The No. 2 U.S. spot in the Seed World Global Innovation Showdown goes to SeedTrax by Hubner Industries and IntelinAir.
At a glance, seed corn fields look a lot like commercial corn fields, but anyone in seed production knows better. From emergence to detasseling, every acre is a complex operation of precision timing, countless trips across the field, and hard-earned experience. And yet, until recently, most digital ag tools didn’t account for any of that nuance.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time, digital technology in ag is geared towards the 90 million acres of corn or the 85 million acres of soybeans,” Hubner Industries CEO Doug Hubner says. “We didn’t have any digital tools specifically for seed corn.”
That’s changing, thanks to a powerful collaboration between Hubner Industries and IntelinAir — a partnership born out of the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network (WHIN), an Indiana-based testbed for advanced ag innovation. The result is SeedTrax, a purpose-built digital platform designed to manage the intricacies of seed corn production, from preseason grower planning to yield mapping and pollen monitoring.
Built for Seed Corn, Not Bent to Fit
Before SeedTrax, Hubner’s team had to manipulate commercial corn platforms just to draw accurate boundaries for fields split between hybrids.
“You take a 100-acre field, and we might be raising two different products. They could have the same male but two different females,” Hubner explains. “We want to be able to see how those respond throughout the growing season, so our field scouts can manage them separately.”
That kind of granularity isn’t just nice to have — it’s essential in a high-stakes, low-acreage business like seed corn.
“Seed corn production is such a high-value crop,” Hubner says. “There’s not many acres in the U.S. scheme of things, but it’s a very critical step.”
That value demands precision, and SeedTrax delivers with layers of customized functionality: stand counts, tassel and silking tracking, yield heatmaps, weed hotspots, and in-season imagery that helps supervisors and executives monitor acres from afar.
“I can dial in and see all of our acres in one place,” Hubner says. “This gives me a digital eye on all the fields… I’m asking good questions, rather than not knowing anything or only (knowing) the fields I’m walking.”
Scaling People and Performance
Today, growers are actively using SeedTrax on more than 10,000 acres of seed corn, with plans to reach 30,000 acres in 2025. According to Hubner, the tool is already improving labor efficiency and oversight.
“We’re seeing better coverage across all of our acres as far as our field scouts,” he says. “Sometimes it’s not purely acres, it’s how many SKUs that field scout is managing. Managing a 160-acre field with one hybrid is very different than managing 160 acres with four.”
With every acre digitally monitored and every scout supported, SeedTrax enables experienced seed professionals to coach newer team members and guide decisions in real time. It also helps generate more reliable supply estimates at harvest.
“You can start calculating a little better how much of the field is red, how much is yellow, how much is green,” Hubner says. “Then you can start attributing that to lower or higher yielding portions of the field.”
While immediate yield gains haven’t yet hit the original target of 2–3%, Hubner remains confident that it will happen through better weed control, better pest control since all the agronomic attributes are in the platform.
Innovation Rooted in Legacy
Hubner’s passion for solving this challenge isn’t just about building a business; it’s deeply personal. His family has been involved in seed corn since the 1930s, and his grandfather helped build one of the first DeKalb seed plants in Illinois.
“He was a pilot… he flew to multiple production areas because it took too long to drive,” Hubner recalls. “Driving innovation and advancement in seed production isn’t just for us today, it’s been in our family for generations.”
That mindset drives his willingness to tinker with emerging tech, ask new questions, and push the boundaries of what’s possible. Case in point: outfitting their own sprayer for the first time this year with camera systems to monitor spray coverage, and potentially even detect pollen shed an R&D project for future monitoring in SeedTrax.
Hubner believes it’s that kind of curiosity that fuels SeedTrax and its potential to transform the seed industry from the inside out.
From Problem-Solving to Platform Building
“This innovation is critical to all the seed corn producers,” Hubner says. “There are fewer and fewer seedsmen to produce the growing seed corn market demand, so we’ve got to develop the tools needed so that our field scouts can manage more acres per person with better intelligence than they previously had.”
Intelinair accounts manager Demitrius Kikalos also sees the bigger picture.
“With food security and sustainability being a top priority today, integrating technology into the seed production industry is crucial,” he says. “SeedTrax enhances seed development by providing real-time insights that elevate seed quality, ensuring we grow the best food for the future.”
For the Whole Seed Industry
With pilot partners already using the system, Hubner’s team is working on broader distribution strategies to bring SeedTrax to more growers, faster. The goal isn’t just to keep it in-house, it’s to raise the standard for seed corn production industry-wide.
“We’re sort of just on this whole SeedTrax journey,” he says. “Hopefully we can influence the 30 million-plus bags of seed corn that’s raised annually… and change what that looks like moving forward.”
And if that sounds ambitious, Hubner is okay with that. “It’s not for me; it’s not for SeedTrax. It’s what I’ve always dreamed of doing.”
Learn more: SeedTrax.com
