Sunflowers help to relieve the stress of uncertainty on the farm
A Red River Valley grower treats his sunflowers like a high-value crop and is handsomely rewarded.
Zach Leier has been selling sunflower seed for almost a decade, starting after he got out of college in 2016. The account manager for Legend Seeds in Bismarck, North Dakota, says sunflower offers a unique opportunity for growers to diversify their portfolio when it comes to the crops they grow and really mitigate risk.
“Sunflower is sort of considered a specialty crop out there. It’s the progressive growers that we work with, and they’re looking for advantage in the market. They want to make more money, and in many cases just add some diversity on the farm as a way to manage those risks,” he says.
“They’re pretty market savvy and pretty aware of what’s going on in the marketplace throughout all the crops.”
He expects this “specialty crop” to be big in 2022 with the drought that came last year. “In many places there’s a lot of residual nitrogen left in the soil and sunflowers are one of those things that our growers know can tap down into the deeper nitrogen in that lower subsoil and just make better use of what is left. With the high fertilizer prices we’re seeing, that’s a big plus.”
He says sunflower is a popular rotation crop in his territory and the growers he works with say the positives far outweigh any potential concerns when it comes to growing them. “Our main market that we’re probably going to tap into in 2022 is either the bird food market or the oil crush market. One of the good things that Nuseed offers their customers with their portfolio is not only do they hone in on the agronomics and how well the product is going to do as far as yield and oil content go, but they also look at keeping the market diversity open for their growers and make sure that the seed can be marketed in multiple ways.”
Even with weather challenges, he says sunflower is proving to be a reliable crop. “We went through the big drought in 2021 and I think sunflower offers the growers that peace of mind they’re looking for. Even with everything 2021 threw at them, sunflowers did really well even if a lot of people were predicting disaster. It kind of really proved to them that the peace of mind sunflower brings is worth a lot,” he says.
“Just knowing that if the weather stinks, you’re still going to have a crop to harvest and you’re still going to get paid, really helps bring the stress levels down.”
Leier says with exciting new Nuseed hybrids on the way in 2022 on both the Conoil and high oleic side, he looks forward to helping growers continue to be successful.
“I’m always trying to make sure that we’re doing everything the right way and putting the grower first. That’s the path to success in this business.”
