NUTRIEN Ag Solutions agronomists and senior management gathered at The Vines Resort in the Swan Valley last week as part of an internal industry training event.
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In addition to product updates and strategy planning ahead of the 2023 growing season, it provided a perfect opportunity for the agronomy team to meet Nutrien Ag Solutions newly-appointed managing director Australia, Kelly Freeman.
Mr Freeman replaces Rob Clayton who was recently seconded to the company's global operations.
Nutrien farm services agronomist Tom Shaw said get togethers such as this were invaluable in extending the team's product knowledge.
"There are always new products and practices that are being developed by industry, or that we are seeking to refine ourselves, that we expect our team to be able to extend to growers," Mr Shaw said.
"We had all the big crop protection (ag chem) suppliers in to talk about their products and the work they've been doing to support those products including Adama, Syngenta, FMC, Bayer, BASF and Nufarm.
"A focus on fertiliser and nutrition included a review of our internal nutrition trial work, discussion on maximising value from fertiliser spend in the context of historically high prices, and a presentation from (DPIRD soil scientist) Craig Scanlan, who is finishing a big project looking at crop nutrition in the context of the bigger yields and changed farming practices of the past decade.
"Our internal sustainability expert Kirsty Smith briefed us on current Nutrien projects relating to sustainability and also presented on understanding the opportunities and risks related to both soil carbon and onfarm emissions."
Mr Shaw said via a panel forum, senior agronomists discussed their lessons learned from 2022, their view on current products and practices and how they plan to apply them in 2023.
At the other end of the spectrum CBH Group senior specialist agronomist Steve Tilbrook discussed the risks of late pesticide application for pesticide accumulation in grain.
Rounding out the two days, one of Nutrien's younger agronomists presented a case study on the work he'd done with a grower to develop a sensible approach to variable rate fertiliser application and senior human resources director Shelley Nolan outlined Nutrien's increased focus on training for graduate agronomists.
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