Instructors bring decades of experience

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — A pair of instructors with a combined 80-plus years of experience in the applicator and ag retail space will lead a unique class beginning this summer.

Gary Cornell and Greg Yoder will serve as instructors in the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association’s new First Pass Applicator Training.

Two sessions are scheduled — July 14-15 and Sept. 15-16 — at IFCA’s headquarters, 10226 E 1400 North Rd., Bloomington.

There’s a limit of 22 attendees per course, and the registration is $500 per person. More classes will be available next year.

Cornell began his career in ag retail as an operator in 1975. Through the years, he was also a crop consultant in seed sales.

His teaching experience extends beyond agriculture, spending 10 years instructing an Emergency Medical Technician basic class at the Towanda Fire Department where he was also an EMT and firefighter. He later served on the Danvers Fire Department’s ambulance service.

After retiring in 2018, Cornell became an instructor at the Asmark Institute in Bloomington where he taught for seven years.

During his career in ag retail, Cornell saw the industry transition toward more safety and greater precision.

“When I started, our sprayers were real simple, no cabs, no power steering, everything was speed and pressure, and most of the time you didn’t even know your speed,” he said.

“We worked our way up over the years into the more advanced rigs, where nowadays people starting out don’t have that advantage of working their way up. It’s all of a sudden, here’s a 120-foot boom, all electronics, and take off, and it’s like a million dollars for a sprayer.

“Our class here specifically teaches the basics. We talk about the labels and surfactants. I do a pretty extensive review of the different nozzles and everything on a spray table we have here. It gives them a visual on how all the nozzles work.

“Back when I started, we had one nozzle. There wasn’t any change in nozzles, but with the new chemicals, a lot of times a label will specify that you have to use this nozzle, you have to go this fast, you have to run this pressure, in order to stay compliant with the label.

“We don’t really go into the monitors because there’s too many different monitors out there. We try to teach some of the basics of the monitors like when you’re running a guidance or whatever, you set an AB line when you first started a field. To a lot of the people just starting off, they’re not really familiar with them. It kind of gives them a heads up on what they’re going to be doing.”

Life Experiences

Yoder had a 35-year career as a customer applicator at a local co-op. Since his retirement, he’s been farming for about 13 years.

“I started when Asmark opened this school to begin with. They hired me as a trainer in 2016. It was a three-and-a-half-day course then and we’re condensing it down to two days. Back then we had the course, and then we spent one day outside with the sprayers,” he said.

“We had people from all over the United States, a couple people from Canada and we had some from South Africa back then in the course. I really enjoyed it. I made sure it didn’t interfere with my farming. We did it in the summer, then we’d take the fall off and we did a couple of winter classes, too, at times. It worked out real well.”

Yoder brings his 35 years as a customer applicator and his experience “at the school of hard knocks” to the classroom.

“I started at the local elevator when I was 18 years old. We didn’t even have a custom application equipment then, but then we got into it in the next couple of years. I just kind of grew up on it. I did it my whole life and after so many years I became the plant manager,” he said.

Referring to his and Cornell’s combined 82 years in the fertilizer business, Yoder added, “there’s not a lot that we haven’t seen.”

“I hope we get people to come. I think it’s very important that these young people know from the grassroots up what’s going on with this spraying, because it’s just not, ‘here’s a sprayer, get in it and go,’” he said.

“You need to know what’s going on, and we teach a lot of that — surrounding crops, wind, labels. There is a lot of stuff we cover. I just think it’s important for these guys to have training.

“There’s not a lot of farm kids out there anymore and so you’re getting a pull from maybe urban areas or something like from people who are interested in agriculture.”