FMC’s 3RIVE 3D Turns Heads
April 1, 2015 
FMC’s Matt Hancock explains how the 3RIVE 3D in-furrow application delivery system works at the 2015 Commodity Classic.
As winter trade shows tend to go, Commodity Classic tends to be a pretty big deal. You’ve got all the big crop protection players, the large equipment manufacturers and a sprinkling of precision agriculture and various other industry participants, all normally detailing new product releases for the upcoming spring planting season.
This year, however, was somewhat different. Aside from a few notable developments, most of the crop protection companies had little in the way of new products to discuss.
FMC Corp. was not one of them.
Over at the FMC booth, a constant bustle of commotion seemed to envelop the company’s newest innovation throughout the day. Growers and retailers alike crowded around the bright yellow box, learning as much as they could about the intriguing at-plant crop protection delivery platform dubbed 3RIVE 3D, which is the direct result of a joint venture with Emerge Application Solutions (Owensboro, KY).
FMC sees inconvenience as a major hurdle for many growers wanting to adopt the practice of at-plant insecticide application.
“This system offers growers that aren’t using insecticide today, or they are using another type of an insecticide, a very efficient way to deliver it in-furrow,” says Heath McCormick sales and marketing manager, Emerge Application Solutions. “We can treat 480 acres on a single fill with this set-up.”
According to Matt Hancock, FMC corn segment manager, 3RIVE 3D technology integrates formulation technology, application technology and active ingredients to increase net planting speed, in-furrow protection and early season success. Basically, the 3RIVE 3D system is attached to a grower’s planter, where it mixes the right amount of product with a very low volume of water and utilizes a patent-pending manifold to expand the mixture up to 50 times into a three-dimensional (i.e. foam) continuous “Zone of Protection” delivered directly in-furrow. Application success is then visually verifiable by the long, white foam ribbon that remains in the seed zone as the furrow closes.
The 3RIVE 3D applicator system includes a compact 130-gallon water tank, a 30-gallon product tank and all moving parts, compactly skid-mounted for easy installation on all major planter brands. Currently the system can be installed on a 12 to 24 row planter (future expansion is in the works) and can run (with adjustments) at up to 10 mph.
“The retailer was always a key part of our development of 3RIVE 3D; they’re one of the three things that we want to thrive via this system: The crop, the grower and the retailer,” says Hancock. “We realize that there are still 80% of corn acres out there that go untreated, largely due to factors around convenience. Growers want something more convenient. It’s also a unique opportunity that we’re trying to create with the retailers.”
Currently, Capture 3RIVE 3D in-furrow insecticide is the only product EPA-approved for use with the 3RIVE 3D system. Hancock expects that to change going forward.
“I think what retailers like the most about Capture is that it already works hand-in-glove with the retailer’s own liquid fertilizer and micronutrient brands,” he says. “We want to get to that point with 3RIVE 3D where there are additional opportunities to put those products into a 3RIVE 3D formulation and get them into this system.”
Another aspect of application work that 3RIVE hopes to improve is efficiency, according to Rick Kesler, FMC business services manager. “The first thing farmers will realize is the convenience of not having to haul hundreds of gallons of water around, nor will they have to bother with bulky bags of granular insecticides or changing out heavy insecticide boxes,” he says. “They will be able to plant all day long without having to stop and refill.”
According to a FMC press release, the 3RIVE 3D application system will be priced similarly to other turnkey in-furrow delivery systems.
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