THRALL – Farm families, agricultural businessmen and interested community members walked the fields to learn the latest farming innovations at the Stiles Farm Foundation’s annual field day June 20.
Located at 5700 FM 1063 in Thrall, the farm is managed by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. It acts as a research facility for the newest crops, tools and farming techniques for the Blackland Prairie soil in Williamson County.
“Agriculture is no longer plows, cows and sows,” said Bob Avant, Williamson County Farm Bureau President. “It’s high tech. It’s information technology, it’s computerized systems, it even has artificial intelligence involved in it. Farmers have to be at the top of their game because even a little bit of a variance can make a huge difference in the bottom line.”
One of the advanced demonstrations at the event was by Bushel Plus, a Canadian company that has developed a product to cut waste in the field.
Marcel Kringe, inventor and CEO of Bushel Plus, describes the firm as a harvest optimization company. They create systems that make it easier and faster for farmers to see how much grain a combine may be missing during harvest and adjust it so that it doesn’t leave so much of the crop out in the field.
“It only takes a couple of minutes for the farmer to test the combine and realize if they’re losing two bushels an acre or five or six bushels an acre, which is numbers that we’ve seen in the fields, then reduce that loss down to less than one bushel an acre,” Kringe said. “People that buy our system tell us in about 120 acres it is paid for and in the first week we’ve had farmers saving $50,000 to $60,000 on the farm because they were able to capture more grain with the combine.”
Mo Hamman, a Williamson County Farm Bureau board member, said that agriculture brings in over $100 million in economic development to the County, not including the cost of equipment or vehicles. He said Stiles Farm Foundation helps farmers get all the advantages available.
“Stiles Farm takes practical research that’s been developed and makes it available for farmers to use on their own farms and their own operations. This type of event is really important for farmers to be on top of their game,” Hamman said.
Event-goers rode buses out to the research fields on this 2,710 acre farm and learned about new crops such as Carinata, whose seeds are used to make jet fuel, as well as the lastest in pest control, growing hemp, managing livestock forage during a drought and others.
Several awards were presented at the event. Cindy Schwettman was named 2023 Williamson County Farm Bureau Agriculturist of the Year. Walter Lalla was presented with the Williamson County Farm Bureau Agricultural Business Person of the Year award.
“Kids don’t see much of this anymore like we did. There’s less farmland to be had because it’s developed,” said Lalla, a 50-year farming legacy.
“If you get the parents involved in more FFA projects or other ways to get them out of the house and introduced to wildlife or cattle or farming, it would be a plus. A lot of these children if they saw something like that it might inspire them to be involved,” Lalla said.
