CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Nutrien Ag Solutions has opened a new facility at its Innovation Farm in Champaign to advance research and technology in farming across North America, according to company officials.

“Nutrien purchased the 282-acre farm in 2019 with a goal to eventually add an on-site facility to house the Champaign Innovation Farm team, and accelerate the adoption of new technology for our grower customers and retail locations, focusing on full acre solutions (the approach to crop management, which offers a comprehensive range of services for growers),” Katelyn Maass, Nutrien senior manager, North American retail communications, told Farm World.

“After a few years of demonstrating the value of full acre solutions on the land, ground was officially broken for the on-site facility in spring 2024,” she added.

On March 20, the farm celebrated its grand opening, showcasing the latest agricultural technology and sustainability practices. The facility is the newest addition to Nutrien’s Innovation Farm Network, and the fourth of its kind nationwide.

Company officials said Nutrien’s Tolono, Ill., site is transitioning its operations into the broader Champaign community, from its previous location in the University of Illinois Research Park. Nutrien first entered the Research Park in 2018 after acquiring the Champaign, Ill.-based Agrible, a digital agriculture company specializing in advisory tools and data science for farmers.

The building serves as the main space for the farm’s 16-person agronomy team for agronomic research and on-farm testing: “We actually do not do research on the farms,” Maass said. “We work with suppliers and their research teams, so we can pick up where research leaves off.

“Our goal with our Innovation Farm Network as a whole is to grow agriculture by sharing the knowledge that we gather on these farms, not by promoting specific products, but by sharing the practices, products, and technology that have been demonstrated to successfully work together as a full-acre approach that is efficient, attainable, and repeatable by farmers across North America,” she added.

She said, “The 16 team members who work out of this facility represent the various services, offerings, and expertise of our Nutrien agronomy team. With this team, our goal is to take the innovation farm focus on equipment, technology, products, practices and people, and bookend it with soil health and atmospheric science to help make the best recommendations for growers.

“Also represented on the team are data scientists to analyze and interpret the data we receive,” she added. “There are also agronomists and soil scientists to understand the needs of the soil and crops. This team also works closely with IT to help with digital tools to compute the data coming in from all types of equipment, and can be used to collect historical data.”

Jeff Tarsi, Nutrien executive vice president and president of global retail, told the Champaign News-Gazette on March 21, “We call this research at the speed of farming. It’s our ability to do replications to fiscally sound experiments on real farms and in real farm environments to collect the data, and allow our growers to replicate it on their own farms.”

The Champaign Innovation Farm has a weather studio, a green screen, and media capabilities to deliver localized forecasts to growers through YouTube and social media, company officials said. The site also has 10-mile panoramic views and can generate regionally relevant forecasts for global markets such as South America and Asia.

Kent McDaniel, Nutrien Cornbelt regional manager, told the News-Gazette the multi-purpose site will cover a range of focuses, including equipment testing, agronomic trials, environmental science, and hands-on demonstrations.

“I think (with) the whole idea about community, we could do this technology innovation anywhere, but you get the most value out of it when you’re in the same locations as where your products are going to actually provide value,” he said.