At the 2013 Farm Progress Show, representatives from Growth Energy were pleased to be part of the New Holland Club Blue event for dealers and customers. “New Holland is a fantastic company, they produce top notch equipment, but they also are willing to step up for rural America,” said Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis. “What we’ve seen over the last … Read More
New John Deere Mower Runs on E85
John Deere has introduced a brand new riding mower that can run on up to 85% percent ethanol blended fuel. The mower is a new Flex Fuel model of John Deere’s popular line of ZTrak mowers. The new, industry exclusive, Z925M Flex Fuel gives landscape contractors and customers with large acreage to mow a new alternative fuel option for their … Read More
Genscape Ups Tech Reach with LandViewer Buy
More information certainly helps any operation, especially operations dependent on precision technology (and who these days doesn’t need more precise information?). Provider of energy information for commodity and financial markets Genscape has bought LandViewer to expand its technology footprint in the agriculture and biofuels industries. Genscape says, using NASA satellite data to get daily updates of corn vegetation progress, the … Read More
AEM Defends Biofuels Mandate
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers has spoken out in defense of an important driver of agricultural equipment demand, urging the EPA to deny requests to waive the required use of biofuels under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Several governors have filed waiver requests with the EPA to waive the RFS claiming economic hardships from higher corn prices due to the … Read More
Drought Impact on RFS
Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “How will drought impact the Renewable Fuel Standard?” We’re certainly in a major drought at this point and we know it will have an impact on the corn crop. Of course who knows how significant that will be? The next crop report ought to be very interesting. Our results show that 39 percent think … Read More
First USDA Virtual Office Hours on Twitter
Tomorrow (April 5) at 1:30pm EDT, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack will hold the first “USDA Virtual Office Hours on Twitter.” Most of you probably know how this works, especially if you’ve been a participant in AgChat. I’d recommend using TweetChat, Twubs or an app like TweetDeck or HootSuite to follow along. It looks like these planned monthly sessions will focus … Read More
Ag Industry Integral to America’s Future
During a press conference hosted by Growth Energy, Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey stressed the importance of the ethanol industry to agriculture. Northey told the tale of how corn farmers were looking for a way to sell their excess corn back in the 80s and so they created the ethanol industry. And it worked. Last year, ethanol used 4 billion … Read More
Ethanol Could Improve Diesel Engine Efficiency
Using ethanol mixed with water in diesel engines could make them more efficient and reduce emissions. National Corn Growers Association chairman Bob Dickey is also chairman of CleanFlex Power Systems, which is so new they haven’t built a website yet, but what they have done is developed a method to efficiently use ethanol in diesel engines. Dickey started the idea … Read More
Precision Ag Testing Of Biomass Crops
Biomass crops slated for ethanol production are gaining research dollars as scientists use precision agriculture remote sensing to study the issues and logistics of getting crops from field production to the biorefinery gate. A lot has to happen to a plant from the time it first captures sunlight in a field to being dispensed as fuel at the pump. For … Read More
Is COOL For Fuel Cool?
Many of you corn growers using precision technology are very aware of the challenges we’ve had in the ethanol business, especially battling groups with an agenda to distort facts and misinform the public. Growth Energy is a group that was formed to battle that problem on Capitol Hill. Here at the Farm Progress Show, Gen. Wesley Clark, Growth Energy, announced … Read More