WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A highly regarded go-to guy for help in raising corn is calling it a career after 40-years as a researcher and problem solver at Purdue University.

Bob Nielsen has made a name for himself, not just in Indiana but worldwide, in his findings and teachings on how to grow corn efficiently and at a profit.

Nielsen has shared his knowledge of corn with over 700,000 farmers and their advisors at more than 2,000 Purdue Extension programs statewide and other parts of the nation. He’s accepted invitations to lend his expertise to corn growers and other stakeholders in countries like Canada, Mexico, Italy, South Africa and New Zealand.

Nielsen, who officially retires Dec. 31, said he expects to get emotional during his last day on the job but feels ready to move on after going into semi-retirement three years ago to begin his transition.

Interacting with farmers and helping them succeed is what he anticipates missing the most.

“It’s just the feeling of serving others and every once in a while, getting some positive feedback that tells you that you’ve really helped someone improve the way they farm or improve their profitability or steered them away from decisions that weren’t agronomically sound,” he said.

Nielsen, an extension corn specialist and professor of agronomy in the College of Agriculture at Purdue, grew up in eastern Nebraska on a small farm raising corn, soybeans, alfalfa and, occasionally, grain sorghum.

The farm wasn’t large enough to support more than one family, but he knew he wanted to remain in agriculture. He received degrees in plant breeding during his four years at the University of Nebraska and at the graduate school at the University of Minnesota.

Fate, perhaps, was at play when he first started applying for extension positions related to corn at several universities.

Nielsen said he increasingly became intrigued by the prospects at becoming a corn educator during every job interview. He then accepted an offer in 1982 to specialize in corn at Purdue University, where he’s been ever since.

Nielsen said he has no regrets, whatsoever, about the change in his career path.

“I can’t imagine a 40-year career in agriculture that would be more rewarding and more satisfying than what I’ve been able to do,” he said.

Eventually, Nielsen became known to many farmers as simply “The Corn Guy.” The nickname was rooted from Nielsen introducing himself to audiences as “The Corn Guy from Purdue” as sort of an ice breaker to facilitate discussion.

He also had “Corn Guy” placed on personalized license plates for his motor vehicles and uses the nickname as his handle on Twitter and other social media platforms. “It just stuck, I guess,” he said.

Nielsen also lived up to his nickname with a vast collection of corn magnets and figurines with some at his office waiting to be boxed up and taken home.

Despite major advancements in the industry, Nielsen said the job of sharing technologies and information to growers remains the same.

However, Nielsen said he never imagined something as simple as cell phones or as space age like precision technology would be developed and become as vital as they are today in the profit margins of farmers.

Nielsen said he can be out in a field and with a simple cell phone call or internet search receive the information he needs much quicker to help a farmer.

He’s also had to become an expert on products like drones to better monitor crop conditions and self-driving tractors to plant and harvest with razor sharp efficiency before passing along the information to growers.

“We’ve incorporated a lot of those precision ag technologies into how we conduct our research and, in some ways, how we implement the results,” he said.

Most challenging, perhaps, in maintaining accuracy when advising farmers on how to respond to Mother Nature. Nielsen said climate change has brought uncertainty when trying to help farmers diagnose the impact on crops and how to successfully deal with the impacts in the future.

“While we know there’s going to be extreme weather next year, we don’t know what actual kind of extreme weather it’s going to be. That becomes problematic,” he said.

In the short term, Nielson said he doesn’t plan to do any consulting work. He wants to relax and focus on hobbies such as genealogy before anything long term might become of interest.

For a long time, Nielson said he planned to retire at 65 but lasted three years longer than he originally anticipated.

“There just comes a time when you just sort of have a feeling that you’ve done all you can do and that it may be time to let the next generation come in and take over and start doing it their way,” he said.