Kyle Meece, agronomy manager at United Prairie, started as a machine operator when the company had four locations. Today, they’ve grown to 14, and Meece also discusses how the team and the technology they use has changed.
“How I did business 17 years ago versus how I’m looking at what we’re going to do going forward is going to be different. Open mindedness is important, and I hope growers continue to see that. I hope agronomists see that and they’re willing to adopt change, be open to change and figure out how to implement it from an industry-wide standpoint,” Meece says.
Last year, his team had 950 acres of side by side drone application trials, which supported the decision to add four more this year.
The team is also adding a John Deere See and Spray Ultimate machine to their fleet, which Meece says it an effort to answer the multitude of questions of how the technology fits into their agronomy services. Meece says going into the 2024 spray season, he’s looking to find answers to a lot of questions for how the technology fits into their operations.
Learning from 2023, Meece says it reinforces understanding the foundation of agronomy and the architecture of plant. For example, how corn can go without a rain for 52 days, and still emerge.
