Organic Food

AGCO recognized a Canadian technician as its 2025 North American Technician of the Year after a challenging competition that tested technical skills, diagnostics, and customer service.

Precision agriculture continues to gain momentum, with a new CNH survey showing that 54% of farmers plan to invest in additional technology within the next two years to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and boost yields.

Kubota Tractor Corporation achieved a major milestone, marking 20 consecutive years as the top-selling tractor brand in the U.S. across multiple categories from 2005 to 2025.

Gregg Muller operates Useful Seeds out of Bendigo, Australia. His seed journey began when Carol Deppe’s writing inspired him to start breeding colorful snowpeas right in his own yard. This home-scale plant breeding effort quickly expanded into many different breeding projects and running a small seed company.

In this episode, Gregg shares how his breeding work has shifted from selecting for specific traits to developing resilient landraces tuned for local adaptation. We discuss the logistics, challenges, and opportunities behind grassroots seed distribution and community-based breeding. Gregg also highlights some of his breeding projects, including red-podded peas and compact, drought-tolerant butternut pumpkins.

In the deep dive, Gregg and I explore growing fava beans (broadbeans) for seed. Gregg tackles the challenge of selecting for culinary traits within a diverse genetic mix sourced from global gene banks. He explains his practical approach to breeding for multi-use value from tender green shoots and edible baby pods to rehydratable dry beans, not to mention beautiful flowers. And we get into threshing and winnowing favas too.

Enjoy the conversation!

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Episode links

Useful Seeds website https://www.usefulseeds.com/

Useful Seeds on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/useful_seeds/

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News links

Thursday Aug 20 at 7pm Eastern Seed Growers Open House Call https://seedalliance.org/osa-quarterly-calls/

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Stay in Touch Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram https://www.instagram.com/danbrisebois.farm/

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Order Tourne-Sol seeds (Canadian orders only) https://fermetournesol.qc.ca/

Get my new book The Seed Farmer https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook

❤️ Thanks for listening!

That places Nebraska fourth in the country in increased spending, behind only Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota.

John Deere continues to support self-repair by expanding PRO Service, giving farmers access to advanced diagnostics, software tools, and maintenance resources.

The Morrow Plots on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus mark 150 years in production this year — the nation’s oldest continuously running agricultural experiment in North America. The plots are the second oldest in the world. “It’s not an overstatement to say that the Morrow Plots have directly impacted the way Americans farm,” according to a news release from the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. “When the plots were established, farming was more of an art than a science. However, methodical, controlled experiments in the plots proved certain practices — crop rotation and judicious fertilizer use — were winners from boosting crop yield, soil health and farm profitability.” The university said the Morrow Plots likely started with agriculture chemist Charles Wallace Silver, who visited England’s Rothamsted Field, the world’s oldest agricultural experiment field, and later proposed a long-term corn study on campus in 18

Ignite Attachments has launched new John Deere with compatible buckets and pallet fork frames, providing compact tractor owners with affordable, practical, and reliable attachment options.

Corn harvest season brings severe safety risks for farmers, making proper equipment maintenance, safety inspections, and cautious operation essential to preventing farm accidents.

Since the 2018 Farm Bill expired in 2023, producers and the industries that support them have been operating under outdated policies and continued uncertainty.