Abby Jacobs Email & Phone Number

Central Il, Northern In

Call on existing customer base of nurseries, garden centers, and landscape companies to service and expand their business. Find and develop new accounts in my territory. Offer product recommendations and horticultural advice. Update customers on current programs occurring with Home Nursery. Keep up with current trends and happenings in the industry.

Support vegetable production managers by operating machinery, maintaining crops, harvesting, and packing. Assist in all facets of a retail greenhouse like planting, watering, pruning, and customer service. Advise customers by making the best product recommendations for all their plant needs. Direct and train seasonal staff in regard to greenhouse and farm operations

Indiana

Evaluate various crop treatments on a whole field basis. Extract soil samples based on soil type and texture to ground truth new soil scanning technologies. Scout fields based on different treatments as well as soil types. Take tissues samples, bulk density samples, soil compaction measurements, and grain samples. Shell, grind, and quality test grain samples. Properly prepare and operate drones with NIR cameras to take quality crop images. Organize and submit data to data analysts.

Northern Illinois & Northern Indiana

As a second year associate, I worked closely with the WinField United Seed DSM in Northern Illinois to manage his territory. Some of my responsibilities included grower calls, training salesmen on seed hybrids and varieties, helping manage discretionary dollars and seed programs, and assist in plot planting, evaluation, and harvest. I also developed various sell sheets and other sales tools to train retail sellers on seed products. In December, I began managing a couple of my own accounts as the Seed DSM in Northern Indiana. I focused mostly on training retail sellers on the seed tools in our technology platform, R7 and explaining the 'Response To' scores, how they are generated and how they can be used to place and manage hybrids. I also managed programs, discretionary funds, and seed supply.

Spring Grove, Minnesota

The associate program is a two year training program through Winfield United focusing in training recent graduates in sales and other areas of the company. My first year, I was stationed in Spring Grove, Minnesota with Farmers Coop Elevator as an interim Sales Agronomist, so to speak. My duties included selling, scouting, making recommendations, working with technology, attending sales trainings, and increasing my product and agronomic knowledge. I worked heavily with the seed aspect of retail. I helped other salesmen with seed product and seed placement questions for them to give their growers the most effective recommendations. During the spring, I managed the seed shed, treated soybeans, delivered seed to growers, and assisted growers in all their seed needs.

Iowa State University

Assist graduate students' research projects, count seed heads of various cover crops, count canola seedlings, take seed test weights, canola sampling, weigh seed, forage sample separation, takings forage samples, cover crop threshing and seed cleaning.

During my summer, I traveled to a different state every week visiting FGI's research stations, going to meetings, touring the offices, and spending time with account managers in different areas of the country. My goal for the summer was to obtain as much information as possible about their new line of genetically enhanced alfalfa seed, HarvXtra, and come up with ways to better market it and to increase market share. At the end of the summer, I gave a presentation of my findings at the corporate office.

Aroma Park, Illinois

As the intern, I was assigned a project to work on for the summer and present in front of corporate. I also helped scout and inspect fields and assist in the warehouse as needed. My project involved me evaluating the process of cutting back some of the male plants in the seed corn fields to delay their growth. The goal was to figure out what the delay will be when cut at various stages of growth and heights to see which cut produced a longer pollen shed interval.

Momence, Illinois

Scouted fields for weeds, insects, and diseases and recorded data into the computer. Soil and tissue sampled. Mixed pesticides, sprayed test plots, and collected data on the effects of various fungicides on powdery mildew. Drove tractor to help mow various crops when extra help was needed.