From seed to book to farmer
At every stage of the growth process, Beck’s Hybrids is concerned with helping farmers profit from their efforts. According to their website, Beck’s is “the largest family-owned retail seed company and the third-largest seed brand in the U.S.,” and they sell their products to farmers across the Midwest and Mid-South. This summer, Mina Reising has been an integral part of that process.
Reising, an agricultural communication major, serves as a practical farm research (PFR) intern with Beck’s in Atlanta, Indiana. “PFR is a huge part of Beck’s Hybrids,” Reising explained. “We have studies not only in Atlanta but also in many other sites across the United States. We are doing research and trying to test out products to see what gives us the highest yield, what happens when we add a new fungicide to the corn, what happens when we vary planting dates. Then we look at the results to help farmers get the greatest yield.”
Reising’s work particularly focuses on testing for Beck’s corn and soybean research, which involves a variety of tasks.
“We do a lot of growth staging on the corn and soybeans. We also do a lot of scouting, which means walking the fields, tissue testing, doing root digs and gathering all that scientific data that will later be put into a book to help farmers see how this all plays out for their own yield. There are also a lot of random jobs. No day ever looks the same, which is exciting,” Reising said.
The results from Reising’s work will eventually be included in Beck’s end-of-year PFR book. Reising said, “I think it is so cool that in a small way, something that I am doing will get to be in that end result, and I can go back and look at the studies and say, ‘Oh, I remember tissue testing in this field.’”
In addition to her PFR tasks, Reising also is working on two intern-specific projects. One project is about urea coating. “I have buried a couple of urea types out in conventional-tilled field and a no-till field,” Reising said. “I'm checking them, washing them off, weighing them and drying them, and at the end, I'll do some math and figure out the nitrogen release of the different samples.” Reising’s other project is comparing data servers.
Mina Reising collects corn leaves in a sample bag to send for testing Through her PFR work and other projects, Reising has a better understanding of what she wants to do after she graduates in May 2025. Reising said, “Experiences like these have really helped me figure out where I want to be. I really do enjoy PFR here at Beck’s. I love working outside. I like being an active part of research. I think I could see myself doing something similar to this in the future.”
Reising plans to continue learning more about PFR and enjoying the company culture before her internship ends.
I think it's hard to realize how big of an operation Beck’s is until you're here at the plant or you're looking at something like a PFR book. We have other locations in Nebraska and Iowa and Illinois that are all doing these studies, not just in Indiana. It’s a huge operation and, not knowing much about PFR when I started, it has been crazy to see how widespread it is.
- Mina Reising
