London, Ohio, USA
September 23, 2021
Meristem Crop Performance is offering a first of its kind soybean replant program – part of Meristem’s continuing effort to treat farmers fairly and bring more innovative thinking to the crop input supply chain. Mitch Eviston, Meristem Founder and CEO, announced the offer today during the Farm Science Review in London, Ohio.
“It’s time to give farmers a way to save money at the farm gate by buying their beans naked and customizing their seed treatment for a much lower cost,” explains Eviston, “We had an outstanding pilot program and look forward to reaching many more farmers for the 2022 season,” He says it’s Meristem’s continuing effort to disrupt an agricultural supply chain that often gouges farmers with hidden costs.
“Many times, when buying seed, farmers face a big company bundled-up, black-box shell game where the value of germplasm, traits and seed treatment are hard to figure,” says Eviston. By creating a replant program that fits with a seed company’s untreated or “naked” soybean policy, he says, Meristem will bring savings to more growers with RACEREADY Complete, Meristem’s premium seed treatment product. “We can save farmers money and give them more choices, but to do that, they must demand their soybean seed suppliers sell them seed without treatment,” he says. “This replant offer will make it even easier to move away from suppliers that limit farmer options.”
Lewis Stearns, agronomist with Progressive Crop Solutions, Fostoria, Ohio, says buying naked beans and getting downstream seed treatment allows farmers to solve specific challenges brought by local soils and weather. “This past year our planting conditions changed, and we lacked some key seed treatment ingredients that would have helped us.”
Stearns, who leads a team of agronomists consulting in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, says freshness of seed treatment is also an issue. “I can tell you that inoculant applied on seed five days ago will certainly work better than stuff put on 180 days ago.”
Benefits of seed treatments are clear, according to The American Seed Trade Association (ASTA). They report a 3.6 percent yield benefit in treated soybeans versus un-treated and university studies show adverse planting conditions often pushing that number beyond 5-bushel/acre or more. At $10/bushel, that represents an income difference of $17,000 - $50,000 across a thousand acres.
Meristem adds savings on top of those yield benefits with quality seed treatment customized for more local field conditions, at the same time making the price transparent so producers can evaluate the yield advantage and ROI on their own. Meristem’s unique replant offer is being underwritten by agricultural insurance specialists Vane Ag, led by insurance and business executive Don Preusser, formerly President of John Deere Insurance Company and member of the senior management team of John Deere Credit.
“It’s our mission at Vane to think creatively, apply our underwriting expertise and leverage the latest technology to help manage risk in production agriculture,” says Preusser, Vane’s President. “We are excited to work closely with passionate partners like Meristem to apply innovative risk management solutions to solve unique risk exposures for farmers and agribusinesses.”
“Customizing your seed treatment locally can be a major cost saving and we’re making it easy for growers to change,” says Rob McClelland, Meristem President and CMO. “By buying naked beans and treating with Meristem’s RACEREADY Complete™, farmers can treat the same beans for much less and save up to $18,000 on 2,000 acres of soybeans.”
About Meristem Crop Performance Group, LLC
Meristem Crop Performance Group, LLC (www.meristemag.com) is one of the fastest-growing, innovative crop input companies in America. Meristem sources, formulates, and delivers high-quality crop inputs to farmers at the least cost possible, with savings up to 30 percent. Farm businesses that work with Meristem will maximize crop performance, significantly reduce cost of production, improve return on net assets, and diversify income while gaining faster access to new technologies. Meristem is led by a world-class team of ag professionals passionate about creating a more efficient crop input supply channel for the benefit of the American Farmer.
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