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way this year,” he says. “The product 
changes, the environment changes, or 
both.”
That unpredictability is what 
makes experience valuable, but also 
limited.
“I’ve been in the seed industry 
over 50 years,” Popp says. “That 
means I’ve harvested a crop 50 
times.”
There are no shortcuts to 
that kind of knowledge.
“You have to put the time 
in,” he says. “It’s like shooting 
free throws. You shoot 10,000 
of them, you’re going to make 
them. You don’t put the time in, 
you’re not.”
Even then, understanding seed 
systems requires more than data. It 
requires instinct.
“I can walk into a facility and just by 
the noise tell you there’s an opportunity 
for improvement,” he says. “That noise is 
seed hitting something. The harder it hits, 
the louder it is.”
Still, he sees opportunity in the next 
generation, particularly with advances in 
automation and control systems that can 
help close experience gaps by creating a 
lot of data.
“It’s not just the iron,” Popp says. “It’s 
the processes, the controls, the auto­
mation that help operators understand 
what’s happening.”
For those entering the industry, his 
advice is simple, but not easy.
“You have to be willing to embrace the 
variability,” he says. “If you do things right, 
you can pick up those small differences 
and make a difference. It’s measurable.”
In an industry where every season 
resets the clock, that mindset may be the 
most valuable system of all. SW
JON POPP SAYS he doesn’t sell 
equipment. He builds outcomes.
“We’re in the performance business,” 
Popp says. “That requires us to come 
up with solutions based on what the 
customer actually needs, not what 
we have to sell.”
As CEO of Popp Engineering, 
he is approaching 50 years 
designing seed facilities that 
move product from the seed 
field to farmers’ fields. His work 
is rarely visible, but it shapes 
everything from seed uniformity 
to final yield.
“We don’t fly above the radar 
screen very often,” he says. “Some 
of that’s on purpose. Many of the 
things we do are a competitive advan­
tage for our customers, and they’d rather 
not have those ideas shared.”
What sets his approach apart is where 
it begins.
“We always start with the question,” 
Popp says. “We never start with the 
answer.”
That philosophy runs counter to much 
of the industry, where decisions are often 
driven by equipment or incremental 
upgrades.
“You can find pictures of all the differ­
ent pieces,” he says. “Cleaners, treaters, 
conveyors. But the pieces don’t make 
the system. Just like a washing machine 
doesn’t make the house.”
Instead, Popp focuses on how seed 
moves through an entire process, from 
harvest to planting. And in those pro­
cesses, the margin for error is razor thin.
“If it doesn’t grow, it’s grain,” he says. 
“You can go from a $400 bag of seed to 
a $4 bag of grain, and the only difference 
is it doesn’t grow.”
That reality is what drives his emphasis 
The System Behind the Seed
Facility design isn’t visible to farmers, but Jon Popp says it’s one of the most 
important drivers of uniformity and performance.
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on uniformity, especially in modern corn 
systems.
“If one of those seeds comes up five 
days late, it’s basically a weed,” Popp says. 
“It’s not going to perform the same, and 
it’s going to pull nutrients away from the 
other plants.”
In a system where farmers are buying 
yield, not just seed, those inconsistencies 
matter.
“They can’t control fertilizer prices. 
They can’t control commodity prices,” he 
says. “They can control yield. That’s what 
they’re buying.”
Despite decades of innovation, Popp 
says one constant remains: agriculture 
doesn’t repeat itself.
“Just because you did it one way last 
year doesn’t mean you can do it the same 

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