Three days of Becknology Days kicked off Thursday at the company’s home base in Atlanta, Indiana in Hamilton County. As usual there are plenty of learning opportunities for farmers with the one hour presentations by Sonny and Scott Beck and a regular schedule of Practical Farm Research tours.
Sonny Beck, the company president said with drought on everybody’s mind, those present on day one were interested in the underground or sub irrigation tour. He told HAT this is the third year for this tour which now has two years of real data.
“These are pipes that you put in and you use them for drainage to take the excess water out in the spring of the year or whenever, and then we pump water back in to that.”
Beck explained that the tiles are put 24 inches deep and about every 15 feet.
“I was walking those fields this week and there’s some additional advantage obviously from having that extra water there this year.”
Beck said the customer incentive program is back this year as TNT, or Tools and Tractors. He calls the program shareholder returns.
“We’re a privately owned company and we don’t have to report to shareholders and so we can take those shareholder returns and put them into research, put them into our Practical Farm Research out here, and we can put them into new 
buildings to keep up with this tremendous growth that customers continue to give us year after year after year. So we take a piece of that shareholder returns and give it back to our customers.”
A customer commitment to Beck’s is how he secures some of those returns, according to Beck.
“If they say hey, I’m going to sign up to buy seed from you this year, I’m sure I’m going to buy it from you, we send them home with their shareholder returns right then. That could be a lease on a tractor for three years for a larger order. It could be a TV for a smaller order.”
All the details are on site Friday and Saturday at Becknology Days from 9 AM until 4 PM[audio:https://www.hoosieragtoday.com//wp-content/uploads//2012/08/Sonny-Beck-at-Becknology-Days-2012.mp3|titles=Sonny Beck at Becknology Days 2012]