Leveraging science, technology helps farmers thrive – Las Cruces Sun-News

Paula Heikell, For the Sun-News 8:45 a.m. MT June 11, 2017

Wes Richins, right, owner of SCALE Ag Services, talks with his team and Garrett Salopek,left, about the different application for the Phytech dendrometer,system, which help monitor the micro-variations of trunk radius with in there microns, helping farmers gauge water usage in orchards. Wednesday Mary 24, 2017.(Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)Buy Photo

LAS CRUCES -Imagine being able to individually monitor every single plant across many fields of crops to determine its specific water and nutrient needs on a given day; or recycling thousands of gallons of agricultural waste water back into 100 percent pure drinking water. These are the things that Wes Richins, owner of SCALE Ag Services of Las Cruces, thinks about as hes developing products to help his agricultural customers be successful.

Richins has spent his life in agriculture. After growing up on a farm, he earned an agricultural business degree at New Mexico State University, worked at WR Grace, and spent 18 years at Agriliance (now WinField) before launching his own agricultural supply business. Eleven years later, hes built a thriving company that sells macro- and micro-nutrients, soil amendments, seeds and other products to farms throughout the western U.S. and internationally.

However, Richins focus is not limited to supplies. Hes also on the constant lookout to find next-generation techniques and tools to help his customers address emerging trends that can impact their business.

A Phytech dendrometer, set up by SCALE Ag Services, is pictured here in on of the pecan orchards owned by Frank Paul Salopek and Sons Farms. The hardware helps monitor the micro-variations of trunk radius within there microns, helping farmers gauge water usage in orchards. Wednesday May 24, 2017.(Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)

Most recently, Richins has added crop stress monitoring technology to the SCALE Ags product line, partly inspired by his own farming experience. Wed planted some seed and when the yield didnt turn out as expected, the supplier told us it was because of water management, he said. That aggravated me; from everything I could see, we had good water management. I got to thinking there had to be a better way to view and manage whats happening in the field.

After doing some research, he found and became a distributor for PhyTech, a plant monitoring system that uses sensors to capture individual plant data and upload it in a real-time data stream to the farmer. The data helps to determine how much water, nutrition and light is needed for specific plants, if theyre stressed, and what they need for the best growing conditions. The system even has a component that will predict the next weeks weather conditions, said Heather Bedale, SCALE Ags PhyTech product manager.

SCALE Ag began selling the PhyTech system in Februaryto customers in the southwest U.S. and Mexico.

Heather Bedale, with SCALE Ag Services, explains how the Phytech system collects data from the dendrometer sensors on the pecan trees in the Frank Paul Salopek and Sons farms orchard and sends it to a cloud database system where the Salopeks can review how much moister is in the soil and trees. Wednesday May 23, 2017.(Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)

Richins also believes that water management is going to become one, if not the most crucial element that farmers will be dealing with in the future, and hes already investing resources to understand what that will specifically mean to his customers and their community. Water management tools that help plant utilization of water and nutrients are going to be ever more important as time goes on, he said.

With this in mind, he is working closely with Enviro Water Minerals Company, an El Paso-based firm that has developed new technology to reclaim agricultural waste water and turn it into drinking water. EWCs first plant, which is about to go online, will return 2.2 million gallons of drinking water to the city that they didnt have, he said. and with PhyTech, we will be to enhance the utilization of the water assets we have today.

Wes Richins, owner of Scale Ag Services, holds a Phytech dendrometer, a water monitoring system. Wednesday May 24, 2017.(Photo: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)

Another benefit of the reclamation process is that it extracts elements such as high-grade gypsum out of the reclaimed waste water that can be reused in farming. The process is yielding nearly 99.9 percent pure gypsum, which can be used as a fertilizer and a salt mitigation product in the fields, said Richins. So were taking a product that was being disposed of and reclaiming it, so it can be applied to the soil to make it healthier.

He is also working to bring humic acid, another product used for salt mitigation and increasing micro-nutrient availability in soil, to his customers. We also have a sugar alcohol system developed by Brandt, he said, Its like taking a hypodermic needle and sticking it into a leaf so the nutrients are rapidly metabolized in the plant with no energy loss.

Richins takes a farmers first focus in everything he considers. He wants his customers to know that they wont get cookie cutter answers when they call SCALE Ag for help. He has built a team of agricultural specialists who have in-depth knowledge to address a range of issues. One such expert is Beland, who brings a masters degree in agricultural biology and statistics, and considerable research experience to the company. Another is Derek Davidson, who grew up on Silver Farms in San Miguel and earned an agriculture degree at NMSU before joining Scale Ag.

We spend a lot of time talking to individual farmers, Richins said. We want them to know that were here to do the research and help them find the right solution for their specific needs.

Paula Heikell is a freelance writer who can be reached at paula@wordwell.net.

For more information:

SCALE Ag Services, LLC 961 Sand Castle Avenue Las Cruces, NM 88012

Contact: Heather Bedale

Phone: 575-382-1642

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Leveraging science, technology helps farmers thrive - Las Cruces Sun-News