2016 Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center’s Farmer Technical Service and Farmer Service Award – Mike Winemiller

In 2005, the University of California and NRCS Conservation Tillage Workgroup, now the Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center, established a series of Innovator Awards as a means for providing greater visibility to Conservation Agriculture pioneers in California. The criteria for this award are – demonstrated innovation and leadership in the development, refinement and use of conservation agriculture systems within the California crop production environment. Nominations are received and carefully reviewed by a Workgroup panel and a single recipient is announced in our annual conference.

The recipient of the Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center's Farmer Technical Support Innovator Award for 2016 is Mike Winemiller.

Mike Winemiller serves as the Customer Account Manager for California Ag Solutions, here in Madera, with a focus on the Faster Forage and Precision Planting Programs of CAS. He studied Agricultural Business and Agronomy at Colorado State University and he grew up on a family-owned farm and ranch where he learned early on about the complete range of day-to-day operations of the family business. He has been instrumental and highly successful in accelerating the adoption of greatly improved forage production systems in the FASTER FORAGE Program of California Ag Solutions that has helped over two dozen farmers successfully convert to strip-till corn production during the past three years. By combining strip-till and advanced planting equipment with targeted plant nutrition, the FASTER FORAGE program gets crops growing quicker and harvested sooner, using less water and with increased yields.

Mike Winemiller is an extremely knowledgeable and simply outstanding teacher when it comes to equipment and in particular, strip-tillage. He has incredible attention to detail and has overcome amazing challenges in having worked with farmers from Escalon in the north to Bakersfield in the south. His conservation agriculture equipment and farm management experienced combined with his High Plains strip-till experience, truly have made the adoption of strip-tillage a success with all California farmers he's worked with.

His role in the successful adoption of strip-tillage corn production among this new cadre of California farmers has been nothing short of monumental.

He is ever-ready to share his experiences and has done so with our Workgroup on a number of occasions. He has been a true farmer technical support innovator and a phenomenal contributor to efforts of the CASI Workgroup through his front-line efforts. for a number of years. We are honored to present the 2016 Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center's Farmer Technical Support Innovator Award to Mike Winemiller.

Congratulations, Mike Winemiller!

 

 

Read more