For years, growers have treated agronomy like a collection of independent silos — managing water one way, labor another and fertilizer in large, intermittent batches, says newly appointed Deerpoint Group CEO Mike Hemman. But as profit margins compress and resource constraints tighten, that fragmented approach is breaking down.
In a conversation with The Packer, Hemman draws on his decades of precision irrigation leadership to explain why fertilizer is facing its own evolutionary leap. He breaks down how “systems thinking” — combining automated and continuous fertigation, rapid in-house lab data and real-time field execution — takes the operational risk off the grower’s plate and builds a repeatable model for field success.
The Packer: You spent years leading Netafim North America, a global giant in irrigation. What was it about Deerpoint Group’s unique approach that made you say, ‘This is where I want to be next,’ and how does your irrigation background inform your new role?
Hemman: During my tenure at Netafim, I witnessed the impact of precision irrigation. Over the years, growers have moved away from flood-style applications toward delivering water more consistently, in smaller doses, aligned with crop demand. This change in cultural practice improved efficiency, plant health and yield and led to more predictable outcomes.
At the same time, I also saw increasing regulatory pressure around water use. As water availability tightened, growers were forced to adapt. Not just operationally but with greater measurement, accountability and reporting. Precision irrigation wasn’t just an efficiency gain; it became a necessity.
While irrigation has made that transition, crop nutrition largely has not. Fertilizer is still often applied in batches, driven by labor and timing constraints, rather than real-time crop needs. However, many of the same issues (regulatory scrutiny, resource constraints and the need for accountability) are now emerging in the fertilizer space.
In many ways, fertilizer today is where irrigation was 15 to 20 years ago. Everyone understands the problem, but the technology to solve it at scale has not existed.
Solving this problem is what drew me to Deerpoint.
Deerpoint has built an automated system that enables continuous, data-driven nutrient delivery. This brings the same precision and consistency to fertilizer that modern irrigation brought to water. As important as this is, what truly sets the company apart isn’t just the technology. It’s the fact that Deerpoint operates as a fully managed system. We design, deliver, apply, monitor, verify and report on crop nutrition as an integrated service. This closes the gap between recommendation and execution.
For growers, this means moving from managing inputs to relying on a system that reduces execution risk, improves consistency and provides real-time visibility into what’s happening in the field. It also puts them in a much stronger position to stay ahead of increasing regulatory requirements, with the ability to measure, document and demonstrate exactly how nutrients are being applied.
Ultimately, we take a complex, high-consequence part of their operation off their plate, so they can focus on running their farm with confidence. They are still in control of the fertilizer program; we simply handle all the execution.
You mentioned that the growers who succeed are the ones who get ‘smarter about how they create systems.’ How do you plan to instill that systems-thinking mindset across the entire Deerpoint team and your customer base?
When I talk about systems thinking, I mean shifting from a series of independent decisions to managing crop production as a continuous, integrated system.
Over my career, I’ve seen this industry approach agronomy in silos. Irrigation is managed one way, nutrition another, labor another. Decisions are made in batches, driven by convenience, labor availability or habit. The growers who are consistently outperforming their peers are the ones who think differently. They design systems where everything works together and operates continuously.
To make that shift, two things have to happen.
First, we need to think more comprehensively. That means not just thinking like an agronomist but running the entire operation as one coordinated system. Small decisions compound, and when timing slips or execution stalls, the entire system breaks down.
Second, you need the ability to actually execute that system in real time. It’s one thing to design a better plan. It’s another to deliver nutrients precisely, consistently and adjust based on what’s happening in the field today. Agriculture rarely progresses as planned, and we must be able to adapt to unexpected changes in real time.
Internally, we’re working to instill this mindset by aligning our own teams around execution. We don’t operate in silos. We bring agronomy, operations, lab data and field execution together and hold ourselves accountable for outcomes, not just recommendations.
Externally, with our customers, we’re enabling systems thinking by giving them a platform that actually makes it possible. Our managed nutrition system continuously delivers, monitors, verifies and adjusts nutrient programs in real time. This allows growers to move away from reactive decisions toward a more stable, repeatable and optimized system that can be adjusted in real time as conditions change.
Systems thinking isn’t just a mindset; it’s something that must be enabled. When you combine the right way of thinking with the ability to execute consistently, that’s when we see results.
Fertilizer markets have seen volatility over the last few years. How does moving away from large slugs of fertilizer to a continuous delivery model help growers hedge against unpredictable input prices?
This year, fertilizer markets have been extremely volatile. This creates a real challenge for growers. When prices move quickly, the traditional model of applying large slug applications creates a lot of risk.
You’re making big, upfront decisions and often committing a significant amount of capital at one point in time without knowing how efficiently that fertilizer will actually be used by the crop.
The reality is, when you apply large quantities of fertilizer at once, not all of it is available to the plant. Some is tied up in the soil, some is lost to leaching and some simply isn’t taken up efficiently. When prices are high, that inefficiency becomes very expensive.
A continuous fertigation model mitigates this risk.
By applying nutrients in small, precise doses aligned with crop demand (the principles behind the four R’s), you increase the percentage of what you buy actually being used by the plant. That improves both agronomic performance and economic efficiency.
There is also an equally important benefit that continuous fertigation provides in volatile markets.
Instead of making large, inflexible inputs upfront, growers can take a more measured approach, adjusting rates, timing and total spend as the season unfolds. That creates a level of flexibility that helps them manage through instability.
At Deerpoint, we take that a step further by customizing the program at the field level. Our agronomy team works with the grower to execute their objectives, whether that’s maximizing yield or staying within a defined budget. Our White Box platform enables site-specific delivery; we can run different programs across different fields, crops and field conditions. That level of precision and flexibility isn’t possible with traditional blending or manual injection systems.
The combination of higher efficiency and greater flexibility allows growers to get more value out of every unit of fertilizer they purchase. That’s one of the most effective ways to manage risk in a volatile market.
Deerpoint integrates in-house lab analysis (tissue, soil, water sampling) with real-time field adjustments. How does this feedback loop work in practice during a chaotic growing season?
There is no such thing as a typical growing season. Every year is different, and in a chaotic season, conditions can change quickly. Nutrient demand shifts, weather changes and if you’re not reacting in real time, you’re already behind.
At Deerpoint, we operate on a continuous cycle of sampling, analysis and adjustment. Our agronomy team is regularly in the field with growers, collecting tissue, soil and water samples to understand exactly what’s happening on a field-by-field basis. Those samples are processed through our in-house lab, and we’re typically turning results around within 36 hours. This is fast enough to make real-time, in-season decisions.
All of that data flows directly into our system and is immediately accessible through the grower portal, so decisions don’t have to wait for a scheduled meeting. Growers and our agronomy team are looking at the same real-time information and making adjustments as conditions change.
Earlier this season, for example, we were able to identify a developing zinc deficiency through tissue analysis and respond immediately with targeted adjustments to the fertility program. In many cases, we were addressing the issue before other growers even knew there was a problem in their fields.
We’re not just collecting data; we’re continuously using it to improve execution. The complete system allows us to diagnose, adjust and validate in real time, rather than waiting weeks between decisions.
In a dynamic environment, the ability to connect data directly to execution is what makes the difference. It’s the difference between reacting after the fact and staying ahead of issues before they impact yield or crop quality.
