Missouri Grower Trusts His Nutrien Ag Solutions Crop Consultant
Agronomic Advice and Dyna-Gro Seed Cultivate Farmer's Success
ADVERTORIAL
A passion for driving tractors on the family farm before age 8 started Jay Buckman on his entrepreneurial path. "As soon as I could push the gas pedal, I wanted to drive it," Buckman says. He credits his dad's teachings that fueled his farming passions and business savvy.
Buckman's passion extends to doing things right to boost ROI on every acre. He tried various products but eventually turned to Nutrien and its elite Dyna-Gro(R) Seed hybrids and varieties, as well as advice from the company's Nutrien Ag Solutions(R) crop consultants.
DRIVEN TO GROW
Buckman started farming on his own at age 11 when he took over one of his dad's 60-acre share crop fields in central Missouri near Centralia. He traded his labor to plant all the corn, soybeans and wheat in exchange for the use of equipment, and his dad cosigned his first operating loan.
By age 16, Buckman was sharecropping around 400 acres and managing a Charolais cow-calf herd with a brother. He learned the old ways of row crop farming with lots of tillage and conventional cropping, yet he yearned for more efficiency and sustainability.
His achievements earned his grandmother's trust to cash-rent her farm, pushing his dream closer to becoming a career farmer. Over the next 15 years, Buckman grew his business to 2,600 acres, while shifting to a more sustainable no-till practice with cover crops, variable rate fertility and seeding on 2.5-acre grids.
In 2017, Buckman sought more spraying efficiency and pursued his interest in ag aviation, becoming a helicopter pilot. He leaned into his dad's entrepreneurial spirit and partnered with another pilot to form Buckman Aviation, offering custom applications to area farmers.
"None of this -- the farm or the custom application business -- would be possible without the agronomic and strategic seed knowledge skills and finances available from Nutrien and Dyna-Gro," Buckman says. "Their team of people supplying fertilizers, seed, chemicals, logistics and crop consulting work has been essential to my success."
Today, Buckman farms 3,400 acres, and his spray business has covered 125,000 acres. Due to the size of his operation, he's returned full circle to relying heavily on Nutrien, Dyna-Gro Seed and his Nutrien Ag Solutions crop consultant Trent Tiemann.
TRUSTED ADVISOR
Like many busy farmers who also love their cab (or chopper) seat time, Tiemann understands the value he brings to Buckman is built on trust. "He hires us to solve issues and improve efficiency, ranging from variety choices and variable rate seeding to fertility, seed treatments, micronutrient solutions and cover crop problem solving," Tiemann says.
Buckman leaves his seeding plans up to Tiemann's expertise. "I'm not going to spend nights pouring over seed brochures because Trent's knowledge of seeing varied results from many growers on 100,000 acres far exceeds my ability to examine my 3,000 acres," he says.
Open-mindedness toward input selection that drives economic and environmental sustainability has created numerous win-win scenarios for Buckman Farms. "In the last three years, we've seen Dyna-Gro corn and soybeans be competitive with the other big companies' products at a lower price point, so we're shifting to those numbers that fit our acres," Buckman says.
Such teamwork also pays dividends when products can solve problems. For example, premium seed treatments and spoon-feeding micronutrients from Loveland Products(R) have helped Buckman overcome variable highly erodible land (HEL) soils to deliver healthy, uniform stands.
SUSTAINABLE TEAMWORK
Other agronomic recommendations include lowering soybean populations to increase yield, mixing in longer-maturity corn while maintaining field drydown and using a planter 2x2 fertility mix with sulfur to deliver healthy corn out of a cereal rye cover crop.
"Working with Trent to correctly use the right Nutrien products to solve these problems and create efficiencies are just a few reasons why I've shifted more than 95% of my business to Nutrien," Buckman says.
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