HarvestMaster Expands into Europe

John DavisAgribusiness, Data, International

harvestmaster1Ag data collection technology company HarvestMaster is expanding its footprint into Europe. The company already has offices in Missouri and Utah and is now opening a new office location in Wels, Austria to provide sales, marketing, and service support to HarvestMaster’s European partners and customers.

With the opening of the new office in Austria, HarvestMaster intends to be more aptly placed to better serve its European partners and customers. The company’s aim with the European location is to provide faster response times, more immediate communication, and ultimately, more excellent service to its international customers.

The Managing Director of the new office is Peter Kuchner, who has successfully acted as CEO for a number of large Austrian companies over the years. Mr. Kuchner was also chosen as spokesman of the Austrian Industrialists’ Association, as well as for the European Union for Taxes at Trans Atlantik Business Dialog for a number of years. Recently, Mr. Kuchner has worked as a consultant, as senior partner in the Austrian consulting group, GSUB. He took on the Managing Director position for HarvestMaster Europe in January this year.

“The European HarvestMaster office is another move towards our goal of always providing the highest level of service possible. Our hope for the new location is that it will provide us with greater insight into the needs of our customers in Europe, and Peter Kuchner is just the man for the job. The closer proximity will allow us to respond immediately whenever customers have a need,” said Keith Hunt, HarvestMaster’s Business Development Manager.

West Central Debuts New Chelating Agent

John DavisAgribusiness, Nutrient Management, Plant Science

westcentral1Crop protection, nutrient and seed treatment distributor West Central has introduced a new pure chelating agent that maximizes nutrient efficiency. This company news release says Levesol, exclusively from West Central, is made from the purest ortho-ortho EDDHA chelating agent that exists and is the only pure chelating agent that can be mixed directly with liquid fertilizer and applied in-furrow.

Crops start demanding nutrients right away, but most can’t efficiently utilize what’s near them in the soil during early development. Levesol overcomes this to make micronutrients in the soil, such as zinc, iron, copper and manganese, all more available for early uptake. After uptake, the chelate increases translocation within the plant. By keeping micronutrients in a soluble form, Levesol prevents them from binding with phosphorus. This leaves more phosphorus free for uptake and increases overall nutrient efficiency.

This process allows developing crops to utilize micronutrients more efficiently during early development. Levesol is proven to increase yield and root mass for a range of crops, including corn, sugar beets, soybeans, dry beans, sunflowers, wheat, barley and sorghum.

Market research shows that over 90% of farmers know they have a problem with nutrients in the soil being unavailable to plants. To combat this, farmers commonly add phosphorus and zinc to the soil to maximize yields. However, those two molecules tie each other up very quickly and become unavailable to plants, resulting in wasted money for growers. “Levesol prevents that tie up and makes both the micronutrients and the phosphorus in the soil more available to plants, consequently maximizing nutrient efficiency, “ says Josh Nuytten, director of proprietary business for West Central. “Chelation improves the availability of nutrients both in starter fertilizer and the soil.”

The company goes on to say soil extraction studies show up to 36 percent more phosphorus and even higher levels of micronutrient availability when applying a starter fertilizer program with Levesol versus without, significant because it results in a faster and more even emergence for better yields.

Report Shows Increase in Corn Refuge Compliance

John DavisAg Group, Agribusiness, Corn, NCGA

NCGA-Logo-3A new report from the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) shows an increase in both the overall number of growers planting their corn refuge and integrated refuge products. This news release from the group says as part of the enhanced Compliance Assurance Program (CAP), there’s been a strong adoption of integrated refuge products, which include Bt and refuge seed interspersed in a single bag or container.

“We are pleased to see that the number of growers planting integrated refuge products on their entire farming operation has more than tripled this year and the percent of those who planted exclusively integrated product increased from 18 percent in 2013 to 47 percent in 2014. Also, an additional 27 percent are planting at least one integrated product,” said Mark Kimm, [Agricultural Biotechnology Stewardship Technical Committee Insect Resistance Management] subcommittee co-chair.

ABSTC projects that the adoption of integrated products will continue to increase, contributing to the overall increase in compliance, which helps preserve Bt corn technology durability.

The survey showed that most growers are in compliance with the required refuge size on their farms and planted it within the required distance for all of their Bt corn fields. Furthermore, the survey indicated that the percentage of growers not planting any refuge acres continues to be low.

“This type of collaboration is vital to the industry’s efforts to showcase the benefits of best management practices – such as crop rotation and trait selection,” said John Linder, chairman of the National Corn Growers Association Trade Policy and Biotechnology Action Team. “The industry is committed to the success of the grower. The introduction of integrated refuge products and educational programs provide our grower’s options that help manage challenging on-farm situations, as well as durability and stewardship of the industry’s trait technologies.”

