New Program to Empower Farmers as Leaders

Talia GoesAgribusiness, Dupont Pioneer, NCGA

DuPont_oval_redDuPont and the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) announced a new program to develop corn farmers for agricultural leadership opportunities. With more focus on food than ever, the NCGA DuPont New Leader Program will help to empower growers to share their story of their farms and the benefits of a robust agriculture system with key audiences, including consumers, media and decision-makers.

The NCGA DuPont New Leader Program will bring farmers from each affiliated state to two sessions to develop and hone their communications and leadership skills. The first session will be held in November at the DuPont Pioneer facilities in Johnston, Iowa. The second session will take place in Washington in July 2014. In between the two sessions, those farm couples involved will be encouraged to be actively participating and honing their skills in state and national programs.

Applications for the inaugural class will be available later this summer.

Genscape Recreates 2013 Corn Yield Projections

Talia GoesAgribusiness, Risk Management, yields

August 2013 Yield Forecast AccuracyGenscape, the market leader in deploying patented and proprietary technologies specifically designed to capture fundamental data and increase transparency in otherwise opaque commodity markets, announces the results of recreating the USDA’s corn yield projections for the 2013 season and is issuing a cautionary alert to corn buyers, traders and other market participants.

Genscape’s sophisticated new LandViewer model uses a methodological tripod of high resolution satellite imagery, extensive on-the-ground surveillance, and proprietary algorithms to pinpoint corn yields at the farmland parcel, county, state, and national levels.

As of July 11th, the USDA projects average US corn yields of 156.5 bpa and 14 billion bushels of corn supply for the 2013 season. However, Genscape’s LandViewer model indicates that if USDA national predictions are to be achieved, it would have to correlate to significantly higher average yield production rates in key corn producing states, such as Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, and Indiana.

Genscape’s updated 2013 county-by-county corn yield forecast will be announced on August, 6, 2013.

GROWMARK on the CTIC Tour

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, Conservation, CTIC, Growmark

Kilgus Dairy in Fairbury, Illinois was the venue for the nutrient management portion of CTIC’s 2013 Conservation in Action Tour last week. This part of the tour was sponsored by GROWMARK, Inc., which is a strong promoter of the 4Rs – using the right nutrient source at the right time and right rate and in the right place.

gmk-ctic-howardNutrient management in general is something for which Dr. Howard Brown of GROWMARK has a passion, as we know having interviewed him many times for this site. Howard has been on loan from GROWMARK lately to work as interim nutrient utilization director for the Illinois Council of Best Management Practices and when he returns to the coop, he says his new title will be Director of Nutrient Management and Environmental Stewardship.

Dr. Brown introduced the nutrient management portion of the conservation tour by talking about something very dear to his heart – MOM. “MOM is very important to all of us,” he said. “What’s MOM? Minimize environmental impact by Optimizing harvest yield and Maximizing impact utilization.”

“It’s time for agriculture to step up to the plate and we are doing that,” he continued. “Let’s not give up on agriculture.”

He also talked about the work being done by the Nutrient Research and Education Council (NREC). “Probably a little over $2 million directed toward applied research in Illinois and that’s not governmental dollars, it’s farmer dollars to promote applied research,” said Brown.

Listen to his comments here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/ctic/ctic-13-brown.mp3″ text=”GROWMARK’s Howard Brown comments”]

2013 Conservation in Action Tour Photo Album

Social Media Analytics

Chuck ZimmermanAg Group, Audio, InfoAg, social media

Jay Harrison, Maritz HoldingsI was very surprised during yesterday’s Social Media session at the 2013 InfoAg Conference by how many session attendees are actively using social media for company use. I asked for a show of hands if they had a company Twitter account and almost everyone raised their hand, the same when I asked if they had a company Facebook page. That’s the highest response I’ve ever had when doing a presentation on social media.

