Erick Scarpone, Manufacturing Engineer 3 with Caterpillar Inc., has received the SAE/AEM Outstanding Young Engineer award in 2016 for the off-highway and powerplant industry. The award recognizes Scarpone’s leadership and involvement in the industry.- Iteris ClearAg has released a paper looking at the idea of agriculture modeling taking the place of sensors on the farm.
- John Corbett, CEO and Co-Founder of aWhere, Inc., will address the real effects of climate change on ag weather at next month’s Oilseed & Grain Trade Summit. The event will take place November 15-16 at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis.
- BRANDT, agriculture retailer and manufacturer of specialty Ag products, promoted two members to its senior leadership team in its Specialty Formulations division. Brian Haschemeyer has been promoted to Director of Discovery & Innovation and John Guglielmi has been promoted to National Sales Director.
BASF Offers Zidua® PRO for Soybean Farmers
Soybean growers now have a new tool to control weeds in 2017.
BASF’s Zidua® PRO (Premium Residual Option) herbicide is a new broad-spectrum product with powerful burndown and residual control that helps growers address the issue of weed resistance. After receiving U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registration earlier this year, Zidua PRO herbicide is now in market and available for purchase.
“Zidua PRO herbicide combines three sites of action for consistent control of tough weeds with built-in resistance management,” said Daniel Waldstein, Technical Marketing Manager, BASF. “As a contact burndown and residual pre-emergent, Zidua PRO herbicide helps growers keep fields clean from contact to canopy.”
Zidua PRO herbicide helps provide residual control up to 14 days longer than competitive group 15 herbicides when applied at full rate. Longer residual control means more time to make post-emergent applications, helping growers spray when weeds are less than four inches tall.
Zidua PRO herbicide enters the market during a critical time for soybean growers. With site of action resistance on the rise, a comprehensive approach to weed management offers the best solution to the agriculture community. Zidua PRO herbicide pairs with post-emergent herbicides, containing additional sites of action to effectively control otherwise detrimental weeds and protect against resistance. Currently pending U.S. EPA registration, BASF’s Engenia™ herbicide is a complementary innovation — and the most flexible and advanced formulation of dicamba from BASF for use in dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton.
Dreaming Up Solutions At Develop with Deere
Joshua Carson has a very unique job. He is an API Evangelist for John Deere- a new job position he says is about making a software developer’s life easier. It’s his responsibility to take the ideas of a developer and show them how to work with John Deere’s API in the Operations Center to make sure that idea is available to farmers.
“If they express interest in John Deere, […] I help on the technical, I dream up solutions, I help you know if something is practical and real,” Carson told Chuck Zimmerman at the Develop with Deere conference in Kansas City.
And most ideas are real. Some need a reality check, but mostly developers just need to know how to make them work. Most often heard misconceptions about John Deere’s program hinge in grower data, Caron says. Companies think the data is available to them as a third-party developer, but data belongs to the grower at John Deere, and the grower decides who sees it.
Another challenge for his job can be helping people see the value in having a platform. Farm equipment is direct and obvious, but platforms can be a bit more hazy if they don’t directly affect yield or control price. But a platform can bring a lot of value to a farm and people are beginning to really understand that, as is evident by the excitement around this year’s conference.
“There are a lot of solutions we can be delivering to market,” Carson says. Its about finding the right people and putting together the right skills. And that’s what Develop with Deere is all about.
Listen to all Carson had to say here: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/jd-develop-16-carson.mp3″ text=”Interview with Joshua Carson, John Deere”]
Photos from this year’s conference can be found here: Develop with Deere Photo Album
New Boundary Pushes Grower Connections
Develop with Deere has been hosting all kinds of software developer companies this week, including an organization that has pioneered the Internet of Things. Kim Pearson is CEO of New Boundary Technologies, a company that has certainly been part of pushing boundaries in precision agriculture.
More than 35 years ago they began working with remote monitoring and control– back when PCs were a new item. They’ve been uploading sensor information to the internet, an idea now known as Internet of Things or IOT since 2001, before it was even called that. While your thermostat or refrigerator is talking to the cloud, Pearson’s company is connecting pumps, tanks, and monitors in the same way.
Their interest in pushing boundaries shows through in their excitement to be part of John Deere’s open API in the Operations Center.
“For the grower, one dashboard that they can see for running their business, because this Internet of Things, as everybody has heard, is kind of growing and mushrooming and everything is getting connected,” Pearson told Chuck Zimmerman. “Farmers don’t want to have to log in to 50 different places to see what it happening, so opening that platform up so that we can contribute to it, so they can see everything in their Operation Center is what we’re very excited about.”
Diesel levels low in your equipment? New Boundary Technologies can provide information through a company like A Tech to alert you to the problem. HotShot uses New Boundary software to let you see the status of an irrigation system from your phone, and turn it on or off where ever you and your gadgets are.
