ABERDEEN, S.D. — A roundtable discussion at the Precision Farming Dealer Summit this winter led to a partnership with MZB Technologies and Garden City Co-op (GCC) in southwestern Kansas. The MZB platform is now available to GCC’s 2,000-plus member-owners as GCC has become an MZB provider.

The MZB precision ag platform creates up to 12 management zones based on a combination of Veris EC information, RTK elevation readings and satellite imagery/yield data. Geo-referenced zone soil sampling provides exact nutrient replacement requirements.

Garden City Co-op’s trade area consists of approximately 200,000 acres of irrigated corn, 300,000 acres of dryland grain sorghum and 550,000 acres of irrigated or dryland wheat. The majority of Garden City’s territory sits on the Ogallala aquifer, the nation’s largest freshwater aquifer, so there is a great deal of center pivot irrigation. That creates new possibilities for MZB according to Brent Wiesenburger, Wheat Growers precision ag manager.

“This adds tremendous value to our MZB footprint, given the different geography. Garden City will play a key role in helping MZB become an even more robust agronomy tool that will allow us to grow into other markets.”

“We feel the tools MZB offers are a perfect fit for our crop production practices,” Michael Kempke, GCC’s director of precision agriculture, says. “The zone management concept will help us manage different zones in our customers’ fields for seeding and fertility with the different crop situations we have out here with both irrigation and dry land. Our growers will see an agronomic and economic benefit with MZB. It makes it easy for our agronomists to understand and use, and easy for our growers to see exactly what their needs are.”

GCC is rolling out their MZB program now, and expects to see a large amount of acres added after this year’s winter wheat harvest in June.

“Once the wheat harvest is done, we’ll be able to get into the fields and do the Veris work, getting the maps made so we’ll have prescriptions ready to go for the row crops that will go in next spring,” Kempke says.

Nick Waite is the manager of MZB’s Mapping Center. He says this partnership with Garden City Co-op will be a boost to regional agronomy.

“A very important spoke has been placed in the MZB Network wheel. GCC understands the challenges the precision ag industry faces with regional agronomy, which makes this such a great partnership. We’re extremely excited to have GCC as part of our MZB Network and the value they will bring to us with their drive to become the precision leader in the Kansas area.”

“The staff at MZB have been, and continue to be, phenomenal to work with,” Kempke says. “Their mindset is to be our partner, and that’s exactly the kind of relationship we like to have — someone who wants to work with us and help us grow.”