Time for the National Farm Machinery Show!

Cindy ZimmermanAg Leader, National Farm Machinery Show, New Holland

It’s already time for the 2012 National Farm Machinery Show. We are here in Louisville now and tweeting with the show hashtag, #NFMS12. Here’s a little information for you.

Dates: Wednesday, Feb. 15 through Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012

Show Hours: 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. daily (Eastern Standard Time)

Location: Kentucky Exposition Center, 937 Phillips Lane, Louisville, KY 40209

Admission: NFMS admission is free; parking is $8.00
CTP ticket prices range from $35-$45

All CTP seats are reserved. Tickets are subject to availability. All prices include a facility fee.
Tickets are sold at the Freedom Hall Ticket Office and all Ticketmaster outlets.

Attendance: The 2011 combined National Farm Machinery Show and Championship Tractor Pull attendance was 302,424.

Exhibit Space: Eight interconnected exhibit halls totaling more than 1.2 million square feet of indoor exhibit space and containing more than 850 agricultural displays.

2012 National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album

Coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by Ag Leader Technology

Importance of Global Macroeconomics to US Farmers

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, Farmers, FS Green Plan Solution, Growmark

“You may not be interested in global macroeconomics, but it’s interested in you.”

That is one of the main messages that Virginia Tech economist Dr. David Kohl had for growers attending the FS Green Plan Solutions Pursuit of Maximum Yields event in Collinsville, Illinois today.

Dr. Kohl talked about the importance of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to U.S. agriculture. “You have an agriculture economy that is doing extremely well because they’re connected with the BRICS nations that are demanding food, fiber and fuel,” he said. “It’s important to keep an eye on those BRICS nations more than just the U.S. economy in developing your agricultural plans.”

Dr. Kohl says U.S. agriculture has been in a “super cycle” for nine years, which is unprecedented, and the two main reasons are exports and ethanol. He also talked about “black swans,” mega trends, top challenges, and the connectivity of agriculture.

My favorite quote from his talk is “The best crop you can raise is your children.”

Listen to my interview with Dr. Kohl here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/growmark/pomy-il-kohl.mp3″ text=”Dr. Dave Kohl Interview”]
Photos from Illinois Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

Creating Social Media Buzz about Maximum Yields

Cindy ZimmermanApps, Audio, FS Green Plan Solution, Growmark, social media

The hashtag #FSMaxYield was everywhere at the Pursuit of Maximum Yields event last week in Bettendorf, Iowa encouraging people at the event to “be part of the buzz.”

“We’re excited to have a hashtag at the event,” said GROWMARK Electronic Communications Specialist Heather (Miller) Thompson. “We’ve given every grower and crop specialist a little card about how to tweet from the event and if they don’t have a Twitter account, how to create one.”

Heather says the FS Green Plan Solutions crop specialists are finding Twitter to be a quick and easy communications tool to get information out to growers and they are seeing more and more adopt it every day.

She and the rest of the GROWMARK communications team were also actively promoting CropNAtion, which is a social site introduced last year for farmers and ranchers to ask questions, share information and photos, and grow connections with others in the ag industry. “That’s still really in it’s infancy,” Heather said. “We’re trying to get word spread about it to get a base and also waiting for an iPhone and Android app that should be out any day now.”

GROWMARK and FS are also making good use of other social media and smartphone tools, like Facebook and QR codes.

Listen to Heather talk about it here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/growmark/pomy-ia-heather.mp3″ text=”Heather Thompson Interview”]
Photos from Iowa Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

Pursuit of Maximum Yields Program Growing

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, Farmers, FS Green Plan Solution, Growmark

GROWMARK Manager of Agronomy Services Dr. Howard Brown may have started the FS Green Plan Solutions Pursuit of Maximum Yields (POMY) program, but he doesn’t like to call it “his baby” – he gives all the credit to MOM.

“It’s all about MOM,” Brown said at the POMY event Thursday in Bettendorf, Iowa. “It’s about Maximizing yield, Optimizing nitrogen utilization and Minimizing environmental impact.”

