DuPont Pioneer collaborates with eight universities to enhance grower productivity, sustainability

DuPont Pioneer has recently announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration with eight Midwestern land-grant universities through their respective soil nutrition management experts to help growers more sustainably maximize crop yields.

Through support offered by Pioneer, this collaboration will pull together expertise in different soil nutrition areas and generate field data to improve crop models used to enhance more efficient production practices. Each university will be able to significantly expand its field data collection and analysis.

The universities involved in this effort are Iowa State University, North Dakota State University, Purdue University, the University of Illinois-Urbana, the University of Minnesota, the University of Missouri, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Each university has a three-year agreement with Pioneer.

“We’re proud to be involved in this unprecedented public-private collaboration with these prestigious universities,” said Steve Reno, DuPont Pioneer vice president, regional business director – U.S. & Canada. “We believe this collaboration will result in high-tech field modeling with crop and soil sensing that will be second-to-none in the agricultural industry. Growers stand to benefit greatly from this effort through improved productivity, profitability and environmental stewardship.”

Targeting Nitrogen Management; Offered through Encirca(SM) Services

The collaboration centers on nitrogen management practices; nitrogen is applied as fertilizer to corn fields to help increase yields. Pioneer agronomists estimate that farmers in the U.S. Corn Belt currently lose $50 to $60 an acre as a result of nitrogen management inefficiencies - with much greater losses occurring during heavy rains.

Results of data collection and research from this collaboration offer opportunities to improve crop nitrogen management, both in pre-plant and in-season fertilizer applications. This advanced solution will significantly narrow the nitrogen profit loss gap by giving farmers a new ability to plan, monitor and adapt nitrogen management practices to maximize profitability and improve environmental quality in the face of climatic uncertainty.

The field data generated through this collaboration will enhance on-farm nitrogen management for farmers, as well as Encirca(SM) services, the new whole-farm decision solutions offering from Pioneer.

“DuPont Pioneer is excited to begin enrolling growers in EncircaSM Yield this summer,” said Reno. “Encirca Yield is our new input management offering that helps growers use their data, combined with these new models and the advice of an Encirca Certified Services Agent, to make real-time decisions that impact their productivity, profitability and sustainability.”

Further information is available on nitrogen, data management and field modeling in a Nitrogen Management Service technical paper prepared by Pioneer.