Her name used to be Fuzz but now it’s just black kitty. It was just easier that way.
She ran out a month ago and found herself a nice boyfriend and wound up pregnant with her first litter of kittens. Like any new mom, I can relate. She’s probably not happy about all the wiggling and pushing going on in there, not to mention the fact that it’s been over 110 with the heat index the past four days. July/August isn’t a great time to be pregnant. I guess I forgot to tell her that.
We’re not sure when she’ll deliver the kittens but our best guess is sometime in early August. I’ve tried moving her inside to the garage but she seemed a bit lethargic and unhappy as her bird-catching gets put on hold while she’s inside. However, I don’t want to have to go digging through the grass and weeds to find where she hid the kittens so I can tame them down.
Given that it’s her first time though, she might just leave them at the back door for me to help with – she’s left everything else at the door as a prize – mice, birds, you name it.
For a husband with cat allergies, he’s not too excited about having a few more running around. At least he still has his prized garage (or man space) where he can work sneeze-free. For now.
Valley Irrigation has expanded its Valley GPS product line to include compatibility with Trimble GPS products.
Osborn & Barr is further expanding its digital offerings with four new hires in St. Louis: Chris Feix, Kim Bracey, Gary Schrader and Stephanie Phillips.
PureSense Environmental Inc. was presented with the “2011 Game Changers of the Year” award in the category of Water and Irrigation Management at the recent 2011 California Agriculture Innovation Conference held at UC Davis.
The next stop on the agriblogging highway for me is the Cattle Industry Summer Conference. I’ll be Beef Board Blogging once again for the Cattlemen’s Beef Board.
With me in Kissimmee, FL will be Joanna Schroeder who will be focusing on the activities of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. We sure appreciate their support.
If you are wondering what happens at a CISC then check out the online brochure here. Here’s what the meeting is all about.
The cattle industry comes together twice a year to discuss current issues as a group, to work on programs and initiatives, and to set the course we should take with our various projects for the betterment of the beef cattle industry. The Cattle Industry Summer Conference features meetings of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion & Research Board, American National CattleWomen, Inc. and National Cattlemen’s Foundation.
Here cattle industry members will meet in both NCBA Policy committees and subcommittees and Joint committees and subcommittees to discuss current developments, to work on initiatives developed at Convention, and to make plans for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins October 1st. Issues Forums will be open to all registered attendees at the Summer Conference, and will include hot topics. Everyone is encouraged to participate. A CBB Meeting and NCBA Board of Directors Meeting will also be held.
During InfoExpo at the Ag Media Summit I visited with Case IH to learn what’s new. I spoke with Kristina Hopkins.
Kristina says that they are promoting their Web Press Room to ag media. It’s where you can find news releases as well as video, images and a media kit. So ag journalists make sure you bookmark this website.
The Ag Media Summit is all about professional improvement for both students and professionals. I wish I could have interviewed all of our session leaders but that’s not possible for one agriblogger. However, I did get some interviews conducted.
One of our presenters was Brandon Souza, AdFarm. He spoke to students about finding the best fit for your first job. He recommended they find out early what they want to do, hone those skill sets and talk with people in the industry. He spoke to professionals about social media etiquette. He pointed out that everything is public in social media. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but he recommends defining what you want to get out of social media.
FMC Corporation announced the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the European persulfates business of RheinPerChemie GmbH from Unionchimica SpA.
Microsoft Corp. has donated nearly $1.9 million of software, training and support to the National FFA Organization for the creation of a new online network to help students track educational successes, pursue awards and scholarships and ultimately obtain careers in the agriculture industry.
Bratney Companies is pleased to announce a new and improved website to improve navigation and provide enhanced education and decision tools in a simplified format.
Have you ever been a beta tester? Beta testers are vital so a company gets real user feedback. That’s the mode AgHaven has been in.
I met AgHaven beta tester Phil White during the Ag Media Summit. Phil is a reporter at KFDI in Wichita, KS. So far he says AgHaven has come a long way and is becoming a valuable tool for producers or reporters like him. The search engine built in to AgHaven is providing more specific ag information than the big search engines. He recommends getting an AgHaven account. AgHaven is still looking for feedback and ideas.
Meet three of my amigos from the Ag Media Summit. This is the BASF team that greeted us, prepared to talk “what’s new.” They are (l-r) Nick Fassler, Dr. Scott Walker and Dr. Dan Westberg. I spoke to each of them and thank BASF for sponsoring my coverage of this year’s event.
Let’s start with Nick Fassler, Technical Market Manager, Fungicides. He was here to talk about research plots to get the “most out of every acre.” He says they’ve doubled the size of their research program this year. Results should be coming in within the next couple months.
