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Launched 5 years ago by TIMAC AGRO Hungária, the Plant Nutrition Management Programme YIELD SERVICE has several objectives: to change the usual practices of supply, to feed soils according to specific needs, to improve yields and to help to create environmentally friendly nutrient management. This programme not only affects the quality and quantity of the crop in a given year, but also the soil itself, and thus the future results. This initiative also responds to the Hungarian government’s request for farmers to perform soil analysis every 5 years.

YIELD at our customers SERVICE

This Programme has many benefits. It offers a complete service, from sampling to design, to establish a precise budget plan. This plan has there by been enabling share costs of nutritional supplementation between the analysis tables and it reducing the risk of environmental pollution by avoiding unnecessary applications. Since 2014, the subsidiary has been providing such services for nearly 400,000 hectares in Hungary.

This service also allows for a personalized approach thanks to a realistic plan established during meetings with our experts and producers. Based on measurement and professional calculation, farmers can follow each step of work transmitted in real time by telephone or email. If farmers had been analyzing their soil for a long time, the data was rarely used. Now, the data collected and the results can be verified and communicated.

“Since I joined the program, my use of fertilizer has been more focused. In each area, I release sufficient preparation and quantity for the plant with the given soil conditions. For me, the main motivation was profitability and I could achieve higher yields. “

Zsolt Szabó, Production Partner in Baranya

YIELD SERVICE: for a differentiated application

Whether it is a nitrate sensitive farm, traditional or precision, this Programme includes several elements to meet the legal requirements of the Hungarian government. First, it is the soil sampling for analysis in an accredited laboratory partner of TIMAC AGRO Hungária. Then comes the detailed and descriptive diagnoses for classifying the limiting factors for soils. These data allow to analyze the cost of nutrient intake. It is then in the form of tables that soil maps are inventoried to allow a professional consultation by our TSAs to give the best advice on the costs of service and to propose the adapted products.

Thanks to YIELD SERVICE and its optimized nutrient application technology, our partners have been able to increase the quality of their yields and have achieved higher revenues. In 2016, a new branch was born: YIELD SERVICE +. This specialized version of the program is provided for precision farming technology and will go even further in the observations with, in particular, the use of aerial imagery. The planning (and the diagnosis) is not only on filed level but on homogeneous units called management zones.

Learn more: http://www.timacagro.hu/yield-service/mi-az-a-yield-service

Olive growing is closely linked to Mediterranean culture. Spain, the world’s leading producer
of olive oil and table olives, cultivates 57% of its olive trees on dry land and 42% on irrigated land. For irrigated land, 46,410 ha are fertigated 10 or 12 times per year. This fertilisation programme is monitored by 65 of our TSAs who visit over 500 ha of olive plantations each year.

For the last 4 years, 16 TIMAC AGRO España TSAs have been closely collaborating with 22 technicians from the company DCOOP. Our teams jointly deploy the strategy developed by TIMAC AGRO: the TSAs provide advice on plant nutrition to farmers and the DCOOP technicians concentrate on quality control and harvest estimates. Our actions have resulted in renewed plant vigour, enhanced fat content (+22%), and increased olive size and weight (+8%). A promising step for our Spanish TSAs!

Each phase of the vegetative cycle of the crop benefits from a specific input:

1. After the harvest and during the winter vegetative dormancy, our products improve germination and the development of more productive branches. In March, we recommend foliar application products.
2. In the spring, we improve flowering.
3. In the summer, we increase the fattening of the olive with biostimulants.
4. Between June and September, we work on fruit ripening and fat yields.

For the fertigated crops, we use liquid products in the germination, growth and ripening phases, as a substitute for granular fertilisers.

TIMAC AGRO Polska cooperates with farmers whose crops are very varied: wheat, corn, rapeseed, sugar beet, apples or berries. Crop area is very diverse, with farms ranging from 5 ha to 3500 ha.

Until now, the company has only been doing laboratory research. Łukasz Peroń, Marketing Director at TIMAC AGRO Polska, wishes to pursue other approaches, complementary to those existing for their studies: “We have been using the traditional laboratory for soil analysis. It was the only method available. Everyone knows and trusts it. On the other hand, the waiting time is much longer than if we use a soil scanner”. For him, time plays a crucial role: “As a company, we naturally invest in proven new technologies. We like the scanner because the search is very fast. In a few minutes we can have a basic analysis and show the report to the farmer (or send it to him). On this basis, we can improve our advice and increase responsiveness to farmers. The scanner is also a very practical device because it is easy to use and carry”.

Soil analysis directly at the farm

After the first telephone contact with the customer, TIMAC AGRO Polska advisers meet him directly on his farm. During this visit – and thanks to the scanner – they can analyse its soil. The company currently employs 115 TSAs who advise farmers to improve the yield of their soil. At the meeting in the farmer’s field, they can quickly analyse the nutrient content of the soil and show them in minutes the results of the research. With the scanner, it is possible to be in the field and have a report on his phone ready to be presented to the client.

