Wisconsin Agribusiness Classic

2025 Speakers

Matt Rurak

Matt Rurak

Soil Fertility

Matt Ruark is a Professor of Soil Science/State Extension Specialist in the UW-Madison Department of Soil Science.  He is the inaugural recipient of the Wis. Potato and Vegetable Grower BCS Chair in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.  His research and extension activities are related to soil fertility and nutrient cycling in field, vegetable, and biofuel cropping systems. He is currently the co-director of the Wis. Agribusiness Classic and faculty advisor the Discovery Farms Program.  Matt received his BS and MS from the Univ. of Minnesota, and his PhD from Purdue.

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Michael Geissinger

SnapPlus

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Moncia Schauer2

Monica Schauer

Economics/Special Topics

Monica is a researcher at UW-Madison working in the Nutrient Cycling and Agroecosystems Lab. She serves as the research director for the Nitrogen Optimization Pilot Program, working with producers across the state to better manage and understand nitrogen use through on-farm research.

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Natasha Rayne

Natasha Rayne

Nutrient Management

Natasha Rayne is an Assistant Professor and Soil Fertility Extension Specialist at UW Madison. She graduated with a BS in Agronomy from the Anton de Kom University of Suriname and earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in Soil Science at Oklahoma State University. Following graduate school, she joined the faculty at UW River Falls (UWRF) in 2015, where she taught various soils courses including Introduction to Soil Science, Soil Fertility, and Soil Microbiology and supervised many research projects. In January 2024 she joined the Soil & Environmental Science Department at UW Madison where her research focuses on manure and nutrient availability in cropping systems, crop canopy sensors and variable rate technology, and nitrogen management in small grains and forages.

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Paul Mitchell

Paul Mitchell

Economics/Special Topics

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Peter Sikkema

Peter Sikkema

Weeds

Peter Sikkema has retired after 36 years at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus where he focused on weed management in field crops. Peter taught several courses including “Applied Weed Science” and “Herbicide Biochemistry and Physiology”. Peter published more than 445 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Peter is a source of practical solutions for farmers and readily shares his knowledge with primary producers. Peter has presented the results from his research program at hundreds of grower meetings/scientific conferences across Canada, the United States, and globally.

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Rodrigo Werle2

Rodrigo Werle

Economics/Special Topics

Dr. Rodrigo Werle is an Associate Professor and Extension Cropping Systems Weed Scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research and Extension program (aka WiscWeeds) focuses on integrated approaches to weed management in corn, soybean, and small grains in Wisconsin farm systems. 

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Russ Groves

Insects

Russell L. Groves is a Professor and Chairperson in the Department of Entomology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a majority of effort devoted to management of insects in vegetable crops. He has responsibilities for insect pests affecting all scales of production including commercial, organic and fresh market vegetables. The laboratory group focuses on applied insect ecology with an emphasis on insect vector-borne diseases of specialty crops, insect dispersal and movement, and insecticide resistance management.

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Ryan Raguse

Ryan Raguse

Communications & Management

Ryan Raguse is co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Bushel, an independently owned and operated software company headquartered in Fargo, N.D. Bushel is focused on bringing innovative software products and solutions to the agriculture value chain. Since launching in 2017, Bushel’s software has powered 2,600+ grain facilities and reaches over 100,000 farmers across the U.S. and Canada with real-time business information for their producers.  In addition, he is active on his own family farm and cultivates Fargo's entrepreneurial community by working with local startups.

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Scott Newell

Weather & Forages

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Scott Shearer

Technology

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Shawn Conley

Shawn Conley

Agronomy

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Steven Hall

Steven Hall

Soil & Water Management

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Susan Mockert

Economics/Special Topics

Susan Mockert is the Conservation Grants Unit supervisor with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, and the program manager of the Nitrogen Optimization Pilot grant program. Susan holds a Master’s of Science from Indiana University-Bloomington and has over fifteen years of experience in the environmental arena, including work in conservation, watershed planning, and environmental assessment.

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Tatiane Severo Silva

Tatiane Severo Silva

Agronomy

Tatiane Severo Silva grew up on a cattle farm in northeast Brazil, where her passion for agriculture began. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Agronomy from the State University of Maranhao, Brazil, in 2014. She then pursued her Master’s and Ph.D. in Agronomy at the Federal Rural University of the Semi-Arid, Brazil, completing them in 2019 and 2023, respectively. From 2021 to 2023, Tatiane conducted her Ph.D. research as part of the WiscWeeds team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work focused on evaluating the effectiveness of pre-emergence herbicides for weed control in corn and their impact on cover crop species. Since 2023, Tatiane has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the CoolBean Lab at UW-Madison. Her current research spans soil health in soybean cropping systems, organic crop rotations in Wisconsin, and winter wheat management

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Ted Hoffman

Ted Hoffman

Economics/Special Topics

Ted Hoffman is an Independent Crop Consultant and Vice President of InDepth Agronomy. InDepth Agronomy is located in Eastern Wisconsin and works with dairy and grain producers throughout the area to help them meet their crop production and nutrient management goals. In addition to crop consulting, Ted facilitates precision services, contract research and three ongoing NOPP projects at InDepth Agronomy. Ted’s education background includes a B.S. in Soil and Crop Science from The University of Wisconsin- Platteville.

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Teyanna Marx

Teyanna Marx

Communications & Management

Teyanna Marx is an agricultural marketer with a passion for building authentic community connections, with roots in her family’s diversified crop and livestock farm in southern Wisconsin. After earning her Master’s in Animal Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Teyanna’s storytelling and communications career began as the 68th Alice in Dairyland, advocating for Wisconsin agriculture and connecting a broad range of audiences to where their food comes from. She then spent nearly a decade at agriculture marketing agencies working across some of the biggest brands in the animal nutrition, crop, and farm technology sectors. Teyanna's expertise includes developing and scaling strategic social media ecosystems, aligning audience-first content with brand strategy, and using a data-driven mindset to identify actionable insights that help brands foster conversations that convert. 

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Wrangler Jones

SnapPlus

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Zack Ciak

Zack Ciak

Agribusiness Safety & Management

Zach Ciak, Senior Safety Specialist for the Safety & Health program at the North Dakota Grain Dealers Association. With over 15 years of hands-on experience across the construction, oil & gas, and agriculture industries, Zach has a practical approach to creating a successful safety culture in a wide range of occupational settings. Zach has a passion for the safety of others and views safety as not just a step in a process, or a priority for a job, but as a foundational principle on which all occupational functions must be built. Drawing inspiration from his family, Zach can be found enjoying his free time with his wife & two daughters, or on the ice playing hockey. Zach also enjoys hunting & fishing and encourages others to appreciate the things in life that we all work so hard to achieve.

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