CropLife Retail Week: Crop Plantings Update, Renewable Diesel Production, and a Shout-Out to AMVAC’s Bob Trogele

Eric Sfiligoj and Lara Sowinski discuss the latest corn and soybean planting numbers, how renewable diesel performed in 2023, and the retirement of an industry friend.

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*This is a partial and edited transcript:

Eric Sfiligoj: Hello. Welcome to a semi-special edition of CropLife Retail Week. I’m Eric Sfiligoj, Editor of CropLife here in studio. Lo and behold, with my good, good friend Lara Sowinski. Lara, welcome to an in person Retail Week.

So anyhow, so viewers, we get a couple of tidbits of information to share with you. Again, this is that time of year, of course, when everyone is busy in the field, putting seed into the ground, getting the crop ready.

I just ran across a report that was talking about at the beginning of June, where things stood for our two favorite row crops, corn and soybean, according to USDA. planting progress. It’s a little behind schedule.

This spring’s been fairly wet for much of the country. And in much of the corn belt and the soybean areas of the country. So corn planting as of the beginning of June was at 83% across the country, which based on the five year average, is down 6%. It’s normally around 89% this time of year. But soybean is off much worse.

Normally this time of year, 78% of the soybean is already in the ground. This year, we’re only at 68%. So the soybean growers are having a little tougher time. Hopefully the weather will be a little more cooperative as we move through here the month of June. And, everyone will get the crop in the ground on time.

Soybean is one of those products, of course, that we’ve been talking about a lot because, again, with the growth of the renewable diesel market, the demand for soybean is expected to grow and continue growing.

And I actually run across a report from the, Renewable Fuels Association, that said that in 2023, for the first time, renewable diesel production surpassed biodiesel in the United States. In 2023, there was 1.7 billion gallons of biodiesel produced. But there was 2.3 billion gallons of renewable diesel produced. So again, Lara, we’ve been hinting that renewable diesel is going to be a big thing.

Lara Sowinski: And it was something that Bob Trogele mentioned when I dropped in on him a couple months ago. And we have some news to share on our good industry friend, Bob Trogele. Bob is one of those industry thought leaders that has really kind of earned that title. I enjoy talking to Bob all the time, and I had the pleasure of dropping in to his office earlier this year. I was there for probably about two hours or so. And I love it because every time I talk to Bob, we start talking about anything and everything under the under the sun.

I love that he kind of looks at the macro view, the global, what’s going on in the global economy or with trade or with politics, geopolitical risk, supply chain. And he has a magical way of, you know, kind of tying that all in, to whatever it is that, you know, I wanted to talk to him about. So, he announced that at the end of May, he was going to retire, but thankfully he’s going to be around, especially here.

So I do have his cell phone, so he’s probably going to regret that he shared a cell phone number with me. He was in the agrochemical industry for 35 years.  And let me just toss out some of these things that Bob, was talking about. And there, is applicable today’s who were a couple months ago. So, he just, you know, really reinforced when we sat down. It’s like, look, you know, this year is not going to meet the expectations of last year. You know, last year was a a banner year across the ag world.

He just kept on reinforcing it’s a cyclical thing. You waited out a couple of years, you take your lumps and then, you know, things kind of turn around. And I think it’s when you’re in business, you just kind of ride the wave and maybe hunker down a bit when things get tight.