An innovative product on the Polish market

It is in 2018 that the scanner made its appearance in Poland and TIMAC AGRO Polska was one of the first companies to use it. Since innovation is part of the company’s DNA, this investment made sense, as Marcin Wieremczuk, Product Manager at TIMAC AGRO and scanner user, points out: “Farmers are very interested in the scanner because it is a novelty that has only been put on the market recently. Our experience shows that the results are very similar to the traditional laboratory”.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/2Gey1ZQ  

On Thursday 20 December, a technical day on potatoes was organised by the Nord-Pas de Calais agricultural council. 300 people took part in the event, including technicians, regional distributors and about 250 potato producers.

The Centre Mondial de l’Innovation Roullier (CMI) was invited to attend this technical meeting to share its expertise in plant nutrition and, in particular, on issues regarding phosphorus nutrition in potatoes.

The day began with Loic Piat, the agricultural manager for McCain France and Belgium, presenting the good results obtained using Top Phos on potatoes. Then, two CMI Development Managers, Nicolas Juignet and Pierre-Grégoire Vimon, informed the audience about the issues related to phosphate fertilisation and then more specifically about its impact on tuberisation and potato production.

Our collaboration with this agribusiness company on the issue of phosphorus began in 2011 and has made it possible to conduct field experiments over the course of the last six years on the Innovator potato variety in northern France. The significant involvement of local TIMAC AGRO teams throughout this time and in preparation for this event has been a contributing factor to its success (Regional directors: Thomas Château, Pierre Démolin, Ana Claudia Tamba).

This was a very fruitful event and has increased potato producers’ confidence in our field experts, our TSAs and TIMAC AGRO solutions. Furthermore, it also helps to highlight the CMI’s expertise in Plant Nutrition.

McCain Foods Limited, founded in 1957, is a Canadian business specialising in processing and distributing food products. It is known primarily as a producer of frozen chips. The company McCain Foods, whose head office is located in Toronto in Canada, employs about 20,000 people in 55 factories worldwide. It processes, on average, 12 million tonnes of potatoes per day for different markets. With regard to chips, the company represents a third of all production worldwide. 

Founded in 1957 by two brothers, Harrison and Wallace McCain, who invented the process for freezing fried potatoes. The company is not listed on the stock exchange; all shares belong to the founding family.

From March 24 to 26, the 3^rd Agriculture and Climate Change Conference will take place in Budapest, Hungary. International researchers will present their works focusing on the impact of climate change on crop production and propose solutions to maintain and increase crop productivity in this new context.

Various topics will be discussed, like effects of CO₂ on plant growth, abiotic stress, plant-microbe interactions and climate change, the new crops developed for a new climate… and many other subjects in order to prepare crop production of tomorrow.

Our project managers Mustapha Arkoun, Nitrogen Expert, and Seyed Abdullah Hosseini, Potassium Expert, will present their scientific results on the effects of abiotic stresses on plant nutrition.

New technologies, like augmented reality, will allow us to be closer to farmers tomorrow. Communicating immediately, friendly and fun are the needs they express today, and these new processes will meet them. At the “Interpoma” trade fair in Bolzano, the stand of TIMAC AGRO Italia was futuristic and caught the attention of visitors to give them the opportunity to try a virtual reality helmet named “HoloLens“.

It is with Fifthingenium, a development company based in Milan, that TIMAC AGRO Italia has submitted a request focused on these needs. “For us – said Moreno Basilico, Director of Agro-Supply North Business Unit of TIMAC AGRO Italia – innovation and research have always been at the center of our development strategy and it brings great added value to the farm. We also want to innovate in the way we communicate with farmers so that the results of our research can reach them in a usable way. ”

In addition to augmented reality, the company has also commissioned the development of another tablet app. The content proposed at the fair Interpoma will be available for 180 agronomists and consultants. From the north to the south of Italy, they visit farms and farmers every day and support them when making decisions on the subject of nutrition. The products presented in the application are taken from the research of the Centre Mondial de l’Innovation Roullier.

The first graduating class of the International Business Leadership Program took place on February 8, 2019 in Saint-Malo. This event brought together all the people involved in the program since its beginning such as coaches and internal experts.

It was an opportunity to Ana Claudia, Natalia, Aurélien and Osvaldo to receive their diploma and share with the new group of 13 IBL members their experience on the program.

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Soil represents a vital area of research for the agriculture of tomorrow. The billions of bacteria that can be found in one single gram of soil are an important source of growth for plants. The CMI has a specific R&D department devoted to this issue, where we have taken in two postdoctoral researchers from Research Director Lionel Ranjard’s team from INRA’s Agroecology Mixed Research Unit.

Specialist researchers in microbial ecology from this mixed research unit, which is associated with the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté INRA, have drawn up an inventory of the bacterial communities found in France’s soils. Using the most advanced DNA sequencing techniques, the work led to the creation of this atlas, which gives us a panoramic overview of these bacterial communities while raising awareness of their importance with regard to the quality of soil fertility.

This book is intended for researchers, students, land users, farmers, politicians, etc. — anyone who wishes to know about the latest advances in research on the microbiological culture of French soils. It is a world first in cartographical precision (16km² grid squares, 2,200 soils) and the result of 10 years of work carried out by the BioCom research team from the Agroecology Mixed Research Unit in Dijon.

It was essential for CMI Roullier and TIMAC AGRO to be associated with the creation of the first French atlas of soil bacteria. This one of a kind book has been covered by numerous media outlets and was featured on France Inter’s La Tête au carré programme at the beginning of the year.