of thing where we'll be able to put a specific number that's going to work for everybody. We're going to need to know more about your program. Maybe you're already doing a lot of things very, very well. You know, I look at some of the high yield folks that we work with. 

They're using Titan on their dry. They're using Accomplish in their furrow. They're doing some of these nutrient mineralization products, three or four different ways within their program to have them achieve yield goals that they didn't think were even possible.

Dusty Weis 

So, wanted to touch on some of the other Loveland Products offerings that are eligible for an incentive payment and our Sustainable Nitrogen Outcomes program. Can you elaborate on the product type and the application method and the optimal timing for a few of those other products?

Ron Calhoun

Yeah. So I think, you know, one of the major products that we would talk about there would be something called BLACKMAX 22. So BLACKMAX 22 is a library of carbon-based substances that we get from a leonardite extraction that's also then fortified with some carbohydrates as well. 

And if that didn't mean anything to you, that's okay. Don't let the eyes roll back in your head. 

But you know, these carbon substances for instance, there are carbon substances that plants create. If I'm a plant growing in a situation where I don't have a lot of iron, I can actually change the chemistry of what I exude off of my roots. And that chemistry I exude off of my roots now would be an organic acid that can actually solubilize some iron to allow me to take up some iron.

Well that cost that plant energy, right? So if we can be providing some substances that can do these sorts of things so that the plant isn't redirecting some of that energy, I can now get that plant to be doing things on its own. 

With our BLACKMAX product, I talk about it usually in the area of physical, chemical and biological.

So from a physical standpoint, we're providing some larger carbon substances in there that can actually be used as things like housing or even CEC. So housing for microbes or CEC for holding on to things like water or nutrients. 

From a chemical standpoint, I am providing some of those shorter chain carbon compounds that can actually do things in the soil, like stimulate mineralization of nutrients and that sort of thing. And then from a biological standpoint, right, we are providing that housing and we're providing that food source for those microbes. Overcoming the shortcomings of your soil performance. 

And so for a period of time we can increase things like water holding capacity, nutrient holding capacity, buffering some salt load. And so these things all come together in this BLACKMAX product.

A lot of times this will be put out in-furrow. We'll see it get mixed with things like UAN and done in a side-dress situation, right? So BLACKMAX is one of our premier products for sort of managing your system and helping everything else to work better. That can be a little bit of a challenge, right, because it's a lot easier for you to get your mind wrapped around something that has an NPK analysis to it.

And so taking some time to understand where these carbon based substances come to play in your system, backing up a little bit, sometimes I'll show people this chart that talks about the very specific things that happen from biochemistry, right? So if we can support that microbial community, we're supporting a lot of these other functions that we're hoping happen. 

Sally Flis

Ron, the Four R’s will always have a special place in my heart, after my time at the Fertilizer Institute. And one of those R’s that we always talk about is the right place. You touched on it a little bit, but as we think about bringing some of these new enhanced efficiency products and practices to the grower, like splitting application or changing placement, what are some of the products that are going to help us make those changes work? 

So if we're going to a side-dress or an in-furrow type treatment of our fertilizer, how can we help protect the plant growth with that closer placement of fertilizer to a root or a crop?

Ron Calhoun

So for us, that BLACKMAX piece, taking that library of carbon substances and we now through different extraction methods, are able to extract different sort of cuts. 

And from that we can get ones that preferentially have more sort of larger carbon substances, ones that are better at buffering, ones that are particularly good to partner with something like potassium.

And so we have this library of maybe 12 of these different extraction methods that we can now start to pair that with nutrition. I mentioned it's a little bit difficult sometimes to get your mind around something that doesn't really have an analysis. So as we start to then come to market with something like BLACK LABEL ZN, that's a high phosphorus plus zinc, that also then has this carbon component in it.

And what we find then is that carbon component, you know phosphorus is the sort of thing that wants to make friends in the soil. And so you get in a situation above seven and that phosphorus wants to make permanent friends with calcium, you get yourself below six and that phosphorus wants to make permanent friends with iron and aluminum. And so as you put that in the soil within a matter of weeks, that phosphorus can essentially disappear as far as the plant is concerned.

When we partner that in our BLACK products like BLACK LABEL ZN, we can actually measure that phosphorus availability for a period of 35, 40 days versus 12 to 15 days. And so we're keeping that phosphorus available to the plant during that critical growth time. And so placement, you know, placement is so important Sally, right. The efficiency of placement is what makes a lot of things look really, really good, right?

If I was going to broadcast something out, it would be economically impossible to make that work for us. But when I can now put a pint of something on and get it down, millimeters or an inch away from that plant. I can get a response that is meaningful and that I can carry through. 

