It’s not just pigweed, it’s Palmer amaranth pigweed, and it was all over the Bayer CropScience Respect the Rotation plot tour in Collinsville, Illinois – towering over corn and soybeans and most other weeds.
Waterhemp is also a member of the pigweed family that might be more familiar to growers in the Midwest and both are developing resistance to glyphosate. Southern Illinois University weed specialist Bryan Young says resistant waterhemp in the region has been doubling every year for the past three years. “At one point we had ten percent of retailers surveyed said it was a problem in their territory, the next year it was 20%,” he said. “This past fall it was 40% and this fall I’m expecting that will be even higher.”
The Palmer pigweed is more aggressive than waterhemp and has already taken over fields in the south, starting just from one little weed. The Respect the Rotation message for farmers in the Midwest is to keep that from happening by rotating modes of action for herbicides, as well as crops themselves.
Listen to my interview with Bryan from the Bayer field day and watch the video below where he explains how to identify Palmer amaranth. [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/bayer/bayer-rtr-young.mp3″ text=”Bryan Young interview”]
Preparing for harvest? Then there’s no better time than now to think about the list of items you can do in your desktop software before going out in the field. Ag Leader is also thinking harvest by announcing pre-harvest training events for hardware products that are being announced.
Here are a few things you can do to prepare for harvest 2012:
1. Create a backup of your SMS Software and then save that file to an external media device.
After creating the backup on your local hard drive, copy it to an external hard drive or burning it to a CD or DVD. In SMS Basic/SMS Advanced, this can be done by going to Services – Backup/Restore Project(s).
2. Verify that you are running the latest version of SMS.
The latest version of SMS Basic/SMS Advanced is Version 12.0. If you have registered online in the past, you can update by going to Help – Check for Updates.
3. Read in any remaining files from earlier this year.
By reading in any remaining files from this year, this allows you to review the data already logged this year and make sure the data was properly recorded and organized. To read precision ag monitor files into SMS Basic/SMS Advanced, you can go to File – Read Files.
4. Export information out of SMS Software to your precision ag display.
In SMS Basic/SMS Advanced, you can export information by clicking on the Device Setup icon on the main toolbar or by going to Tools – Device Setup Utility.
The Spatial Data Setup tab that is referred to in the video above is used to export not only your Variety Tracking information (i.e. Planting, Seeding, or Site Verification data), but also Guidance Lines, Prescriptions, and Crop Plans as well (ie – 2012 Fertilizer Prescription (Dry), 2008 Guidance Lines, etc).
**Note – SMS Basic/SMS Advanced Version 12.0 can be used to export Variety Tracking information to the following displays: Ag Leader INTEGRA™, Case IH Pro600™, Case IH Pro700™, John Deere GreenStar 2™, John Deere GreenStar 3™, New Holland Intelliview Plus II™, and New Holland Intellivew Plus III™.
5. Load your information in your precision ag display.
Follow your manufacturer’s instruction manual for details as to how to load setup information into your display. If you use an Ag Leader display, you will find some good links about operation and calibration here.
Once you get to the field, read in the files logged by your various displays once a week to ensure that the data is being recorded properly and that you can address any operator training issues early on. If you have any questions regarding this pre-harvest checklist, give the Ag Leader support team a call at 515-232-5363.
Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “Do ag journalists (broadcast/print/web) adhere to good ethical practices in reporting?” This is just in time for the ag journalists gathering in Sweden for the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress. I’ll be sharing the results with them.
Our poll results: Sixteen percent said they all do; sixty-eight percent said most do; and sixteen percent said most do not.
Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, “Which team for President would be best for agriculture?” What do you think…who is the better choice for office when it comes to supporting our nation’s farmers and ranchers?
ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.
During my recent visit to Ag Leader Technology I learned about the new Crop Sensor Rate Table that is now available from Chad Fick, Product Specialist. This new feature provides more application flexibility
This functionality offered through the DirectCommand™ system on the INTEGRA™ display allows producers to utilize the OptRx™ crop sensors to apply the agrochemicals they need on-the-go at the rates necessary for optimum performance.
OptRx crop sensors work by shining light on the crop canopy and reading the light reflected back to determine the crop health, also known as Vegetative Index. Working with agronomists or crop consultants, farmers can use OptRx to improve the application of any agrochemical to any crop that needs a variable rate. The new Crop Sensor Rate Table allows growers to choose a Vegetative Index range and assign the recommended rates based on those ranges.
Growers with the INTEGRA display can take advantage of the Crop Sensor Rate Table by updating their firmware to version 3.3.