This is the third year for the program and the second year that they have gotten growers together to share the knowledge the program is helping to generate. Last year they held one grower meeting in Peoria. This year there are two meetings – the Iowa meeting last week and another one coming up in Belleville, Illinois on Tuesday. Between the two, they expect to reach at least 500 farmers with an educational and entertaining program that includes great speakers like Dr. Fred Below with the University of Illinois and growers who have participated in the program.

Brown is pleased with how quickly the on-farm discovery program has caught on with growers. “It has grown very fast in a large area,” he said, noting that he just made presentations about the program in Ohio where farmers are anxious to participate. “A lot of them have already been doing it, they just never formalized that approach and we’re going to offer that to them.”

Listen to my interview with Howard Brown here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/growmark/pomy-ia-howard.mp3″ text=”Dr. Howard Brown Interview”]
Photos from Iowa Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

App Provides Soil Survey Info at a Touch

Cindy ZimmermanSatellite, Soil Sampling

A free app for iPhone, iPad and Adroid users provides a mobile way to access soil survey information.

It’s called SoilWeb and it combines online soil survey information with the GPS capabilities of smartphones.

The SoilWeb app is a portable version of the UC Davis California Soil Resource Lab’s Web-based interface to digital soil survey data from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Because the app provides soil survey information in a mobile form, it is particularly useful for those working in the field.

Until recently, a disadvantage of Web-based soil survey formats was that user access was limited to desktop computers with an internet connection. That’s one reason that NRCS soil scientist Dr. Dylan Beaudette, while still a graduate student at UC Davis, developed the SoilWeb app in collaboration with NRCS and the UC Davis California Soil Resource Lab.

SoilWeb can retrieve a graphic summary of soil types in response to a user inquiry in the form of soil profile sketches. Each profile sketch shows soil horizons, often compared to a vertical ice cream sandwich made up of layers of soil. Soil names, locations and taxonomic categories are also shown.

Find out more about SoilWeb.

Market to Market Host at FS Grower Event

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, Events, FS Green Plan Solution, yields

A familiar face to Iowa growers was the host for the Pursuit of Maximum Yields event organized by FS Green Plan Solutions Thursday in Bettendorf, Iowa.

Mark Pearson is long-time host of the Iowa Public Television program “Market to Market”, as well as being a farmer himself, and he was thrilled to be part of the event and excited about the whole Pursuit of Maximum Yields concept. “The exciting part of what FS is doing is instead of offering a product, they’re offering a system,” he said. “And I think that’s going to be more of a template for agribusiness, being more of a partner.”

Pearson says the whole point of working toward maximum yields for corn growers is meeting that growing demand. “We’ve got a growing world middle class, we’ve got growing or at least stable demand for ethanol, we’ve got a product that’s in big demand overseas,” he said. “It’s exciting what GROWMARK and FS Services are doing because we need the production.”

Pearson says he is proud of the way farmers can get together in a forum like this to help each other do a better job of feeding the world. “Because good farmers are more than willing to share what they’re doing and hear what you’re doing,” he said.

Listen to my interview with Mark Pearson here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/growmark/pomy-ia-mark.mp3″ text=”Mark Pearson Interview”]
Photos from Iowa Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

Food, Resources, and Environmental Stewardship

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, environment, Fertilizer, FS Green Plan Solution, Growmark

In a world where crop yields need to continue growing to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for food, what can farmers do to manage and protect the environmental resources that will support those higher yields?

That was one of the main questions that Delaware-Maryland Agribusiness Association Executive Secretary Bill Angstadt addressed at the Pursuit of Maximum Yields event organized by FS Green Plan Solutions in Bettendorf, Iowa Thursday. He noted several examples of pressures being placed on growers to produce more with less. “There are several initiatives, one called “Food to Market,” where food companies like Coca-Cola, General Mills, Walmart have come together,” he said. “What Coca-Cola originally wanted was to be able to put a label on their bottle that says ‘the corn syrup that was used in making this product did not harm the environment.’ Those kinds of concepts are out there.”

