Steps To Take Now To Maximize Every Dollar Next Growing Season

Mar 23, 2017

From United Soybean Board News www.unitedsoybean.org

Champions are made in the offseason. And so are higher profits.

Although the crop is out of the ground, it’s never too early to start planning for the next growing season. Winter is the time to look back and assess your operation while preparing plans for the future.

These strategic plans could lead to high returns in the fall.

Five steps to take now for a more profitable 2017

1. Data Analysis - Data analytics can help determine what areas of the field performed well and the underlying cause of any deviations in yield. Compile data this winter to set reference points of field performace to better prepare for next year.

2. Adding and Testing Technology - Incorporating new technology can aid in almost every task on the farm. Familiarize yourself with the technology now to ensure it will be ready to perform in the spring.

3. Weed Management - What you do in the short term can have an effect in the long term when it comes to weed management. Develop a strategic weed plan now to eliminate herbicide-resistant weeds and reduce money spent on unnecessary applications.

4. Fertilizer Application - Applying fertilizer is an investment and the costs add up. Study your soil fertility history and set up a two-to-four-year game plan.

5. Review Revenue and Expenses - Looking to cut back on unnecessary spending can be beneficial, especially when commodity markets are low. Carefully consider high land-lease contracts or hold off purchasing that new piece of equipment.

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Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”