Nutrien Ag Solutions launches its 2025 Hometown Yield Challenge

Mar 24, 2025
By Andrew Joseph
Assistant Editor, North American Content, Farms.com

Photo above shows the harvesting golden wheat. Photo copyright: jodie777/iStock/Getty Images Plus photo

Nutrien Ag Solutions has launched its second year of the Hometown Yield Challenge, and is again available to growers in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Nutrien Ag Solutions is the retail division of Nutrien Ltd., a leading global provider of crop inputs and services.

Enrollment is open until April 11, 2025. Interested growers will need to work with their local Nutrien Ag Solutions Crop Consultant to sign up and nominate their community organization of choice.

At the end of the challenge, the community organizations of choice for the top two yielding farming operations will each receive $20,000. The community organizations chosen by the three runners-up will each receive $5,000 at the end of the challenge.

Program enrollment for Year Two comes on the heels of the announcement of the 2024 Hometown Yield Challenge winners and a donation of over $50,000 to community organizations across Western Canada.

“We were extremely pleased with the results from our first Hometown Yield Challenge in 2024. Supporting rural Canadian communities is something that our team and farmers are very passionate about, so getting to do this challenge again is something we’re looking forward to for the 2025 season,” exclaimed Jesse Hamonic, Vice President & Country Head of Nutrien Ag Solutions Canada. “Last year, we got to put money towards some great community projects, such as school lunch programs, playground refurbishment, and community centre funds. I’m excited to see the projects that our growers choose this year.”

2025 Program Requirements:

Mapping field boundaries in Nutrien Ag Solutions’ Echelon platform;
Growing at least 80 acres of a proven seed hybrid of their choice;
Applying phosphorous treated with Loveland Products’ ATLAS XCTM.

As part of the program, participating growers are encouraged to use crop nutritional products, including AWAKEN and RADIATE, from the Loveland Products portfolio. The company also encourages growers to post information about their progress throughout the season on social media using the hashtag #NutrienHometownPride.

“The Hometown Yield Challenge is a great way for growers to see our proprietary products in action,” stated Shelby LaRose, Crop Nutrition Product Manager.

“Proven Seed’s canola varieties are integral to the program while pairing well with AWAKEN and RADIATE, which demonstrate strong performance in promoting nutrient uptake and root development. For growers across Canada, this challenge showcases how working with Nutrien Ag Solutions can help drive yield results without sacrificing field health.”

For terms and conditions regarding Nutrien Ag Solutions’ Hometown Yield Challenge, go to www.nutrienagsolutions.ca/yield-challenge-terms-and-conditions.

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.