Deere, AgIntegrated Work on Smart Use of Data

John DavisAgribusiness, Audio, Data, John Deere, technology

jd-develop-14-chris-hThe challenge in precision ag these days seems to be less about how much data can be created – plenty of tools and programs to tell you everything about your operation – and more about how to create just the data needed without making farmers try to drink from some firehouse of information. One of John Deere’s partner companies definitely sees it that way and was part of the program of the recent 2014 Develop with Deere conference in Kansas City.

Christopher Haak with AgIntegrated shared the stage with Tyler Hogrefe and brought a lot of the same thoughts on data transfer to the table but from a John Deere partner company perspective.

“The agricultural industry did a great job and made a lot of implements and had a lot of tools for a number of years,” he told Chuck during an interview. “But the real problem has been how to effectively transfer that information and get it to end-users so they could make practical decisions almost on the fly.”

Christopher added usability of the data is getting better, as bandwidth is still at a premium, especially in rural America, and time is always money for farmers. He said we don’t necessarily need to be able to generate more data, but producers do need more effective ways of accessing the information they need when they want it.

“I think the next generation of precision ag tools is going focus around smart usage of data, not more creation of data,” he said.

You can hear Chuck’s interview with Christopher here: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/john-deere/jd-develop-14-haak.mp3″ text=”Christopher Haak, AgIntegrated”]

Develop with Deere Photo Album

Future of Ag Joins in Chorus of ‘Ditch the Rule!’

John DavisAFBF, Ag Group, environment, Farm Bureau, Government, Regulation

fbProducers who will be the future of agriculture are telling the federal government to keep an unpopular water rule from having a future of its own. This news release from Farm Bureau says the group’s Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee wants the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers to ditch the proposed Waters of the U.S. rule.

“EPA keeps grasping for control over our farms and ranches,” AFBF Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee Chair Jake Carter said. “Young farmers and ranchers are the future of American agriculture, and we take our role of protecting the land seriously. This proposal puts serious roadblocks in our way without any material improvements in water quality.”

Young farmers and ranchers are especially vulnerable to increased costs in farming. Since the already narrow “normal farming and ranching” exemption in the Clean Water Act excludes farms and ranches that started operating after 1977, farmers and ranchers with newer businesses will need permits for basic farming activities, including simply moving dirt.

Farm Bureau officials say the proposed rule will make it more difficult to farm and ranch or make changes to the land – even if those changes would benefit the environment.

Deere Sees AgGateway as Door to Connect Customers/Data

John DavisAgribusiness, Audio, Data, John Deere, technology

jd-developer-14-chip-dThere’s lots of information out there when it comes to precision agriculture. Being able to connect and exchange that data was one of the topics discussed at the recent 2014 Develop with Deere conference – a get-together in Kansas City that brought together dealers, independent agricultural software application developers and John Deere staff primarily from the company’s Intelligent Solutions Group.

Chuck caught up with Deere’s Chip Donahue, who works in the partner enablement area of Deere. He said while there are hundreds of sources of information that go into AgGateway, a non-profit consortium of businesses serving the agriculture industry, John Deere wants to enable a more effective exchange of data by standardizing the data and implementation of that information so everyone’s on the same page, information-wise.

“We think it will enable our customers to do more with their data,” he said. “We have propriety data formats coming off [Deere’s] displays. Now, it’s hard for software companies to implement those, but [with this change] it will make it easier, and really enable the customer, the farmer, to use that data to make decisions in a simpler, more meaningful way.”

Chip added that this is an ongoing effort as producers want more, better information to make the best data-driven decisions possible.

“If we can enable that and move quickly, we’ll have a winning combination.”

You can hear Chuck’s interview with Chip here: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/john-deere/jd-develop-14-donahue.mp3″ text=”Chip Donahue”]

Develop with Deere Photo Album

Meet the New USFRA Faces of Farming

Taylor TruckeyAudio, NAFB, USFRA

nafb14-usfra-facesAt the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) convention on Wednesday, the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA®) announced the winners of its second class of the Faces of Farming and Ranching program.

The new “Faces” are (pictured left to right) Thomas Titus of Illinois, Jay Hill of New Mexico, Erin Brenneman of Iowa, Carla Wardin of Michigan, and Darrell Glaser of Texas. The class will be active participants in the national dialogue about food production to set the record straight. These farmers and ranchers will share their personal stories and experiences through consumer-facing public appearances, events, media interviews and social media.

