Logan Dinkla’s Rewarding Role in Agronomy

As someone who is passionate about crop protection and enjoys helping growers make the best decisions for their operations, Logan Dinkla has found the ideal job.

Dinkla is an agronomic service representative for Syngenta Crop Protection. His territory includes parts of central, south central, and southwest Iowa. He’s also a contributing agronomist for Successful Farming’s coverage of USDA’s Crop Progress report. 

An Iowa State University alumnus, Dinkla has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural studies and is pursuing a master’s degree in agronomy. He’s been with Syngenta for four years. Before the agronomy role, which he’s had for a year and a half, he worked on the seed side of the business as a sales representative for NK seeds.

Dinkla spoke with Successful Farming about his background and what makes his job rewarding, and shared some thoughts about the upcoming growing season. 

SF: Tell us about what got you interested in the field of agronomy.

LD: I grew up on a family farm in southwest Iowa, where we raised corn and soybeans and had a cattle operation. I was involved from a young age, and went to Iowa State for ag studies – a general ag degree. In the agronomy classes, I really gained an interest. I went on to do several agronomy internships throughout college and started in retail after school where I worked directly with growers.

When I was in retail, I enjoyed working with growers – helping them make better decisions and helping with their operation – but I felt like I could go and have a larger impact. I came to Syngenta on the seed side of the business as an NK sales rep for a few years and then ultimately switched into this role a year and a half ago. When I thought back to my time in retail, the crop protection side was what I really enjoyed and had the most passion for, and this role allows me to accomplish both things – be involved in crop protection as well as help retailers and farmers with their operations. 

I knew I liked crop protection when I was in retail, but once I was away from it for a couple years, I decided that’s really what I wanted to get back into. 

SF: What does a day in your shoes look like during the growing season?

LD: Every week you don’t really know what direction you’re going to go. It’s a lot of putting out fires. In my role, we have research sites that we call “Grow-More Experience” sites, where several agronomic service representatives implement a lot of trials. There are a lot of days spent implementing trials, testing our products, and figuring out how we’re going to train our sales staff as well as our customers.

Then there are days in the spring where we get called for a crop injury or a performance issue, which aren’t necessarily likely, given our products, but we’ll get involved any time that there’s an issue with an application or when we need to be involved with a farmer. It’s more or less what direction we have to go to put out fires or help a salesman or implement a trial. 

SF: Do you like that unpredictability week to week? 

LD: I do. I don’t necessarily know what the week’s going to bring and, to me, that’s what makes it fun. If I can help solve a problem, then I think that’s really rewarding. And then the ability throughout the spring and summer to be in the field nearly every day. It’s always a chance to learn something new.

SF: How do you approach your job?

LD: As I look at what I do, ultimately I want to help someone make a better decision and improve their operation. A lot of what I do is geared toward that, whether it’s trying to educate someone or solve an issue that’s already happened so it won’t happen again.

SF: What significant challenge are you facing for 2025? 

LD: The biggest challenge is trying to control waterhemp – how to better control it with the tools that we have. That’s our biggest issue when we look at it from a farmer’s perspective and my perspective. 

I try to educate people on how to never let waterhemp emerge – trying to help them understand how to control it and set themselves up for success by controlling it from the beginning.

“Control to seed and not the weed” is something we say a lot.

SF: What are your hobbies outside of agriculture?

LD: I’m an avid Iowa State Cyclones fan. That’d be my biggest hobby – cheering on the Cyclones.