Listen to my interview with Chad here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/agleader/ag-leader-7-12-fick.mp3″ text=”Interview with Chad Fick”]
It doesn’t look like the ag world is ready to embrace the cloud to store precious data. Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “Will you use the cloud to store your data?” According to the results 62% said No, too many risks. Only 20% said Yes, already do and 18% said Yes but looking for better options. So how do you handle the storage of all your data today? Stick it onto an external hard drive? Keep it on your computer’s hard drive? Are you backing up? Do you keep a copy of that data off site? Something to think about if you haven’t already. We don’t use the cloud to store data for the reason that we have lots of data and in order to upload and access it you need more massive internet access capabilities than currently available. Then there’s the whole cost of that storage on an on-going basis. We triple back up our data too. This system is working for us right now.
Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, Do ag journalists (broadcast/print/web) adhere to good ethical practices in reporting? This topic of ethics always comes up at meetings like the Ag Media Summit. It usually generates a lively debate. How do ag journalists handle the interaction with advertisers and maintain some kind of neutrality in their reporting? That’s a good question. Our belief is that transparency is the key. We do our best to make sure our sponsors are known and the interviews we do with them are right there for you to listen to directly. Feel free to respond or posts your thoughts here in comments.
ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.
Raven Industries has released over 50 new steering kits in the last 12 months with the latest evolution of the company’s SmarTrax platform, something we learned quite a bit about at the recent Raven Innovation Summit.
Tim Heins, product manager for steering and guidance, says they have coverage for over 300 different models of machines. “One of the challenges when you’re a company like Raven when you have a lot of different colors that we try to cover is getting kits for a lot of different machines,” he said. “With all that we offer, from planters, to GPS, to field computers, you have to have the steering solution for that – you gotta be able to steer the machine.” Tim says Raven steering and guidance options include SmarTrax, SmarTrax RTK, and SmartSteer.
Listen to my interview with Tim and learn more here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/raven/raven-tim-2.mp3″ text=”Tim Heins, Raven”]
The more than 220 Raven distributors and partners from all over the world who attended the summit had the chance to see most of Raven’s precision technology in action during a ride and drive event. Tim took me for a ride in a John Deere 9410R. Check it out below:
One of the most popular tools in Ag Leader’s SMS Advanced software is the Multi-Year Averages tool. This allows growers to take multiple years of the same kind of data (such as harvest) and merge the data into one layer. This allows them to see trends like where the different areas of productivity are in the field. For fields that have been worked over the years, growers probably have a feeling for these zones already, but this tool allows the user to put numbers to those zones. Years of data that fall outside of the normal, such as from hail damage or other abnomalies, can then be filtered.
While Yield Data is the most common, growers can run this tool on any kind of data. For example, this tool can be run to see if there is any relation between productivity and average fertility in fields that have multiple years of Grid Soil Sampling. As long as the datasets are numerically based, they can be analyzed.
In years such as this where there are many in the corn belt that are experiencing the most severe drought in over 20 years, this data can possibly show areas where their fields have less water holding capacity. Using this information may provide guidance for growers when considering plant populations or fertilizer applications down the road, particularly if they are considering VRT application.
This video shows how to setup a multi-year average dataset:
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 we should Modify for lower ethanol production, 31 percent think No change and 30 percent chose Eliminate entirely. What do you think? Is it a little premature to call for a change?
Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, “Will you use the cloud to store your data?” We’re now seeing cloud based data storage specifically designed for the ag industry and there are a growing number of options to store and handle all those records, field maps, photos and more. Is the infrastructure and the services available up to the task? Your data is fast becoming one of your most valuable assets. How are you planning to handle that growth?
ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.
I have spent a great afternoon visiting with my friends at Ag Leader Technology, Ames, IA, sponsors of Precision.AgWired.com.com. It is the 20 year anniversary of the founding of the company by Al Myers. In fact, I’ll have a conversation with Al to share with you soon. He’s got a fascinating story.
Precision agriculture is an expanding business as more and more applications are developed. We’ve been sharing that story from Ag Leader and will continue to do so in coming years.
They’re all pretty smart but one of Raven Precision‘s field computers actually speaks 22 languages!
We learned more about the multilingual entry-level Cruizer II, as well as the Envizio Pro II and Viper Pro field computers from Raven at last week’s Innovation Summit, where many of the 230 attendees came from other countries. Shane Swedelund, Senior Product Manager, says they each offer new improvements and have certain strengths and benefits for the growers in the field.
Listen to my interview with Shane where he talks about what is new with each product line and how they compare: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/raven/raven-shane.mp3″ text=”Shane Swedelund, Raven”]
You can also compare them yourself and get a 360 degree view of each field computer by downloading the Raven Product Guide app to your Apple or Android smartphone or tablet.
It’s not just pigweed, it’s Palmer amaranth pigweed, and it was all over the Bayer CropScience Respect the Rotation plot tour in Collinsville, Illinois – towering over corn and soybeans and most other weeds. 
