Ag Engineer Puts Designs on His Future in North Central Iowa

Like many boys who grow up on a farm, Landon Aldinger was fascinated with equipment. He enjoyed it so much that he earned a bachelor’s degree in Ag Engineering from Iowa State University and then worked nearly seven years, as a Senior Design Engineer, for the Toro Company in Minneapolis.

“I really enjoyed my time and my career in the cities,” says Landon. “But when I turned 30, my priorities started to shift. I was ready to head home and become more involved in the farming operation.”

Since 2008, Landon had been assisting his father with their seed, chemical and consulting business. He was driving “home” as much as possible to assist with planting, harvesting, tillage and consulting. Landon and his father, Mike Aldinger, are growing the services they offer through Precision Farm Management business by continuing and implementing more precision agricultural services like variable rate seeding and variable rate fertilizer, including variable rate nitrogen.

“We’ve been proponents of variable rate (VR) fertilizer and nitrogen applications,” says Landon. “For the past eight-plus years, we’ve been big on VR corn, so we vary the planting rate depending on soil type, hybrid tendencies and other factors. The past three years we’ve been planting soybeans at variable rates, as well.”

“Variable nitrogen is also a large part of our expansion on precision agriculture,” adds Landon. “We plan our nitrogen applications on corn hybrids, taking into account the organic piece that soils produce. We’re getting positive results from writing prescriptions like we would for plant population.”

Once all their crops are harvested, the 2018 crop has been planned and the seed orders have been written, Landon will spend more hours working on projects related to his Aldinger Engineering LLC consulting business. He’s currently working on creating 3-D images to give his client an online equipment parts presence.

This fall has been an especially busy one for Landon. He and his wife, Kinsey, welcomed their first child, Grady Michael Aldinger, on September 29. In addition, the first group of pigs were delivered to their new wean-to-finish hog building the first of October.

“My parents built the first hog barns 11 years ago with the intent of building another one since the property was zoned as a two-barn site,” says Landon. “It just made sense for me and Kinsey to build the second hog barn now. Our goal to diversity our farm income. Producing cattle and pork, the seed dealership, chemical sales, plus consulting helps us diversify.”

The coming year is all about watching Grady grow and experience so many “firsts” like holidays. You can bet the family celebration will be featured around either the meat the Aldinger family produces. In honor of October Pork Month, today they’re sharing one of their favorite pork recipes on The Field Position.