FMC Corp Acquires Rights to New Herbicide

Cindy ZimmermanFMC, Herbicides

fmc-logoFMC Corporation has acquired all global rights to a new and proprietary herbicide from Kumiai Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., and Ihara Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.

The new herbicide is highly effective in controlling broadleaf weeds and will be initially developed for use in corn, cereals, soybeans and sugarcane in key countries around the world.

“We are very pleased about the prospects of this new molecule given its potential across many crops, application flexibility and co-mixture opportunities,” said Mark Douglas, president, FMC Agricultural Solutions. “This acquisition continues our strategic partnership with Kumiai and Ihara, two premier research companies that have developed a rich chemistry pipeline for new crop protection products that are critical for increased food production.

“FMC’s global organization will develop the full potential of this new chemistry, part of a robust pipeline of six new active ingredients that includes other herbicides, insecticides and fungicides,” said Douglas. “This core pipeline of new active ingredients is complemented by our development of biological crop protection products, seed treatment technologies and new formulations with strong sustainability profiles.”

Kumiai and Ihara discovered the chemistry in their research laboratories and partnered with FMC during the last two years to evaluate and develop the commercial potential for this new active ingredient. FMC owns all intellectual property rights to the new molecule. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Importance of Quantifying Cover Crop Benefits

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, Conservation, Corn, Cover Crops, NCGA, Soil

A common theme at last week’s 2015 Soil Health Summit in St. Louis was the need to quantify the benefits for farmers of using cover crops.

shps15-tynerPurdue University economics professor Dr. Wally Tyner is trying to do just that. “I’ve worked in a lot of different areas in economics and this is the hardest nut to crack,” he said. “Because it’s long term, it involves risk issues, it’s hard to quantify, it’s hard to control … but we’ve got to start to try!”

Tyner was doing a study on the economics of harvesting corn stover for biofuels or animal feed, when the question of using cover crops to be able to harvest more stover sustainably. “The answer is yes,” he said. “Cover crops will do more environmental protection than the stover actually does.”

Tyner’s current research is a cost-benefit analysis on using cover crops in different farming operations and soil types. “We have two students working on this now, we’re trying to get five fields and five years of data from every farm,” comparing farms using cover crop against those not using them.

“Cover crops today are where no-till was 30 years ago,” says Tyner. “If we want to get a significant portion of the farm acres doing cover crops, we’re going to have to show some economic benefits, or at least show that the costs are low and the soil health benefits are huge.”

Listen to my interview with Dr. Tyner here: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/ncga/ncga-shps15-tyner.mp3″ text=”Interview with Dr. Wally Tyner, Purdue University”]


2015 Soil Health Summit Photo Album

Iteris & F4F Agriculture Sign MOU

Cindy Zimmermanagronomy, technology, weather

IterisIteris, Inc. has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with F4F Agriculture to provide differentiated precision ag technology for the worldwide agriculture market.

The partnership strategy will integrate Iteris’ ClearAg with F4F’s Cirrus Cloud platform. The Cirrus platform facilitates rapid and efficient integration between ERP systems, web/mobile applications, farm systems and third-party cloud services. The companies will deliver a working demonstration of their combined capabilities, showcasing how its synergies provide actionable information for better decision-making for their respective agricultural partners and clients.

Iteris’ innovative precision ag decision-support system ClearAg™, introduced to the market in 2014, leverages a data delivery platform to enable agribusinesses to ingest specific, actionable, high-resolution weather, crop and soil information for data-driven farming. The ClearAg™ API platform takes field-specific weather, combines it with the science of soil and agronomy to deliver the right information, for the right field, at the right time for the right decisions.

Read full release here.

USDA Share of Proposed 2016 Budget

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, Conservation, Government, USDA

vilsack-usdaOn Monday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined USDA’s $156 billion share of the $4 trillion Obama budget proposal, which is three percent more than last year but includes a $1.6 billion cut in the crop insurance program and some cuts to the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP).

While the CSP cut would reduce enrollment by three million acres to 7 million, Vilsack says the proposed budget puts more emphasis on conservation measures that get funding from sources outside the government that will result in an overall increase. “This budget will finance and fund an additional 20 million acres which will be added to the already record number of acres enrolled in conservation,” he said.

The budget also proposes investing $10 million over two years to “determine the effects incentive payments and outreach efforts have on farmer’s willingness to adopt conservation practices and improve the efficiency of private lands conservation programs.”

[wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/usda/2015-budget-vilsack.mp3″ text=”Secretary Vilsack outlines 2015 administration budget for USDA”]

WOTUS Interpretive Rule Pulled

Cindy ZimmermanCorn, Dairy, Government, NCGA, water

epa-army-corpsThe Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have at least ditched part of the WOTUS rule.

The Interpretive Rule Regarding the Applicability of Clean Water Act Section related to the proposed Waters of the United States (WOTUS) was officially withdrawn by EPA and the Corps in a memo last Thursday, January 29. Congress requested asked for the withdraw of the interpretive rule in the “Cromnibus” funding legislation passed at the end of December.

The goal of the interpretive rule was to clarify normal farming activities exempt from the Clean Water Act but National Corn Growers Association president Chip Bowling says it actually made it less clear. “We hope that the withdrawal of the interpretive rule will allow us to get to the true matter at hand: how the Clean Water Act is administered,” said the Maryland farmer who brought EPA officials out to his farm last fall to discuss the proposed rule. “Farmers are committed to improving water quality and conservation practices. We look forward to working with Administrator McCarthy and the EPA as they finalize the WOTUS rule, to ensure it is clear and workable for farmers.”

National Milk Producers Federation is pleased to see the interpretive rule withdrawn because it would have placed USDA’s NRCS in the role of “enforcer” for the provisions. “Our concern with the initial proposal from last year is that it could have altered the long-standing and productive relationship between farmers and the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, in a way that would have made it harder for farmers to implement water conservation measures,” said Jamie Jonker, NMPF’s Vice President for Sustainability & Scientific Affairs. “We’re pleased the EPA and Army have recognized that this regulation could have backfired, and that they’ve taken the necessary step to withdraw it.”

The interpretive rule was just part of the larger WOTUS proposal issued last year which is still under review by both EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as by Congress.

Do You Have an All Time Favorite Tractor?

Jamie JohansenZimmPoll

New Holland ZimmPollOur latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “What’s your favorite Super Bowl party food?”

The XLIX Super Bowl is a wrap and so is our most recent ZimmPoll. Chips and dip topped the charts, but wings were a close second. I couldn’t agree more with those who responded to our poll. I love chips and dip of any kind. I have always preferred salty and savory over sweets. Your favorite team may not have won, but let’s hope you walked away with a satisfied, full belly.

Here are the poll results:

  • Chili – 17%
  • Wings – 24%
  • Chips & Dip – 27%
  • Sliders – 3%
  • Anything with bacon – 18%
  • Potato Skins – 8%
  • Hot Dogs – 3%

Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, Farm & Ranch Living compiled a list of the Top 10 Tractors of All Time. Which is your favorite?

Recently, the Farm & Ranch Living magazine asked their readers to share their favorite tractor of all time. Their compiled list inspired our very own, Leah Guffey, to chat with them about their readers favorite tractors in a recent Hick Chick Chat. Using their list of tractors, we want to know which is your all time favorite.

Deere Kicks Off Drive Green Events for 2015

Jamie JohansenAgribusiness, John Deere

OverallIn what has become an annual tradition across the country, hundreds of local John Deere dealerships are again hosting Drive Green Demo Days events. This year’s Drive Green events will focus on the tractor buying experience, not only giving guests the opportunity to check out a wide variety of equipment and implements, but also the many different attachments that are available to help them get more from and do more with their equipment.

In addition to featuring a wide selection of John Deere utility tractors, lawn and garden equipment, Gators and other products, Drive Green event attendees may also test drive the latest equipment and compare them with competitive models. They’ll also receive special discounts on John Deere equipment and attachments and have a chance to win a John Deere 3032E Compact Utility Tractor with loader and rotary mower package for attending.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Drive Green events have been held by dealers from February through October. These events give residential and rural property owners, farmers and ranchers, commercial landscape and grounds care operators and interested consumers a chance to see firsthand the newest John Deere utility tractors, including the popular 1 Family Sub-Compact, 3E Series and 5E Series Tractors.

According to Steve Geick, tactical marketing manager with John Deere, the Drive Green events have grown to become a popular event for thousands of customers across the United States and Canada over the past several years.

“From the beginning, Drive Green was designed to give customers a complete, positive equipment buying experience where they could test drive the tractors for themselves, get all their questions answered and compare our products to similar competitive models,” Geick explains. “Many John Deere dealerships across the country have tied their Drive Green events in with local activities to make them even bigger events for their communities and more interesting and fun for customers.”

The theme for this year’s Drive Green program is “See it. Drive it. Own it.” In addition to learning more about the equipment and attachments, customers who attend receive a $500 coupon that can be applied toward the purchase of a new tractor, as well as special discounts on attachments.

John Deere dealer experts will be on hand at all events to demonstrate the equipment and answer questions. Admission is free and no pre-registration is required to attend.