Corteva Agriscience
Tim Flowers has spent his entire life in and around Dexter, Mo. Agriculture was always a big part of his life — his parents ran a small farm, and much of his extended family worked in row crops, rice, cattle and even catfish. But instead of following a traditional farming path, Tim carved out a career all his own. That nontraditional career path ultimately made him the go-to rice consultant in his region and earned him the honor of being named the Rice Consultant of the Year in 2025.
After completing a degree in ag economics from Southwest Missouri State and farming with his older brother for a few years, Flowers took a job in sales at a local co-op. It was in this retail setting that he started accumulating experience with seed, fertilizer and chemicals. When the co-op branched out into custom spraying, and one location was in Dexter, Flowers was tapped to take over. “The manager said, ‘Our sprayer guy quit, and I need a driver,’” Flowers recalls. “I said, I haven’t run a spray rig,’ and he said, ‘You’re from a farm. I’m not worried about it.’”
Building expertise and relationships
Flowers quickly learned all he could about not just the spray rig, but the products in the tank, building knowledge about application rates and outcomes. He left the co-op to work at a local farmer’s small fertilizer plant. By the following spring, Farmers Fertilizer was building another plant, this time close to Dexter. Flowers ran that plant for eight years, adding a spray rig and continuing to build his expertise. “People would come in and say, ‘Spray my corn
with this, spray my beans with this, spray my rice with this,” Flowers recounts. With a little bit of family rice farming in his background plus experience helping the owner of Farmers Fertilizer with his rice farm, soon Flowers was the one making recommendations. “I would say, ‘Well, I’ve gone back and looked, and I think this would be better,’ or ‘I think you should try this new chemical,’” Flowers says. “And before long, people would come in and say, ‘Just go look at my rice and spray what you think it needs.’” Flowers had become the expert, and the area’s rice farmers trusted him to know and do what was best for their fields. He was officially a rice consultant.
Tim Flowers proudly shows off his “major award.”
Tim Flowers was raised in a farming family that included his dad, Bill, and brothers Kevin and Stan. The Flowers family was named the Dexter Chamber of Commerce 1999 Farm Family of the Year.
Flowers loves being part of the ag consulting network in his area. “We’re like a little consulting family around Dexter,” Flowers says. “We text or call each other all the time and say, ‘Hey, what do you think of this?’ or ‘Do you think there’s a better way to do that?’” He feels the same way about the growers he consults for, most of whom he’s worked with for many years. “I consider them all friends,” he says. “I know the names of their kids and their dogs. If I needed help at 2:00 in the morning, they’d help me, and I’d help them.”
Flowers checks in with his customers every week throughout the rice growing season. “I look at every field to see what that particular one needs,” he says. Then he advises growers what applications to make, when, and at what rates. Frequent farm visits are important, because, as Flowers explains, with rice farming, something major happens approximately every 30 days. When the rice comes up in the spring, in about 30 days (or 40-50 days in a cool spring), it’s time to flood the fields. In about another 30, mid-season arrives — a good time to fertilize. Approximately 30 more days and plant heads appear, and about 30 days later, it’s time to harvest. “I like seeing all the stages of the crop,” he adds. While he’s scouting customer fields, Sadie, Flowers’ yellow labrador retriever and his “most trusted consultant,” is usually by his side. She spends the day with him in the truck and even rides on his four-wheeler out in the fields. “She’s my whole scouting crew,” Flowers quips.
The Flowers family includes Tim, wife Kim, son Ethan, future daughter-in-law Kaley, son Owen and, of course, dog Sadie.
Flowers believes that the most important part of his job is caring about what happens in his customers’ fields and how that affects the growers themselves. “You have to care about what you’re doing,” he says. “I’m concerned for the farmers, how their crops turn out, how that helps them provide for their families. I do my best for them so they can do their best for their families. So, yeah, it’s personal for me.”Those who nominated Flowers for this award also noted his personal commitment to his customers. “I’ve been working in the industry alongside Tim for 15 years and have known him personally a lot longer than that,” says Matt Pippins, owner of Delta Ag. “I’ve noticed that Tim’s recommendations are made based not only on what he thinks to be a good agronomic decision, but he also looks at the economic side of the recommendation to help the grower during these tough financial times. Tim has always been the first to try new technology when it comes to market but always has the grower’s best interest in mind.” Fellow rice consultant Amy Beth Dowdy echoes the sentiment. “Tim has been the type of consultant who worries about each decision he makes and whether it will give the farmer a return on his investment,” she says. “He’s out in the field sunrise to past sunset, sometimes using a flashlight to finish up the last field of the day so his farmer will have a recommendation to spray the next morning.”
Recognition for his counsel and commitment
That concern for his customers and their outcomes is part of why Flowers was named the 2025 Rice Consultant of the Year. He says he never dreamed of this kind of recognition. “I’m a behind-the-scenes guy,” Flowers says. “I can talk to you all day, but I’m not someone who likes to get in front of people or be recognized. Still, it’s a pleasant surprise. Part of Flowers’ surprise stems from the fact that he didn’t set out to be a rice consultant. He recalls a story from when his sons, Owen and Ethan, attended Harding University.Their economics professor asked Flowers to come speak to a class about his consulting work. “I’m not one to get in front of people and talk,” Flowers says, “so I just explained what I do and how at first I had customers telling me what I needed to spray, then I learned all I could, which led to me advising customers what to do.” He recounts that the professor told the students, “Do you see how he saw an opportunity and then made a place for himself?” That’s when Flowers realized, “I had worked myself into a job.” And now he has been recognized as being among the very best at it.
While neither of his sons work in agriculture, Flowers says they are having some fun with his Rice Consultant of the Year honor. He noted in his acceptance speech that this recognition was like the movie “A Christmas Story,” and that “I won ‘a major award.’” Therefore, one of his sons sent him a figurine of the movie’s infamous “leg lamp” that Flowers now proudly displays in his home’s front window.
Flowers’ wife, Kim, is a professor at Harding University in Doctoral and Educational Leadership Programs. She says that part of the secret to their 36-year marriage is that she’s busier in the winter, while her husband is busier in the summer. When he’s not consulting or working his own farmland, Flowers is an avid bass fisherman and hunter, and he and his wife are active members of the Church of Christ.
A lifetime in the Dexter community has influenced the way Flowers built his rice consulting business. At the end of the day, he says the secret to his success is the personal connections he’s made with his customers and with people throughout his community. Those relationships helped him grow into the crop consultant he is today: a trusted advisor to rice growers across his region
Corteva Agriscience