Intrigued? Learn more in Chuck’s full interview here: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/jd-develop-16-new-boundary.mp3″ text=”Kim Pearson, New Boundary Technologies”]
Photos from this year’s conference can be found here: Develop with Deere Photo Album
Ag Groups Challenge Waters of the US Rule
The American Farm Bureau Federation and many other organizations and businesses have asked a federal court to overrule the EPA and Army Corps of Engineer’s “Waters of the United States”. The submitted brief outlines many allegations in detail and describes a year’s worth of litigation involving the rule’s overreach.
The coalition’s brief explains how EPA flouted important procedural safeguards designed to ensure a fair and thoughtful rulemaking process. EPA tactics included withholding key documents until after the public comment period had closed, ignoring and ridiculing critical public comments and issuing illegal “covert propaganda” in an effort to generate superficial public support for the rule.
“EPA set out to achieve a predetermined outcome and then manipulated the public notice-and-comment process to achieve that outcome,” AFBF General Counsel Ellen Steen said. “It treated the rulemaking process like a game to be won instead of a deliberative process for developing lawful and reasonable regulations.”
The groups also cover how WOTUS violates the limits of the Constitution and the Clean Water Act and explain how the rule relies on vague terms to define “navigable waters.” The brief shows how no fair public notice has been given to describe to the public what features are covered in the rule.
“Regulators can reach any outcome they please, and regulated entities cannot know the outcome until they are already exposed to criminal liability, including crushing fines,” the brief states.
The coalition asks the federal court to strike the rule in its entirety.
Commander in Chief – Who Has Your Vote?
Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “Which candidate is better for agricultural exports?”
Both major party candidates have said they oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) which most studies show would help to open up markets and increase agricultural exports. The Obama administration has been strongly in favor of TPP and urging Congress to ratify the trade agreement as soon as possible, but that will not likely be before the end of the year, leaving it in the hands of the next president and a new Congress. And in this poll it looks like Trump squeaked ahead.
Here are the poll results:
- Donald Trump – 52%
- Hillary Clinton – 32%
- Gary Johnson – 6%
- Jill Stein – 1%
- None of the above – 9%
Our new ZimmPoll is live and asks the question, Final decision time – who are you voting for?
I wish I could promise this would be the final presidential election poll since the election is less than a week away. But we will continue to discuss how our new commander in chief will impact agriculture. So, let’s hear your final decision. Who are you voting for?
Illinois FB and @GROWMARK Launch 4R4U
The Illinois Farm Bureau Federation and affiliated county Farm Bureaus recently joined with GROWMARK and a number of FS companies to launch a program designed to demonstrate the efficacy of 4R nutrient stewardship practices at the local level. The 4Rs mean the right source of nutrient, at the right time, at the right rate, and in the right place.
The 4R field demonstration program, called 4R4U, includes 14 county Farm Bureaus and 11 FS companies in Illinois. “Our county farm bureaus are working with their neighboring FS member companies to really drill down, demonstrate and investigate 4R nutrient strategies at the local level,” says Lauren Lurkins, director of natural and environmental resources for Illinois Farm Bureau.
The focus of the partnership will be on implementation of the state’s nutrient loss reduction strategy (NLRS) with plot tests at the local level that will compare common practices to advanced practices on nutrient stewardship. “We’re taking it back to our expertise and taking those practices back into the field and figuring out how they work in a farmer’s real life,” said Lurkins.
Each partnership will be putting a strategy in place this winter with field demonstration days to be held next year in spring and summer and Lurkins says they are developing a website and social media channels to communicate with growers about the project. Learn more in this interview: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/4r4u-lurkins.mp3″ text=”Interview with Lauren Lurkins, Illinois Farm Bureau”]
Powdery Mildew No Challenge for FMC’s Rhyme
Powdery mildew has been a major challenge for California growers this year, in fact, according to Tim Ksander, technical manager for FMC, one of the worst these growers have ever encountered. Powdery mildew is an interesting disease, Ksander told AgWired during the recent 2016 CAPCA Conference & Agri-Expo, because the disease infests numerous crops. However, there are different genera and they attack plants in slightly different ways.
FMC’s Tim Ksander explains how Rhyme is tough on powdery mildew during the 2016 CAPCA Conference.
Fortunately there is a solution for growers from FMC called Rhyme, which Ksander said works on virtually all the different genera. One crop in particular that has been hard hit is grapes. “First powdery mildew infects the leaves and eventually it gets into the fruit, and that’s the part we’re trying to protect,” said Ksander. “The advantage of Rhyme fungicide is that it is systemic and can be sprayed right on the leaves. It can also go into the soil and can be taken up by the root system.”
Ksander said that whenever a grower is working with fungicides, he needs to be aware of resistance issues. A component of a good resistance management plan includes the timing of fungicide applications. “The best time to apply a fungicide is preventative because when a disease starts it’s harder to get rid of it. Rhyme fungicide has some curative activity so if there is a little bit of it there it will knock that back and prevent it from sporulating. Preventative treatment is the key to successful disease management,” stressed Ksander.
“To manage resistance what needs to be done with all fungicides is rotation, rotation, rotation. Rotation is the number one key to successful resistance management,” Ksander added. Another key? Mixing up modes of action.