As I go throughout the season, a lot of times we talk about protecting micronutrients in the soil and a term you'll hear used a lot is chelation. Well, that's great, but chelation that gets used for the soil is not the same sort of chelation that you should use from a foliar perspective. And so we want to make sure that these sorts of chelation we're using when we're doing foliar is matched to the type of application that you're doing.

And so we're looking for things like amino acid chelation or citric acid chelation. We have a chelator called NutriSync that is in sort of our premier foliar line and it's all about driving that efficiency through that application method. 

And those things allow us, particularly for things like micronutrients to supplement those, we can create a condition in the soil where the soil as is drinking its nutrients as much as it can.

And then as we have micronutrients and you look at something, for instance, like molybdenum, and you might only need one molecule of molybdenum and for every million molecules of nitrogen that you need in a plant. 

So when we talk about micronutrients, we’re talking about really, really small amounts. I would rather come back and try to supplement with those sorts of things foliar, then try to manipulate my soil conditions in such a way to make sure that that's happening.

It's going to be way easier to kind of deliver the goods that's meaningful for the plant. I don 't want to do something and just pat myself on the back for doing it. I want to do it and have it be meaningful for it.

Dusty Weis

That was Ron Calhoun, the senior marketing manager of Loveland Products. 

And Sally, I think at one point you told Ron that that was your favorite conversation that you'd had in a while. Like we've been working together for a few years here, Sally, and I could tell that you were enjoying that conversation. Your eyes were shining because I think that you and Ron just really speak the same language when it comes to agronomics.

Sally Flis 

Yeah, Dusty, it was a fun podcast to record and a great conversation to have with Ron. And we've had some really great conversations recently with the field team where we're just getting back to talking about good agronomy. And there still is focus and we still have carbon programs. But when we think about what we do every day working with growers in the field, it's finding them the most efficient way to produce on that acre to bring them the most return, and bring the most yield to that acre, which are all things that are going to drive the sustainability and carbon metrics that we're still after, that the downstream is still after. 

And so really just trying to think, how do we get back to that conversation about just doing good agronomy and communicating that good agronomy is going to get us the outcomes that we want to see in the field.

Dusty Weis 

I mean, I can stand back as a layman and appreciate it from a perspective of like, “Yeah, science! Way to go!” But speaking for the rest of us who don't exactly have a PhD in all of this, it's probably good to make sure that you're having this conversation with your crop consultant as well. They're going to be able to advise on what products are best for the practices that you want to implement and keep you up to date on what incentives are available. 

And that is what we’re going to recap, coming up here in a moment, on the FARMSMART Podcast. 

Dusty Weis

This is the FARMSMART Podcast, presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions. I’m Dusty Weis, along with Sally Flis…

And Sally, one of the coolest things that we’ve gotten to cover on this podcast is your ever-expanding incentive offering with Bunge oilseed processing in a handful of geographies across the Midwest.

Sally Flis

It is an exciting and challenging project that we have going with Bunge as we look to not only drive new practices on the ground for things like scope three carbon reporting, but also just record what growers are doing as these opportunities in biofuels are going to start to materialize over the next six to nine months with the tax credits like 45Z. 

There's great opportunities for growers to be directly compensated for either the practices they've already implemented in sustainability or for implementing new sustainability practices around their soybean management in specific parts of the country. 

And in episode 47, we wanted to learn more about one of those regions… so we checked in with Danny Carmony Jr., Nutrien Ag Solutions division manager for Central Indiana.

Danny Carmony

It is a diverse geography. In Northwest Indiana you kind of resemble more of Illinois type soils. And as you move to the East across the Northern part of Indiana, you get into more clay and as you come South as well, so you got a very wide variety of different soil types. And it's not all flat here. 

You get in Southern Indiana, south of I-70 and start creeping, you know, towards Kentucky. There is some hills and hollers in a few spots there, but, we got some really good dirt, you know, very good productive dirt. You got some, some soils that you have to manage and, and you can unlock and grow potential in some of those areas where, you know, that in the north, maybe you got that foot of topsoil that works out pretty good planting crops. 

So, I'm biased. I'm from here, been here a long time. I think agriculture in Indiana, we have to work at it to have good crops and that's what makes our people so special that work for us.

Sally Flis

Danny, I got to be with you recently when you won division of the year for North America for Nutrien Ag Solutions for the second year in a row.

In addition to that, you're also a part of our Bunge Sustainable Soybean program that we launched last year across Indiana, Ohio and Iowa. 

And your team came to meet with us at one of the Bunge plants in Indiana and just super excited about being a part of that, which is great to see and just want to talk through that a little bit, you know, why are you guys excited? What do you see as the opportunities there? And how are growers responding in the field as you bring them opportunities like this one we have with Bunge?

