Q: What is an Agronomist?
A: An agronomist is a person who understands the sciences of crops and soils. How plants grow, how the soil provides needed nutrients and water for plant growth and how plants produce seed and reproduce themselves.

An agronomist assists farmers and others to produce crops by providing them with Best Management Practices advice on variety selection, fertilizer use, pesticide use, harvesting and storing the crops produced.

Q: What does it require to be an Agronomist?
A Bachelors degree from an agriculture college is almost a necessity today to become an agronomist. Agronomists annually attend training sessions conducted by their companies, and land grant universities to keep abreast of new crop production practices and innovative technology being used. Most of them take exams to become Certified Crop Advisors now. They need to take 20 credits of course work each year to maintain this certification.

Q: How could I find out if a certain product has been approved for use on Sugar Beets?
Please go to www.greenbook.net, or to the ND State University, or U of MN extension service websites to review the pest management guides for the most current year.

Q: What is in sugar?
Sugar is a carbohydrate that is 99.9% pure sucrose. Sucrose is made up of a glucose and fructose molecule joined together by a hydrolytic linkage. The sucrose molecule contains 3 compounds, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. It takes 12 carbons, 22 hydrogens, 11 oxygens to make one sucrose molecule. All carbohydrates are made up of this same carbon, hydrogen, oxygen combination. The only variation is in the number of molecules of each and how they are bonded together.

Q: What is furrow irrigation, and what is overhead irrigation?
Furrow irrigation is where the water for the crop runs along the ground between the rows of row crop like corn or spreads over the ground in sort of a sheet flow over hay or pasture land. The water is taken from a ditch with siphon tubes to get it out of the ditch and into the field.

Overhead or sprinkler irrigation is water applied from a center pivot irrigation system that goes in circles around the field to apply the water.

Go to the University of Nebraska web site to find much more information.

Q: What does NPK stand for in the NPK fertilizer?
N stands for Nitrogen, P stands for Phosphorus, K stands for Potassium.