Co-op manager retires after 40 years
Staff writer
Perry Gutsch will be stepping down Friday as manager at Agri Trails Cooperative at Lincolnville.
Gutsch has seen many advances in agricultural production since he started at Lincolnville almost 40 years ago.
The biggest change, he said, has been in the size and scope of farming operations.
The grain elevator had many more accounts than it does now. There were many more farmers, and a lot of them had crop-share operations.
Farms have become consolidated under fewer operators, and many farmers now rent land for cash rather than crop-share.
Gutsch didn’t see grain semi-trucks, mostly small trucks with hoists.
“Taking in 60,000 to 65,000 bushels of wheat would have been a big day,” Gutsch said. “The elevator has taken in over 1 million bushels of wheat in recent years.”
The biggest crops also have changed.
Milo was a major crop back then.
Back in 1985, a 5,000 bushel corn crop would have been a big harvest, Gutsch said. In 2024, Lincolnville took in 637,000 bushels of corn.
Beans also have increased to 575,000 bushels in 2024.
A big boost to corn and beans came from the development of Roundup-ready seed, which made weed control a lot easier.
Although two big bins holding about 280,000 bushels of grain were added in recent years, excess grain often is piled on the ground.
No-till farming has become widespread, and double cropping is more prevalent.
When Gutsch started at Lincolnville, the co-op had a feed mill. Farmers brought grain in to be milled, or grain trucks would deliver ground grain to farms. The mill no longer exists. Ground grain comes from a mill in Herington.
A seed-cleaning plant was added 10 years ago. Old buildings were torn down, and new storage facilities constructed.
The most positive comments Gutsch has heard from customers involved installation of a driveway directly from the Lincolnville-Durham road. It gave grain trucks and trailers a direct shot to the elevator’s scale.
As grain intake increased, Lincolnville added a new leg and pit, which speeded things up considerably at harvest time, Gutsch said.
Farm technology has increased exponentially as equipment has gotten bigger. Many implements are guided by GPS. Even self-driving equipment is becoming popular.
“It’s a whole new world out there,” Gutsch said.
He and his wife, Amy, a retired school teacher, live in Herington and are planning to move to Ottawa to be closer to their two children, who live in the Kansas City area.
“I kind of wondered at first if I would like retirement, but I have friends and family in the area who I will be able to visit with, and we also plan to do a bit of traveling,” he said.
Gutsch said he enjoyed his career.
“I grew up on a farm, so I was used to working all hours of the day,” he said. “I didn’t mind the 5½ days of work every week, and I still had Saturday afternoons and Sundays off except during harvest time.”
Every day was a little different, and every harvest was a little different, he said.