Soybean treater highly satisfied with performance

A farmers’ cooperative in Illinois, USA, employs an On Demand system from Bayer to treat soybean seed. The benefits reported include more uniform seed treatment, faster seed throughput, improved product stewardship, operator-friendly elimination of manual slurry mixing, and optimized inventory management.

Mark Orr is General Manager of AG View FS, a farmers’ cooperative headquartered in Princeton, Illinois in the U.S. Midwest. AG View FS deploys the On Demand system to treat soybean seed, and Mark is highly satisfied with its performance and the benefits it has brought to both the cooperative and to the growers.

For more than 75 years, AG View FS has been striving to be the best agriculture supplier and partner in its trade territory. Nowadays, the cooperative’s portfolio includes agronomic and energy products, services and leading-edge technology resources. Some years ago, AG View FS invested in an On Demand system from Bayer to treat soybean seed. Mark Orr explains why he is so satisfied with its performance: “The speed of this system is much faster than our old system so we can get through seed a lot quicker. Quality control is just excellent – the seeds are treated in a very uniform manner with the On Demand system and that has greatly improved the quality of the product we’re providing to our farmers. Then there’s the safety side – our employees don’t have to handle the chemicals anymore. They can just snap the preloaded bulk chemical kegs containing the specific products for seed application onto the machine and don’t have to do anything else. So it’s a very seamless process today, whereas before it was much more hands-on. And, it flows so much better.”

How can the On Demand system make such a difference? SeedGrowth provides a unique, integrated solution for more efficiently treating soybean seeds downstream with the On Demand system. Nearly 80% of soybeans are treated downstream, and growers usually have their seeds treated the day before or on the day of planting. The On Demand system is the ideal solution because it is the first and only fully automated seed application system developed to make treating seeds easier, more accurate and more efficient. The On Demand system is a key component in the quick turnaround of soybeans, because it can treat up to 2,000 pounds (907 kg) per minute.

The On Demand system allows operators to select from multiple, pre-loaded recipes via a user-friendly touch screen. Through the use of pre-loaded bulk chemical kegs, this closed system eliminates slurry mixing by hand, helping to ensure that SeedGrowth products are applied with greater precision and in accordance with seed size and weight. The system has been designed with product stewardship and convenience in mind. By ensuring application consistency, the On Demand system delivers improved seed integrity and product stewardship, for example, by controlling dust abrasion both in the commercial downstream treatment environment and at the grower level.

The On Demand system accurately documents applications to each batch of seed so a grower knows exactly what is on each batch. Moreover, the system can be programmed for automatic reordering of supplies, so the seed treater enjoys optimized inventory management. The On Demand system also offers business-to-business Internet communications between Bayer Crop Science, seed company partners and seed dealers, as well as providing remote troubleshooting with automatic communication between the On Demand system and Bayer Crop Science service professionals if any issues are detected.

Seed treaters using the On Demand system can be confident they are providing their customers with seeds that are not only treated quickly but also uniformly and accurately, as Mark Orr’s experience at AG View FS in the U.S. Midwest has shown.