Listen to Forrest Roberts of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) introduce the new faces and hear them talk about their farming operations and why they wanted to be part of this program to help educate the public about agriculture: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/nafb/nafb14-usfra-faces.mp3″ text=”New USFRA Faces of Farming and Ranching”]


2014 NAFB Convention Photos

Coverage of the NAFB convention is sponsored by
NAFB Convention is sponsored by FMC

2014 NAFB Convention is Underway

Taylor TruckeyAudio, NAFB

nafb14-susanThe 71st annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting is officially underway here in Kansas City with the theme “From Our Roots, Our Future Grows.”

Susan Littlefield of KZEN radio in Columbus, Nebraska is NAFB President-Elect and this year’s convention organizer. “We’ve got a variety of different speakers to hit everyone’s tastes,” said Susan, from new technology to farm policy to revitalizing rural communities. She’s also excited about the second NAFB 5K run on Friday morning. “This year the money goes to Children’s Hospital of Omaha to their GI clinic in honor of our youngest son Paul, who was a failure to thrive baby,” said Susan.

Susan says attendance at NAFB peaks at about 850 on Thursday for Trade Talk and “about 155-160 farm broadcasters here, doing what they do best.”

Listen to my interview with Susan here: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/nafb/nafb14-susan.mp3″ text=”Interview with Susan Littlefield, NAFB president-elect”]


2014 NAFB Convention Photos

Coverage of the NAFB convention is sponsored by
NAFB Convention is sponsored by FMC

Nutrient Management Tools from AEA

Jamie JohansenAgribusiness, agronomy, Audio, Nutrient Management

chl-14-40-editedJason Hodson, Vice President of Special Projects for Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA) spoke on sap analysis as a management tool with growers who attended last week’s Power Growers Seminar presented by Crop Health Labs. Jason has been with AEA since 2011 and has become the lead for larger farms and business development for the company.

“We provide materials for nutritional application and soil bio-stimulus. We also consulting information to growers we work with that helps them both apply our materials and move their entire farm system into a direction that is more friendly to soil biology and increase levels of plant health.”

In my interview with Jason, he not only shares more about AEA’s products and services but also highlights some of their growers who utilize their products and have taken advantage of what sap analysis can provide. These growers vary from citrus in Florida to tomatoes in Pennsylvania.

AEA is always looking to the future and research is a large component of what they provide to growers. Jason also shares some things they are looking into on the trace mineral side of things. This includes some experiments with nickel and its impact on plant physiology.

Listen to my interview with Jason here: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/chl/chl-14-hodson.mp3″ text=”Interview with Jason Hodson”]

Find photos from the event here: 2014 Crop Health Labs Power Growers Seminar Photo Album

Limus® Nitrogen Management from BASF

Jamie JohansenAgribusiness, Audio, BASF, Fertilizer, Nitrogen, Nutrient Management

basfIt’s difficult to imagine where agriculture would be today had BASF chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch not discovered how to harness the atmospheric abundance of nitrogen to create ammonia. The Haber-Bosch process has allowed growers to apply nitrogen-based nutrients, which is crucial to the fertile soil needed for today’s crop production. BASF has taken yet another step today in the field of nutrient management by announcing that Limus® nitrogen management will be available for sale in the U.S. for the 2015 growing season.

Limus nitrogen management can be blended with urea and UAN fertilizers to protect against volatilization and nitrogen loss, providing more than three weeks of protection. The patented formulation behind Limus nitrogen management combines two active ingredients that are more effective than a single inhibitor on urease enzymes found in soil, resulting in a decrease of nitrogen loss.

“Growers can lose over 40 percent of surface-applied urea due to volatilization within weeks of application,” said Nick Fassler, Product Manager, BASF. “This makes the window for growers to optimize protection of their fertilizer very critical.”

Reducing ammonia losses by more than 90 percent, Limus nitrogen management has demonstrated increased crop yields on average of 6 percent, according to 2013 replicated research, outperforming competitive products. In additional BASF research testing in controlled environments, untreated urea lost up to 35 percent of nitrogen 11 days after application. Urea fertilizer treated with Limus nitrogen management netted no more than 5 percent nitrogen loss.