Joining me for the session was Jay Harrison, Maritz Holdings. He works with their evolve24 division and focused on social media analytics and had some great information to share with us. His company does “social media intelligence” which includes monitoring and interpreting what people are saying on social media as well as advising on ways to respond, especially in a crisis situation. He says one of the biggest challenges they have is analyzing all the publicly available social media data which they then start organizing in a way that allows them to search for specific subjects or terms. He provides some examples in my weekly ZimmCast podcast.

Listen to this week’s ZimmCast here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/zimmcast/zimmcast403-7-18-13.mp3″ text=”Social Media Analytics”]

2013 InfoAg Conference Photo Album

How Could UAVs Help You?

Talia GoesZimmPoll

Before we get to our new ZimmPoll let’s look at the results of our latest one which asked the question, “ Do you watch or want to watch live or recorded ag news television programs online?” The results indicate that there is an interest in online agricultural television programming.

Our poll results: Thirty-nine percent said Yes, I Currently Do, thirty-six percent said Yes, Need To Find Them, and twenty-five percent said No, Don’t Have Time or Interest. Online activities have become the way of the present and future. With technology making jobs more time efficient it allows for extra minutes to be spent catching up on the latest.

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Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, “What use would you have for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle?” That would be UAV for short – better known as drones, but the industry doesn’t like to use that word because it has a negative connotation. Nevertheless, we’re talking about small, remote-controlled aircraft that can be used to get a bird’s eye view of the land, capturing either still photos or video or both, or even live streaming. Is that something you could use on your operation? Let us know.

ZimmPoll is sponsored by New Holland Agriculture.

2013 InfoAg Conference Off to Record Start

Chuck ZimmermanAudio, InfoAg

Steve Phillips IPNIIt’s all good at the 2013 InfoAg Conference on precision agriculture. Attendance is at a record above 1,100 at current count. Two years ago it was at 700! And now the conference is moving to every year and will be in St. Louis, MO in 2014, Union Station Hilton, July 1-3.

Steve Phillips, Southeast Region Director for the North American program of the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), the host organization for the InfoAg Conference, welcomed us to this year’s event this morning and I visited him on a break. He says that the increase in attendance is something they are seeing at other precision conferences where exhibitor participation is up, sponsorships are up and media coverage is up. With the pace of new technology introductions and adoption a decision was made to go to every year to keep up. A big attraction this year are unmanned aerial vehicles which I still call drones. Several companies are exhibiting them and I hope to visit with them before the event ends.

You can listen to my interview with Steve here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/infoag/infoag-13-phillips.mp3″ text=”Interview with Steve Phillips”]

FYI. Internet access is sparse to say the least in the convention hotel so I’ll be posting mostly after the conference this year.

2013 InfoAg Conference Photo Album

Keeping Nitrogen in Fields Farmers’ Priority, Too

John DavisAg Group, Agribusiness, Audio, Conservation, CTIC, environment, Nutrient Management

ctic-13-tim-smithContrary to what seems to be reported many times, farmers don’t want to see their field nutrients washed on down the river to contribute to some “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Farmers don’t want nitrogen to leave their fields. They want it in their corn crop,” explained Tim Smith during the recent Conservation Technology Information Center tour in Livingston County, Ill. Tim is a managing agronomist for Cropsmith and a Certified Crop Adviser. He also used to work for the University of Illinois developing ways to improve nitrogen use efficiency in crop production and helped develop the Illinois Soil Nitrogen Test (ISNT) to improve nitrogen recommendations for corn. During the tour, he presented information about their demonstration plots in the Indian Creek watershed. “Anything we can do to demonstrate and show them how they can be more efficient, they’re very interested in, and it’s also good for the environment. So I think it can be a real win-win.”

Tim said this has been a real good group to work with, and he’s impressed by the large number of farmers in that area participating and the questions he’s heard on the CTIC tour.

