Magazines spring 2018 cover crop smaller | Page 18

Southwest kansas
With the continuation of this dry
pattern across a majority of the
Southwest Territory, producers are
searching for answers to what direction
they should go when planting season
begins. Cotton has continued its rise
in potential acres planted, taking acres
away from the traditional corn/milo/
bean decision. Cotton is a unique crop
in that it needs to be managed carefully,
for its vegetative growth. Recently,
we have added some new personnel
on our east and west ends that have
experience in scouting cotton. We want
to help make producers new to cotton
as successful as possible with the correct
management decisions.
The territory has been busy for the
last couple of months pulling grid
samples, to help customers make more
sound decisions for their operation.
Grid sampling has so many advantages,
especially when the markets aren’t in
our corner. They can help us with seed
selection and rate, as well as helping
make more firm decisions of what crop
they should or shouldn’t plant do be
as successful as possible. Once grids
have been completed, utilizing that data
along with ‘as applied data’ we can help
with your data management to find the
most profitable fields so we know where
to push the envelope more to obtain a
better profit margin.
Eastern colorado
It is starting to gradually act more like
spring. There are some very nice warm
days, but still some very cold ones. It has
been a fairly dry winter since the rain in

October, with just a few spots getting
some decent moisture out of rain or
snow this winter. We went into the
winter with decent moisture, but the
weather has not done much to build
any profile. T21 had a series of six
customer meetings over the month of
February. We had 130 customers or
potential customers in attendance.
Fred Vocasek did a soil sample
interpretation and visual lab tour.
Due to scheduling conflicts, Branden
Thayer did Fred’s presentation at
McCook. There were presentations
done on the value of grid soils. STEPS
did a run-through on their products
and data services. Some meetings had
outside speakers in addition to these
topics. Meetings concluded with a
meal.
The information was well received,
and there has been some business
generated from those presentations.
Field work is gradually starting as
the soil unfreezes. The first thing up
will be finishing soil samples. Then
we’re getting to the winter wheat and
alfalfa monitoring to get fertilizer and
herbicides applied.
Staff continues to push for
additional business and getting
undecided clients committed for next
year. There has been a fair amount
of interest in ProfilerPlus with good
subsequent sales. We have also
got some decent activity with the
CropView aerial imagery product.
central nebraska
Staff from Territory 31 represented
Servi-Tech at the Neligh Farm and
Expo March 6-7. This was our last
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opportunity to promote our crop
service products before the cropping
season begins.
We had some success taking the
precision technology, aerial imagery
and remote soil sensing to our
customers.
Grid and composite work
orders continue to come in. Our
staff have been attacking that
service with a sense of urgency
now that most of the frost is out.
We are also at the tail end of our
recruiting process and have had good
success at the University of Nebraska
at both the Kearney and Lincoln
campuses.
Eastern nebraska
We are certainly thankful to see
glimpses of spring here in eastern
Nebraska. The hard soil freeze has
made winter sampling a challenge,
even with the probe trucks.
With just under a month before
planters start to roll in the southern
part of our territory, quite a few
members of the team are quickly
finalizing those samples. We also
have a smaller pod of guys working
on SmartBox planter calibrations
for AmVac, working to remove any
surprises that might arise for growers
once they get hooked up.
We continue to work to grow
partnerships with our cooperative
owners in the territory with
customized soil sampling and also
customized scouting packages. We are
excited about these opportunities for
our owners and for the growers they
represent.

The Cover Crop