As the owner of 640 Ag, a CarbonWorks distributorship in Canada, Bryce Walker understands that you have to keep the bottom line in mind when pitching agronomy products to farmers. In this article, Bryce dives deeper into how to trial products on a farm and earn a farmer’s trust. 

On-Farm Product Trials

As far as trialing products on the farm, every farm is different, of course. A lot of guys will do forty, fifty acres, split a field, or add a product to one tank mix, something like that. Trials generally have to be done in a way that won’t slow the operation down—no one is going to want to take time out of spring planting to mess with something too much. A lot of us are familiar with AgRevival and the work that they do. A lot of time and effort goes into studying anything, and you need that investment if you want to learn anything valuable. 

The same goes with an on-farm trial. Unless the farmer is really invested in it and really wants to do it, there’s no point in trying. A lot of times, we’ll make them pay for the product and then, if they give us actual data after harvest, we’ll pay them back for the product. You can’t give stuff away. 

Sometimes we’ll do a trial on one farm and you’ll have a neighbor saying, “well, that will only work over there” even though their ground is literally across the road. It is what it is, I guess. The biggest thing is to just drive home the education on what we’re doing and how we’re trying to help. In other words, be open and honest. 

Introducing CarbonWorks with CetaiN

At the end of the day, mother nature calls the shots and our farms’ success is in God’s hands. But as I alluded to already, I don’t like to overpromise and underdeliver. Managing expectations is key to all new product introductions. I want to be an open book. We don’t want to set it up that we’re going to change someone’s life. Instead, I start with the data and the story behind the data. George has done a ton of studies with Nate at AgRevival, he’s done studies with Beck’s Hybrids, and we’ve played with stuff across Canada with different farmers and labs. With CarbonWorks, we can see what the products are doing to the soil and the soil fertility before a farmer even uses them because we’ve done that background research. 

Every farmer uses nitrogen, so I usually start with CetaiN on a farm. The product has always performed well in farm trials and the third-party trials CarbonWorks has done. It’s been consistent. And since everybody depends on nitrogen to grow a crop, a nitrogen stabilizer is an ideal place to start when introducing CarbonWorks to a farm. 

From the FCLG: As detailed on the CarbonWorks website, the carbon, hydrogen energy, and oxygen compounds found in CetaiN work together to stabilize nutrients, feed soil microbes, cleanse the soil of salts and harmful heavy metals, and promote increased root growth. Learn more about how CetaiN works: Enhance Your Nitrogen with CarbonWorks CetaiN.

My process is pretty simple: I present the product, describe how it works, and relay the data. It’s a good story, because CetaiN will help your nitrogen stick around and provide a farm with more ROI on something they’re already applying. CetaiN has a lot of oxygen and carbon in it that helps with the nitrogen conversion and holding the nitrogen in the soil. In fact, we’ve done lab studies where, after adding CetaiN to UAN, we’ve reduced the volatilization in the cup by up to twenty-two percent. You can see how it works with the smell test: 

Watch: A simple smell test can determine if your nitrogen will be around long enough for your plants to use it.

The carbon’s holding those nitrogen ions to the soil and its allowing the plants to take them up as needed while invigorating the soil biology, making it more active, with a lot of energy and oxygen. CetaiN helps create more biodiversity in the soil rather than killing the biodiversity as inhibitors do.  

Many Reasons for Leading with CetaiN

Up here in Canada, there’s a lot of pressure on nitrous oxide emissions. That’s the government saying that it’s one of the greenhouse gases that are going to put us in a global warming tailspin. So the government is spending a lot of dollars on research into how slurries can be better managed and how our nitrogen can be better managed. Some of the new studies coming out are saying that we’re only using fifty percent of the applied nitrogen. 

That’s why both CarbonWorks and 640 Ag have joined Fertilizer Canada—we want to be a part of those conversations with CetaiN because we believe it checks all the boxes and doesn’t harm the soil biology. There are government programs where you can get X amount of your nitrogen inhibitor paid for; we’re totally ROI drive up here as you are in the United States, but if the government is offering to help with paying for a nitrogen stabilizer, guys are more apt to use it, right? We’ve already proven that CetaiN can cut emissions—that’s essentially what the smell test shows. 

From Land to Lagoon

Once we’ve introduced CetaiN to a farm, we generally follow Replenish, which is a water conditioner with no salt in it, but with a high molecular oxygen concentration. The data on it shows that it brings the spray solution into plants faster. Guys are generally really open to it because everyone knows that your spray water has a dramatic effect on your tank chemistry. It also shows results quickly—you can see it on the pH and the OP levels in your water immediately and then, if you catch it at the right time, you can see how much more efficient your spray pass was. 

Renew is another product that we’re rolling with up here, working with hog and dairy producers. No one likes to spend money on a manure pit, but we have guys that have seen good results with Renew. It’s a product that helps improve the slurry’s nutrient density and actually makes it more friendly to the soil, more neutral. Again, it’s all about promoting balance in our agricultural systems. If we can get the balance right, the soil biology will be able to work better, we’ll create a better environment for the crop, which eventually means more yield. 

We do sell some other micronutrient products at 640 Ag, but our time is mostly tied up with CarbonWorks. We’re trying to put the products in front of as many people as possible through grower meetings and farm shows. 

Find Reputable Advice and Grow More

There’s more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to agronomy. If you’re looking for agronomy advice, I would find an independent agronomist outside of the commodity realm. Look for someone who is interested in helping your farm prosper. Do you trust the guy? Does he have your best interests in mind? Everybody has different angles when it comes to agronomy, and what works for one farmer might not work for the farm across the road. 

There are definitely different ways to look at agronomy. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to profitability. For me, if guys are happy with their programs and they’re making money, that’s the main thing.