Next up is Dr. Scott Walker, Biology Project Manager, Fungicides. Scott covered Xemium fungicide performance data. Xemium is a new fungicide active ingredient that has been submitted to the EPA for registration. It was announced earlier this year at Commodity Classic. Scott says that field data will be presented to the scientific community at the upcoming American Phytopathological Society Annual Meeting.
And next is Dr. Dan Westberg, Technical Market Manager, Herbicides. He covered new Zidua herbicide. This new class of herbicide for corn and soybeans has performed well in summer research trials and registration is expected by the end of the year in time for the new season in 2012.
Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show is just one of the stops coming up on the agriblogging highway. I’ll be attending for a day just prior to the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress.
Canada’s Outdoor Park is home annually to Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show each September but people, equipment and animals are roving in and out of the site all summer long.
The 85 acre site in Woodstock, Ontario is used by many companies and groups leading up to Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, being held this year from September 13th to 15th. Beginning as early as April, the action makes a chilly start with research programs, dealer training sessions and educational events. This summer, groups like Ontario Holsteins, Grober Nutrition and New Holland have taken advantage of the site with its long expanse of grass, buildings and crop plots.
Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show will be held on September 13, 14, and 15, 2011 at Canada’s Outdoor Park in Woodstock, ON. For more information visit www.OutdoorFarmShow.com or call 1-800-563-5441.
I spent some time learning about ways the world can feed a burgeoning population. One emerging idea is through a “vertical farm,” an idea that has been promoted by Dr. Dickson Despommier, a former professor of microbiology and public health in environmental sciences at Columbia. He recently authored, “The Vertical Farm Feeding the World in the 21st Century,” which lays out the idea of growing our food vertically in greenhouse skyscrapers, rather than spread out over hundreds of millions of acres of farmland.
This idea has really captured my fancy and got my head spinning around all the ways it could be carried out. But let me take a step back. Today, our food travels on average 1,500 miles from field to table. Crazy. Much of our produce and fruits come from places like Mexico and South America. Wouldn’t it be cool if they could come from your own city?
That is exactly what Despommier is promoting. In the middle of an urban area could be a “vertical farm” that grows produce, fruits and grains and houses things such as fish farms. These future farms would grow our food year round while the excess waste, or biomass could be used to produce bioelectricity and biofuels. In fact, Despommier says that in some cases, a vertical farm could have up to five harvests per year.
While his idea could potentially grow grains like corn or wheat, the initial idea focuses on other crops. In my mind, for many, many years to come, the majority of our grains will still be grown in the great outdoors. In addition, there will be no animals here – they will still roam the countryside as well.
He writes that ideally, they would be cheap to build, modular, durable, easily maintained, and safe to operate. A vertical farm would mitigate external influences on crops such as too much rain or drought and disease along with the need for fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides. Vertical farms would provide well-paying jobs and improve economics. He also believes they should be independent of economic subsidies and outside support once they are up and running and they should be profitable. (more…)
The Ag Media Summit held a shoe drive to benefit Soles4Souls. I believe almost 300 pairs of shoes were donated! During the conference we held a public distribution of shoes at the Ozanam Inn, a local homeless shelter.
On hand were Andy Atzenweiler and Kathy LaScala, pictured here with two of the folks we met at the shelter. The shoes were sorted by size and groups of people made their way through, finding their size and leaving with something good for their feet. The shoes distributed here were actually not the ones we brought to the AMS. Those are going elsewhere. However, we wanted a way to show publicly our support for the effort and were able to get a quantity of tennis shoes via Soles4Souls for this event. I’ve got a short video clip you can watch of the distribution. Thanks to everyone who supported this very worthwhile effort.
There are a lot of awards presented during the Ag Media Summit. I’ve got some information here to share with you from the American Agricultural Editors Association. I posted their Lifetime Achievement Awards already but here are some more. If you’d like to download the full document of winners then use this link (pdf).
Pictured is Mike Deering, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, receiving the Andy Markwart Horizon Award from Barry Nelson, John Deere. John Deere has very generously made this award possible with a financial grant to AAEA and matched by the AAEA PIF. You may know that this is given in memory of Andy who was the editor of The Furrow and passed away in 2006.
Also presented was the 2011 Distinguished Service Award, made possible through a grant to the AAEA Professional Improvement Foundation by Archer Daniels Midland Company. The Distinguished Service Award recipient is Dr. Paul Sun, special project scientist for Dairyland Seed, posted at Dairyland’s 600-acre Southern Wisconsin Research Station in Rock County near Clinton, Wisconsin. A native of Mainland China, Dr. Sun and his family moved to Taiwan when he was 11 years old. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees in Plant Breeding and Genetics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Sun, with more than 40 years experience in plant breeding, nearly 30 of which have been with Dairyland Seed, is considered the father of hybrid alfalfa.
