Covid-19

Quarterly Newsletter: May 2020

May Newsletter Banner Image

MAY

Continual Safety and Service

Securing Seeds

Control Your Yield

 

Owner's Update

Liqui-Grow is a family-owned business (62 years) focused on serving its employees and Midwest farm customers. We are proud to maintain an employee management team that welcomes input and takes quick action when called upon, especially during these unusual times. Every spring we work to keep a safe and secure work environment, but this spring we had to up our game to meet the new challenges.

The safety of and service to each and every Liqui-Grow customer was considered with changes we made this spring in providing products/services to them. We want to thank them for their support. We also want to thank each and every employee for their support and extra effort this spring to keep our teams safe and viable during this busy spring season.

As a family-owned business that is not handcuffed by any bureaucratic processes or distractions, we are able to make decisions that are sensitive, nimble and timely recognizing the impact not only on our employees and customers, but us directly.

As we enter this next phase of our growing crop, both customers and employees can be assured that we are being very thoughtful in balancing many needs for creating future successes in 2020.

 

Thanks so much for your support.

-Scott, Hov & Bruce Tinsman

photo of owners


 

Securing Seeds

photo of Katie Hess
Katie Hess
Seed & Seed Treatment Manager

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"We were extremely proactive as a company this spring, and took seed delivery to our locations sooner than usual to try and secure our customers’ orders and requests."

I am 33 years old and I’ve been reminded over and over again the past 2 months of what unprecedented times we are living in and we’ve never seen this, hopeful to not see it again in my lifetime. It seems like each generation gets to see something no one else has ever seen. It’s hard to point out positives right now, but here goes.

We were extremely proactive as a company this spring, and took seed delivery to our locations sooner than usual to try and secure our customers’ orders and requests. We also want to thank our customers for taking delivery of seed products sooner than usual. If there’s one thing I’ve learned working with farmers all these years, it is, they will adapt to unforeseen events.

Securing your seed for your orders isn’t as easy as it seems, sometimes we have to “beg, borrow or steal” to fill those orders and this was no different than any other year, but with a lot more social distancing rules to follow. If you see me at a location or field day later this year, ask me more about this!

I say all this to remind you as the salesmen ask you what your plan or ideas are for next year, they are trying to do their best in securing supply for you. Thanks for all of the support this spring, and I’m looking forward to walking your fields with the salesmen this summer!


 

Control Your Yield

photo of Dr. Jake Vossenkemper
Dr. Jake Vossenkemper
Agronomy Research Lead

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It’s wise to focus on the metric you can control, which is yield."

No doubt COVID-19 has caused recent commodity prices to soften and it’s impossible to know what these developing circumstances might do to the future commodity price landscape. What we do know, however, is that we have very little control over crop prices, but we do have some control over crop yield. Given the two metrics together control gross revenue, it’s wise to focus on the metric you can control, which is yield.

Given these facts, I would double down on making wise agronomic decisions. You obviously had a well thought out crop production plan prior to the epidemic that would result in optimum yields/returns and I see no reason to deviate from that. In other words, if you and your Liqui-Grow salesman had planned to make a sidedress application to corn or had planned on making a foliar fungicide application to soybean or corn, those plans were made based on sound agronomics and not on an emotional reaction due to the present pandemic.

While I am not an economist, I follow closely what ag economists are saying and there are a few reasons why prices may rebound. Ethanol consumption while still historically low is making a steep rebound. Cheap US corn means that we are increasingly competitive on the world market which may incentivize China and other export markets to buy US corn. Moreover, some ag economists believe that corn planting intentions are inflated meaning the 2020 crop may not be as large as the USDA is forecasting at this moment. So there is hope for optimism and you will need yield to capitalize on higher grain prices this fall/winter should that materialize.


 

Newsletter Archive - COMING SOON