MONROE — Students in the Agribusiness/Science and Technology program at Blackhawk Technical College are getting firsthand experience with some of the most advanced farming technology in the Midwest. 

Fran and Sandy Donny have donated their land, rented by Jim and Therese Gratz, on County DR next to East Side Farm Equipment Sales for students to use some of the newest technology to plant 100 acres. 

“It gives the students an inside look at all this new technology that’s available today,” Jim said. “I’m 70 years old. I grew up without any of this and I haven’t been in a corn planter for over 20 years. This technology is deep stuff.”

Almost two years ago, the program received a general purpose revenue grant totaling $340,000 from the Wisconsin Technical College System, which allowed them to purchase a John Deere tractor. Agribusiness and Farm Management Instructor Dustin Williams said he had students remove a lot of the original parts from the planter and put precision planting products on it. 

BTC also had a partnership with the company AgriGold, which provided the seeds for the crops. 

Williams said the planter has dual-hybrid technology, which allows farmers to plant two different hybrids, or seeds, at once. It’s GPS driven and has an auto-steer feature, and can even decrease or increase the amount of population on the fly. This allowed students to create a design in the crop of the AgriGold logo and the BTC logo that can be seen from above. Students can also check the crops by using a drone. 

Precision Ag Adjunct Professor Andrew Tucker also helped organize the project. 

“We’re doing a lot of things with prescriptions and getting the right product and right amount of product on each acre,” Tucker said. “Being able to demonstrate that in a classroom setting and with local area growers has been exciting.”

AgriGold invited an agronomist to speak to students about diseases, pests and nutrient deficiencies caused by the amount rain throughout the Midwest. Williams said another topic was tar spots, which are small black dots on the corn leaves that can potentially cause the plant to stop photosynthesizing and die sooner than expected, leading to a reduction in yields. 

Travis Skattum, a BTC agribusiness graduate from South Wayne, was happy to return to see the crop and be involved in the early part of the process.

“This is where I like to be,” Skattum said. “I like being on the field and working with my hands and seeing a result at the end. It’s been fun, especially being with the first class who put all this in, and get stuff straightened out.”

Fran said he was proud to contribute the land to the program. 

“You really need to stay involved in this kind of community participation,” Fran said. “The older we get and the more gray hair we get, the more we need to support young people because they’re the future.”