Danny Carmony

Well, first off, I appreciate your help and support in getting that going for us. That's very important. And any time that we have the opportunity to provide growers with new revenue streams. That's what we have to do. That's what we need to do. 

And we talk about sustainability, I say it's more of a buzzword today, but we've got people that have been doing those right practices for a long time. And I always believe that 95 to 99% of our farmers are the best stewards of their ground of what we have the opportunity to try to farm, not just in Indiana, but everywhere. 

And so the Bunge program was an excitement for us because we've had… I've got pockets in Southeast Indiana that's been doing cover crops for 25, 30 years. That practice was already taking off. I got a very good location around Brookville, Indiana. 

I got a great salesman there named Mark McLean that, he's been pushing cover crops since I started, I said, 24 years ago, when I started in the sales, he's one of the first people I looked up to as far as doing things right for customers. And he was big into cover crops. And back then I looked at it like, man, this guy's crazy. What's he talking about putting cover crops out? 

And you know, in the Southern part of the state, no-tilling has become common practice. Back 25 years ago, it wasn't quite there yet. There's just a few people getting on board with just no tilling. So a lot of the practices that we have in place, I look forward to hopefully rewarding those folks for what they've been doing for a long time. 

And with this program, I think we got new practices, obviously it's important, but I think we can also have an opportunity to invest in those growers that have been doing right for a long time.

Dusty Weis

Now, Sally, the program with Bunge, I know, is something that you worked on really, really hard to get that over the finish line there, but maybe can we recap just a little bit how do growers in certain parts of the country stand to benefit from that partnership with Bunge that Nutrien Ag Solutions has put together?

Sally Flis

For sure, Dusty. So that program is designed to help us bring lower carbon intensity beans or carbon insets to Bunge and their downstream. So as we work in Iowa, we're really looking at that carbon intensity biofuel space and how do we impact that. 

But in Indiana and Ohio, we're working on that inset piece. How do we carry that carbon footprint down to the end user, to that product that sits on the shelf in the grocery store?

Or, what I'm excited about in some of these opportunities is in the meal side of that processing, we're taking it to chicken feed or we're taking it to dairy feed. So how do we track that through the animal feed side of things and really start to build these supply chains out to, like you say, Danny, bring more value back to the grower because all these players want to make claims on sustainability and carbon. 

So there's opportunities for growers to sign up in some specific geographies and we can share the sheets for the different geographies in the notes for the episode as to where growers are eligible. Danny, I wanted to circle back to your new practices. What are some of the opportunities you guys have found for combinations of products, tools, practices as you look at those new acres to get engaged in sustainability in a Bunge program?

Danny Carmony

Yeah. So the new acres, obviously, if they're not no tilling or not using cover crop, that's an easy thing, but we got a lot of products in our lineup that we can use in crop to A support the crop and B qualify, for the sustainability side of it. 

The thing I'm excited about is we've tested these products. We are seeing benefits for our grower customers already with them. So now we've got a great, great excuse to go out and say, Hey, let's do the right thing on the sustainability side. 

Also, you're going to use these products that are going to be good for your farm, good for your crops and A put more money in the bank from a from a yield perspective and then, and then B hopefully enhance their revenue stream with sustainability programs like this one.

Dusty Weis

Speaking there with Danny Carmony Jr., Nutrien Ag Solutions division manager for Central Indiana… and Sally, as we’re talking about products, practices and incentive programs… I mean, a lot of farmers will tell you, “I’ve already got enough to keep track of, I don’t need to add more to that”

Sally Flis

Dusty, I don't know… and you'd have to go back through the episodes and figure this out, but I would be surprised if there was an episode where we haven't mentioned data and how critical having good data and having that data in a place where it can be easily accessed for us to report on and find the value is critical to this. With our tools like Agrible, we're able to help growers have the data in a place that we can easily report it back out to these downstream companies and help find the values at a per acre basis for the outcomes they can generate. 

And in episode 46, we talked to Nutrien Ag Solutions Director of Digital Sustainability Ryan Adams about some of the new features they’ve been adding to make Agrible even more useful than it’s been in the past.

Ryan Adams

Agrible’s our digital tool set that we use to collect the data that we require to create our sustainable outcomes. So there's a whole range of different types of sustainability projects we can participate in from a footprint measurement type project through to a scope one or scope three carbon offset, which you've probably heard Sally talk about on the podcast.

So, Agrible is the tool that we use to make sure all that data gets collected in a single spot and is in a form that we can then take it and package it off to different groups to run calculations or assessments on what's happening on the farm or just create an impact assessment of how that operation is performing.

