This morning we traveled to Johnson, Iowa to the Pioneer headquarters. Pioneer is owned by DuPont and is the world’s leading developer and supplier of plant genetics. Pioneer was started in 1926 by Henry Wallace and was called the Hi-Bred Corn Company. Their business involved developing and selling hybrid corn varieties to farmers. This new hybrid corn was revolutionary as it increased yields. Pioneer today sells more than corn; they also sell wheat, soybeans, canola, sunflower, alfalfa, sorghum and much more.
Our tour was lead by Megan who works in public relations; she started it off by giving us a slideshow presentation all about Pioneer and what services they have to offer to farmers. Next we had a presentation from the Pioneer HR rep about job opportunities in Pioneer and all the different kinds of jobs from research to production techs, and why Pioneer would be great to work for. After that we all hopped on board the cool green Pioneer bus and headed across the road to visit the greenhouses.
At the greenhouses, Megan talked about how they breed plants and how much work it takes to make a successful hybrid. From the time they first come up with an idea till they sell a seed takes 10+ years. She showed us their “fast” corn plants, which grow and develop quicker than normal plants so research can be done so much faster. After the greenhouses we loaded the bus again and went to see the test plots on the original Wallace farm. They had a display of all the crops they sell and had native corn plants that today’s corn came from. They had corn from each country they sell to and the Mexican corn was super tall. They had nitrogen trial plots for corn and soybean plots too. It was cool to see how much research is done for the bag of seeds we plant.
Tim Danard
