Growing up on a 1,000-acre crop farm near Franklin, Minnesota, I learned at an early age the basics of corn and soybean production. Some of the land we farmed was on the flood plain of the Minnesota River where each spring brought in a new “flush of weeds” to identify and pull by hand in the soybean fields.

One day, I asked my father why we had to pull these weeds from the bean fields and not from the corn. His reply was that we sprayed the corn to kill the broadleaf weeds in the corn, but since the soybeans were also a broadleaf plant, they would never be able to come up with a chemical that would kill the weeds and not the beans. I remember thinking back then that someday they would.

I went on to attend the University of Minnesota where I earned a B.S. Degree in Soil Science. I began my agronomy sales career in the old Land O' Lakes-Felco system before moving to Buffalo and starting with Centra Sota in 1985. Over nearly 30 years I have seen a lot of changes in not only our cooperative, but also in the agronomy practices that are used in the farms across our trade area. We all have become better stewards of the land and we will need to continue to look to new technologies to be profitable, as well as to feed the growing population. This forward thinking is truly evident in our motto at Centra Sota – “The partner you can count on, providing real solutions for today and tomorrow.”