You can listen to Chuck’s interview with Tim here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/ctic/ctic-13-tim-smith.mp3″ text=”Interview with Tim Smith, Cropsmith”]

2013 Conservation in Action Tour Photo Album

CTIC Tour: Filter Strips Valuable for Soil Health

John DavisAg Group, Agribusiness, Audio, Conservation, CTIC, environment

ctic-13-terry-bachtoldHealthy soils are products of good management practices. And topping the list of practices for Terry Bachtold (shown getting an appreciation present for all his hard work of hosting), one of the host farmers for last week’s Conservation Technology Information Center tour in Livingston County, Ill., is using filter strips.

“I’m a big believer in filter strips,” he exclaimed. “Whether it is my cattle operation or a corn grain farmer, I just feel filter strips do a lot for water quality improvements.” Even with his affinity toward filter strips, Terry believes that a variety of techniques can bring healthy soils to a farm, including cover crops, no-till or rotational grazing.

Terry admitted that he is not a row crop farmer, separating his farm into pasture paddocks rotational grazing for his cow-calf operation. He added what a difference a year had made in recovering from drought conditions on his farm.

“Last year at this time, we were buying hay from July 4th. This year, we’ve got plenty of pastures.”

You can listen to Chuck’s interview with Terry here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/ctic/ctic-13-terry-bachtold.mp3″ text=”Interview with Terry Bachtold, host on CTIC tour”]

2013 Conservation in Action Tour Photo Album

Picking the Right Tool for Drainage Management

John DavisAg Group, Agribusiness, Audio, Conservation, CTIC

ctic-13-phil-algreenOn the recent Conservation Technology Information Center tour in Livingston County, Ill., we’ve talked a lot about nutrients draining into the local watershed and how to prevent that. Part of that formula includes controlling any water drainage from the land, and Phil Algreen with Agri Drain, a company that specializes in drainage management, talked to the crowd about some of his company’s products.

“Well, the main thing we use to [manage drainage] is called a water level control structure, a device you put on a tile main outlet [that allows] you to control [at one spot] the water table in that area affected by that tile,” adding that it is seasonally adjustable — less drainage in the winter and summer and maybe more in the spring when you’re trying to plant a crop.

But Phil talked bigger picture with the folks on the CTIC tour, explaining how their systems are not necessarily good for every situation and how they are mostly built for the flat topography of an area like Livingston County, Ill.

“But there are other practices besides drainage management we talked about: saturated buffers, wood-chip bioreactors… different things you can do, depending on the area where you live. Kind of like tools in a tool box. You’ve got to pick the right one.”

You can listen to Chuck’s interview with Phil here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/ctic/ctic-13-phil-algreen.mp3″ text=”Interview with Phil Algreen with Agri Drain”]

2013 Conservation in Action Tour Photo Album

Good Practices on Display on CTIC Tour

John DavisAg Group, Agribusiness, Audio, Conservation, CTIC, environment, John Deere

ctic-13-pauley-bradleyThe latest Conservation Technology Information Center tour in Livingston County, Ill., has been a good way for the farmers of that region to showcase what they are doing to be good stewards of the environment, while making sure they maintain a good bottom line. Pauley Bradley with John Deere and a member of the CTIC is shown welcoming everyone to the opening reception sponsored by John Deere. He said this is the third year CTIC has been involved in the Indian Creek watershed project that shows how to balance good stewardship with good economics.

“The goal was to get at least half of the producers in the watershed as part of the initiative to do everything they could on the land to improve water quality in the area. We’ve got more than 40 percent participation right now, which is tremendous, [with] a lot of collaboration and a lot of folks pulling in the same direction,” Pauley said, adding that it was heartening to see capacity crowds on the tour, with many of those from the city able to see for themselves the good practices going on. “I talked to Dr. Norm Widman who’s the national agronomist from NRCS last night, and he said, ‘You know, we just have to get out of town, away from the concrete buildings and get grounded every once in a while.’ ”

Pauley went on to say he was quite pleased to see how much information they could pack into the days of this tour.

You can listen to Chuck’s interview with Pauley here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/ctic/ctic-13-pauley-bradley.mp3″ text=”Interview with Pauley Bradley, John Deere and a member of CTIC”]

2013 Conservation in Action Tour Photo Album