Dear friends and family,
Merry Christmas from the Beck’s PFR team! Boy, has 2019 been one to remember. Our team has had an incredible season, even if it did get off to a rainy start. We pulled together, shuffled some plans and got the job done while also learning a lot about ourselves and how we can help farmers succeed. We are including a few of the highlights here, but we look forward to hosting you at a PFR Insight Meeting next month to tell you the whole story.
Things are always changing with our team — we have two new PFR buildings at El Paso, IL and Effingham, IL, a new plan at the PFR site in Colfax, IA, and the addition of strip-till bars for brand new 2020 studies. Our latest change is the redesign of the PFR Book, which is now more userfriendly than ever before. You can expect to receive yours in the mail in mid- to late- December!
We invite you and yours to join our family of employees for a PFR Insight Meeting in January. We’ve spent many hours together making arrangements for 113 meetings across our marketing area. The 21 speaking teams are prepared, the venues are confirmed, and every caterer is planning to bring their best meals for our guests.
In 2019, we spent time as a team setting our priorities, and we’ve developed a new way to use PFR data to drive on farm decisions. When we look at everything we have learned through PFR with what universities have to say, we discovered that there are five main factors in both corn and soybeans that farmers can focus on to increase yields.
The “Shortlist”
You can tweak the 10 strategies below to achieve higher yields next year. It is time to ask yourself, “what do I plan to do differently next year in order to achieve higher yields?” This list is a great place to start designing your 20/20 vision:
Corn:
- Early planting
- Closing wheels
- Split nitrogen
- Starter on both sides of the row
- Fungicides
Soybeans:
- Row width
- Seed treatments
- Seeding rate
- Planting date
- Fungicides at R3
Many of our PFR Proven™ products and practices fit into one of those ten topics listed above. If you recall from last year, we had 46 PFR Proven products and practices that have provided yield gains and averaged a positive ROI over three years of multi-location testing. We are thrilled to announce 28 new PFR Proven products and practices. You can learn more about each of them in the 2019 PFR Book or by attending our PFR Insight Meetings.
We know that this is a busy time of year, so thank you for reading our Christmas letter. We hope that PFR has brought value to your farm in 2019, and we look forward to serving you in 2020. Merry Christmas from our team to yours. We look forward to seeing you at a PFR Insight Meeting near you after the New Year.
If you would be so kind, please RSVP for your local PFR Insight Meeting so that we can have a place prepared for you. A full list of meetings and locations can be found at BecksHybrids.com/PFRInsight- Meetings.
With all our best,
Your PFR Team