Angstadt also discussed the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Limit (TMDL) requirement by EPA in his area of the country that would limit nitrogen and phosphorus used in the region. “This public policy of trying to established when and how to quantify that a farmer is meeting water quality standards and how can a farmer verify this as an assurance to EPA is the debate that we’re in right now,” he said. The proposal is currently facing a legal challenge by the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Listen to my interview with Bill Angstadt here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/growmark/pomy-ia-angstadt.mp3″ text=”Bill Angstadt Interview”]
Photos from Iowa Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

Ag Leader Releases SMS Basic/Advanced Version 11.6

Melissa SandfortAg Leader, Insights Weekly

Insights Weekly

Ag Leader Technology is proud to announce the release of SMS Basic/Advanced Version 11.6. To update your SMS Basic/Advanced Software, please follow these steps:

• Open the SMS Software
• Create a Backup by clicking on the Services menu and selecting Backup/Restore Project(s)
Ag Leader strongly recommends that you create a backup of SMS before starting the update. This will ensure that if the upgrade process fails you can restore your system back to the point before you installed the update.
• If you are a SMS Advanced user, you will need to verify that all projects are checked-in. To verify this, go to the File menu and select Projects.
• Click on the Help menu and select Check for Updates
The Check for Updates tool will check for and download the most recent version of the SMS Software. This step requires an active internet connection.
• Continue by clicking Next through the wizard that appears
If registered online, the SMS Software will automatically be unlocked after installing the updated version.

For new version details and features see the Maintenance Release Letter for SMS Basic/Advanced Version 11.6.

To download the full Release Notes for SMS Basic/Advanced, click here.

If you have any questions about the update process please contact Technical Support at (515)232-5363 or by email at SMSsupport@agleader.com.

Become a fan of Ag Leader on Facebook today, and get the latest precision ag videos on the YouTube channel. For more information about Ag Leader products and services, or to visit the blog site, go to www.agleader.com.

Maximum Yield Insight from Lowell Catlett

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, FS Green Plan Solution, Growmark, yields

Over 250 growers from around Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and even Canada learned more about the Pursuit of Maximum Yields from an event organized by FS Green Plan Solutions in Bettendorf, Iowa Thursday.

Because the whole concept of pursuing maximum yields is based on the population growth expected in the future, it was fitting that New Mexico State University economist and futurist Dr. Lowell Catlett was first on the program. One thing Dr. Catlett sees in the future is more crap. What he calls “The Crap Factor” is higher disposable income to buy more crap. “The quality of our life has gone up dramatically and the price to have (the necessities) relative to our income has gone down,” he says. That allows people to buy more extras, and in the case of developing countries, it means they have more income to buy more protein.

As for the future of agriculture, Catlett says it’s not so much in precision agriculture now as in prescription agriculture. “It’s part of the reason that these farmers are in this room because they’re doing small plots on their farms to see what they can do,” said Catlett. “Getting a prescription for a farm is what will get maximum yields.”

Catlett also talked about how smart phones are helping farmers. “You’ve got the ability to take that mobile technology and do plant diagnostics with it,” he said. In the future, he sees the use of open source hardware (not just software) and 3D assembly that could allow manufacturing to actually be done on site with local materials, like building tractors on farms in developing nations.

Listen to my interview with Lowell Catlett here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/growmark/pomy-ia-catlett.mp3″ text=”Lowell Catlett Interview”]
Photos from Iowa Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

Mixed Reaction To Poll On Proposed Egg Products Inspection Law

Chuck ZimmermanZimmPoll

In our latest ZimmPoll we asked the question, “What do you think about the proposed Egg Products Inspection legislation?”. I was surprised to find that although 59% said Dangerous precedent for livestock production, 41% said Necessary to save egg farming industry. Kind of a divided reaction. Does this surprise you?

Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, “How do you think farm equipment sales will do this year compared to last?” Let us know what you think. Will there be more new equipment sales this year? Is it time to replace a worn out piece of equipment?

ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.