Learn more in this interview with Fassler: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/nafb/nafb14-basf-nick.MP3″ text=”Interview with Nick Fassler, BASF”]

MyJohnDeere Tackles Wireless Data Transfer

John DavisAgNerd, Agribusiness, Audio, John Deere, technology

jd-developer-14-tyler-hThe recent Develop with Deere conference in Kansas City brought ag nerds from across the country together to discuss the latest developments in the MyJohnDeere precision agriculture platform. Tyler Hogrefe, one of John Deere’s staff primarily from the company’s Intelligent Solutions Group who attended the gathering, told Chuck that companies want to know how MyJohnDeere will relate to the applications they are developing and how wireless data transfer will integrate, and ultimately, how customers will move data from MyJohnDeere and the machine into the software applications seamlessly.

“MyJohnDeere is that interface collecting information and then allows these companies, as the customer requests it, to pull the data into their system so the customer has a choice of which application to use,” adding that it is all enabled by wireless data transfer seamlessly taking information from the machine and getting it to customers.

Tyler pointed to AgIntegrated and how well it has meshed up with MyJohnDeere, giving a great case study on the subject.

Attendees of the Tyler’s session had some questions of their own, revolving mostly around data size. Producers are concerned about moving data, and he said MyJohnDeere allows you to pull just the data you need through wireless means.

“One way of [eliminating large data transfers] is to eliminate the need to pull all your data at once and push it in these small chunks,” Tyler said.

You can hear Chuck’s interview with Tyler here: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/john-deere/jd-develop-14-hogrefe.mp3″ text=”Tyler Hogrefe”]

Develop with Deere Photo Album

MyJohnDeere Lets Other Software Bring New Data to Farming

John DavisAgNerd, Agribusiness, Audio, John Deere, technology

jd-developer-14-randy-kOne of the key takeaways from the 2014 Develop with Deere conference was how the company’s MyJohnDeere platform allows a host of outside software technologies bring better information to farming.

“The MyJohnDeere operations center is enabling all these software companies and partners is to bring new insights into the operations center for the grower, using all their data and their knowledge coinciding with what’s in MyJohnDeere today,” Deere’s Randy Kasparbauer told Chuck during an interview at the conference that brings together dealers, independent agricultural software application developers and John Deere staff primarily from their Intelligent Solutions Group. “We’re leveraging these [application programming interfaces (APIs)] to really build a platform for these third parties to use the data a grower might share with them in the operations center to let them run their business more effectively on this platform.”

Randy said they are really focused on the transformational growers who are using data to increase the efficiency of their operations. “It’s using data to make these fields more productive. We can’t do everything ourselves. We’re building that platform and making our machines the best, so we’re using those third party applications and software companies to make that happen,” he said.

And the conference venue was definitely an ag nerds paradise.

“It’s a great place to come together and talk about data!”

You can hear Chuck’s interview with Randy here: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/john-deere/jd-develop-14-kasparbauer.mp3″ text=”Randy Kasparbauer”]

Develop with Deere Photo Album

Ag180’s Software Turns Farm Data into a Commodity

John DavisAgribusiness, Software

ag180LogoFarm analytics software developer Ag180 has launched a new platform that will make a big difference in how producers view and use their farm data to make financial decisions. The company says the role out of its 2.0 version of its flagship farm analytics platform comes as Ag180 completed an intensive 12-month pilot program with a group of producers across the U.S. corn belt.

“Ag180 turns farm data into a commodity,” said Steven Kerns, CEO and co-founder of Ag180. “We believe that farm data should help producers make smarter, actionable decisions – so they can work better, get more accomplished and increase profits.”

Ag180 is rapidly building a comprehensive farm analytics platform to integrate and consolidate all the critical financial data impacting today’s producers, from planning to production to marketing. The industry’s leading producers are using Ag180 because they believe it will help them make better financial decisions and increase profits.

“We were very fortunate to design and test our product with a group of motivated producers who have a clear vision for how their data can help their businesses become more efficient and more profitable,” said Doug Tran, Ag180’s VP of Product Management. “We are seeing strong demand for Ag180, especially as commodity prices drop and managing margin becomes even more critical.”

Over the next few months, Ag180 is expected to release additional functionality to support and improve compliance reporting, grain marketing and predictive weather forecasting.