Fungicides should be rotated within the growing season and between seasons. He explained, “If you end the season with a material such as a triozole, you don’t want to start the next season with that because that disease organism has already been subjected to that. Rather you want to start with a different mode of action when you start the season then rotate to another mode of action.”
To learn more listen to my interview with Tim Ksander here: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/CAPCA16-fmc-ksander.mp3″ text=”Interview with Tim Ksander, FMC”]
Be sure to check out all the action by viewing the 42nd Annual CAPCA Photo Album.
Legal: Always read and follow label directions. Shark EW herbicide is only registered for use in California. FMC Fracture, Koverall, Rhyme, Shark and Sovran are trademarks and Investing in farming’s future is a service mark of FMC Corporation or an affiliate. ©2016 FMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 16-FMC-0857, 10/16
Develop with Deere Is More than Daydreams
Kevin Krieg, welcoming dealers.
Develop with Deere has typically been a conference for software developers to come and learn how they can make programs that integrate with the John Deere system. Not so this year. This time around the conference took a new approach when Kevin Krieg and the team putting on the event decided to focus on helping dealers understand what is already at work in the John Deere Operations Center, rather than just how to add to it.
Training dealers in third-party software is a pretty innovative idea, but dealers were clear about their expectations for the event.”We don’t want smoke and mirrors. We want actual production solutions that we can take home from the conference and start applying to the problems in the field,” Krieg says he heard over and over. “So that’s what we’ve held our software developers to.”
Software companies committed to two things when they agreed to host a seminar at this year’s conference. They needed to explain what their software is capable of in the field today and how it works within the John Deere Operations Center. Being able to take information back to customers and make it work right now was important to Deere.
While John Deere dealers are learning from software companies, other team members are getting some good ideas as well. When Deere looks at what these companies are trying to offer they have to take a look at their equipment and make sure it’s capable of these goals. Krieg says sometimes Deere has to plan machines to accept and use software.
The field is still wide open in precision agriculture. Some software developers are attending this year’s conference to see and hear what they can build upon. Maybe next year they’ll be here with their own solutions, Krieg hypothesizes.
Learn more about what’s happening at the conference in Chuck Zimmerman’s full interview with Krieg here: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/jd-develop-16-krieg.mp3″ text=”Kevin Krieg, John Deere”]
Photos from this year’s conference can be found here: Develop with Deere Photo Album
Celebrate Fall with Bayer Bee Care
Fall is a time of pumpkin pie and hot apple cider, but neither of these would be possible without the hard work of pollinators. To honor the efforts of these busy creatures, Bayer is celebrating fall with their Feed a Bee program and the planting of wildflowers and dedicated forage areas.
Feed a Bee and The Wildlife Society (TWS) are on a mission to create pollinator forage across the U.S. Currently they’re making their way to four locations: Lubbock, Texas; Scott City, Kansas; Flanagan, Illinois and Fort Pierce, Florida, over the course of six weeks to plant 50 million wildflower seeds.
“The Feed a Bee program is tackling a really important need for pollinators by conducting plantings across the nation this fall,” said Ken Williams, chief executive officer of TWS. “At TWS, dedicated chapter members in each region are working now to identify the optimum mix of wildflower seeds to plant in each location to ensure pollinators have access to a wide variety of diverse nutrition sources when bloom occurs in the spring.”
The original goal established for the Feed a Bee program this year was to generate enough social actions through “Tweet a ?, #FeedABee” to plant 25 million pollinator-attractant wildflower seeds. Each share of the bee emoji and #FeedABee online triggered additional, real wildflower seeds being tallied for the fall plantings. Thanks to overwhelming support from the public and the generous donations of acreage from partner organizations, the four plantings will take place across enough land to plant 50 million wildflower seeds total.
Festivities began at Texas Tech University, where the Department of Plant and Soil Science hosted an educational pollinator field day. Attendees helped to begin a new forage area at Quaker Avenue Research Farm.
“Pollinators, including native bees, honey bees and more, play an important role in agriculture and our ecosystem as a whole,” said Dr. Scott Longing, assistant professor of entomology at TTU and member of the Texas Chapter of TWS. “By continuing to research ways to combat the challenges they face and planting additional forage in the meantime, we can help promote and protect pollinator health in a variety of ways.”
November and December will see plantings in the remaining three locations, held in conjunction with other partner organizations and communities.
“Every additional bit of forage planted helps pollinators, whether it’s next to a community garden, alongside cropland or in a homeowner’s backyard,” said Dr. Becky Langer, project manager for the North American Bayer Bee Care Program. “We’re proud to work with TWS and our other fantastic Feed a Bee partners this fall for the first annual forage planting tour. By planting these wildflower seeds, we’re helping to sow a healthier spring for honey bees and other pollinators.”
Listen to Cindy Zimmerman’s interview with Becky Langer and Chuck Shively here: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/bayer-bees.mp3″ text=”Interview with Becky Langer & Chuck Shively”]