Sally Flis

Ryan, we haven't really covered Agrible's capabilities for almost two years now. And I know we've made a lot of changes and improvements in the interaction. One of them that I think is pretty unique to this platform is that ability for the grower and their crop consultant to interact on the same platform kind of almost at the same time.

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, that was one of our key pieces of feedback, mostly from our field team, but also from growers, is that they're working on a daily basis with their agronomists to make their plans on their farm. And they needed their agronomists to be able to interact with them in these sustainable data sets and be able to put their input into what's happening on the farm. 

And one of the constraints we have with trying to get verified outcomes is that we have to have an explicit audit trail on who put what data into the system, when they put it in, what did they change. And you can't do that if you have multiple people sitting down at the keyboard. 

So to enable that functionality, we expanded use so that our crop consultants and agronomists can log in. They can input the data for what's happening on the farm or field, be able to help fulfill those records that they're already capturing in their field today. And then be able to have the grower come in as well and they can participate as much or as little as they want to fulfill that record and fill in their field story.

Dusty Weis

Ryan, I think that's actually a really brilliant feature to include in the thing. As a small business owner myself, I know that my QuickBooks is the same way where I log in on the regular, or at least I'm supposed to, to keep track of my expenses. And then at the end of the year or throughout the year, my accountant can log into that same account and see what I'm doing in there and verify or fix the things that I messed up. 

And I imagine that all of those are some of the benefits of being able to have your own crop consultant log in and work with the data that you've accumulated in Agrible. We mentioned at the beginning of this, that this is the first time that we've talked about Agrible in more than two years on the podcast here, at least at length. And so that's certainly one improvement that's been made over that time span.

What are some of the other things that have been added on or improved about Agrible over the last two years?

Ryan Adams 

Yeah, one of the biggest things we've improved upon are the types of programs that we can support within the sustainability space. So two years, when you guys would have talked about Agrible, the focus would have been primarily around measurement and footprint assessments. So those types of programs look at what activities are happening on the farm and it assesses the greenhouse gas or ecological footprints of what's happening on that farm. 

And we've taken that and we've gone a few steps further. So now we work in more of the different carbon markets. We've explored soil organic carbon projects and we've expanded Agrible to support that type of project going into both a scope one or scope three. 

And really the difference for that, anyone listening, it's the level of rigor that we have to put the data set through in order to get to verification. It's largely the same data set, which again, we should be picking Sally's brain on exactly how that works. 

But we can support those highly detailed projects for carbon and we can send it to those higher levels of verification and auditing to get those higher level outcomes, which ultimately hold more value for the grower. We've also expanded it to support other types of sustainability programs such as nitrogen management, which is our SNO program that you guys have talked about, I think quite extensively across the podcasts.

Sally Flis

Ryan, a big piece of this at the end is the reporting, not just to auditors or downstream that you've mentioned a little bit, but the reporting back to the growers. So what can a grower, when they complete entering their data into Agrible, expect to see about what they've done on their fields for the year?

Ryan Adams 

One of the pillars of Agrible that's existed is field level reporting for what the farm is doing in a sustainable way on their farm. So we do field level reporting from either Field to Market or Cool Farm Alliance today. It depends on your geography and what's available for the specific crop you're growing on your farm.

But we look at field specific metrics around the nitrogen use that's occurring on your field. We look at the water use efficiency that's occurring on your field and the general greenhouse gas emissions from the practices that you have on that field-specific dataset. 

However, we also look at how that aggregates across your farm and we even compare it to the other farms that are in your local geography growing the same crops. So you can see how your operation is comparing to similar farms which are totally anonymized, so you can't go picking on your neighbors, but it does let you know how your farm performs or how your specific fields perform relative to the pack around you.

Dusty Weis

Well, Ryan, it's certainly a great reminder, not only about the value of data, but the rate at which the world of technology is changing all around us. And certainly, it's worth popping back in to take a look at Agrible again here after everything that's changed over the last two years, so we appreciate you walking us through all of that.

Ryan Adams, Nutrien Ag Solutions Director of Digital Sustainability. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the FARMSMART Podcast.

Dusty Weis

That is going to conclude this episode of the FARMSMART Podcast. New episodes arrive every month, so make sure you subscribe to the FARMSMART Podcast in your favorite app and visit NutrienAgSolutions.com/FARMSMART to learn more.

The FARMSMART Podcast is brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions. Editing by Matt Covarrubias. 

The FARMSMART Podcast is produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses, PodcampMedia.com. 

I'm Dusty Weis, for Nutrien Ag Solutions, thanks for listening.