From the west coast to Wisconsin and through the central corn belt, Cody Steinkamp helps ag retailers outfit their dry fertilizer warehouses to serve customers today and into the future.
Everything from tenders, spreaders, receiving equipment, in-plant equipment, rotary blender and declining weight systems, he says Doyle is focused on help retailers store and move fertilizer products.
“Everything just keeps getting bigger and faster because of the amount of fertilizer that’s going out of the doors nowadays,” he says.
One change since he joined Doyle seven years ago has been the steep increase in variable rate applications and therefore straight material vs. blended.
“That’s been a huge swing in our business, and it’s about asking questions of how much straight material a retailer will be doing vs. blended material because that’s really taken into account with what we recommend for blenders, tenders and receiving,” he says.
Other key questions include:
- Does the site need to be NTEP legal?
- What is the site’s plan for micronutrients?
- How much impregnation of products need to be accounted for?
- Will any powder products be used?
“It’s not a one-size-fits-all for everybody,” he says. “So we try to ask the right questions to make we are providing the right equipment. We try to plan out for at least 50 years.”
He says pairing the machinery and equipment with technology has brought higher capacities and efficiencies, including the ability to have loads pre-mixed and ready before tenders arrive on site.
Across the geographies he works, it’s important to note how different the service radius can be from one area to another.
“in the Midwest, there might be three or four plants in a small town,”he says. “But on the West Coast, they might have a service for radius of 40 to 50 miles plus.”