Other awards include:
AAEA 2011 Photographer of the Year – William DeKay, The Western Producer
AAEA 2011 Writer of the Year – Steve Werblow, Steve Werblow Communications
Congratulations to all winners. I will post winners from ACT and LPC as soon as I get them.
If there’s one room in the house that has the most “stuff” it would have to be our kitchen. We’ve moved several times in the past five years and with each move, we toss, sell and donate more and more items. However, the kitchen always takes three times as many boxes when it comes to packing. I have a gadget for this, two sets of that, a utensil for this, and a machine for that. Thing is, I just can’t bring myself to throw any of it away. My rule on clothing is if I haven’t worn it for a year, toss it or donate it. There are things in the kitchen that haven’t been used in five years, but I keep them around, just in case.
Here are a couple of gadgets called cherry stoners (or cherry pitters). The one pictured on the top was patented in 1883 and the other in 1917. Back then, they didn’t have electric can openers or rice cookers, and they pitted their cherries one at a time by setting them on the plate then lowering the “pit poker” as I like to call it. The pits shot out into a pile and you had cherries you could eat without having to worry about your teeth.
I guess my Grandfather didn’t want to throw out any kitchen items either.
I conducted quite a few interviews at the Ag Media Summit but none of them compare to this one for not only the topic but also who I interviewed. Ted Jackson, New Orleans Times-Picayune staff photographer was our luncheon speaker yesterday. His topic was “Who Will Photograph the Apocalypse?” That pretty well describes the devastation and trauma he faced each day during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He wanted us to have a sense of just how bad it was and thinks it’s important to keep the memory of this event alive. You can find some of his images on his website. Other resources include the newspaper website and The Digital Journalist.
Ted shares an anecdote from his coverage of this terrible tragedy. It will move you not only from what he saw but the ethical challenge he faced in performing his job or dropping his camera and trying to become a rescuer.
Everyone who attended the Ag Media Summit is a winner. But only one person won the BASF Xbox 360 drawing. That’s Jeanne Bernick, Editor, Top Producer, magazine. She’s flanked by Dr. Scott Walker and Nick Fassler, both with BASF.
Jeanne will be giving the Xbox 360 away at Top Producer’s new Executive Women in Agriculture event this December in Chicago.
Hey farm podcasters. Here’s a new tool I just noticed that looks pretty cool. Of course if you’re recording and making your own music this tool will serve you too. It’s the MICRO BR® BR-80: Digital Recorder made by Roland and looks like it’s going for about $299.
Small enough to fit in your pocket, the BOSS MICRO BR BR-80 is the ultimate new portable recording and jam-along tool for guitarists and other musicians. It’s equipped with three modes to create, record, and perform your music: an eight-track MTR (Multi-Track Recorder) mode; an eBand mode for onstage backing tracks and phrase training; and a Live Rec mode for instantly capturing high-quality stereo recordings. You can even combine the three modes seamlessly. Record your phrase ideas using Live Rec mode, for example, and then import the recordings into MTR mode to use as foundations for song production. Once you’ve added tracks, import your finished songs into eBand mode for backing-track accompaniment at the gig. The MICRO BR BR-80 is truly a must-have for all musicians!
Three modes: MTR (multi-track recorder), eBand, and Live Rec
Records directly to SD/SDHC memory card (up to 32 GB)
High-quality stereo condenser microphone built in for instant audio capture
64 V-Tracks and eight simultaneous playback tracks
eBand function for phrase training and play-along tracks
Huge library of built-in backing and rhythm patterns
World-class COSM® amps and effects onboard
Use as a USB audio interface with built-in effects
SONAR X1 LE software included
The 2011 Ag Media Summit is concluding with a breakfast session. We’re sharing sixty good ideas in sixty minutes and there are some really good ones. Heck, they’re all good.
I’ve got lots more stories to post, including interviews. However, I’ll be traveling today and spending some time with family. So keep your eye on AgWired to see more of what happened in New Orleans. My photos are fully updated. I hope you enjoy them.
Not surprisingly you’re worried about government regulations. We asked the question, “Are you worried about how government regulations will hurt your business?” 76% say yes and 24% no. This is a big part of the rhetoric in Washington, DC right now, along with the debt ceiling and budget. All I can say is, “Get off my back Mr. Government Man!”
Our new ZimmPoll is now live. We’re asking the question, “Do you own an iPad or other type of tablet?” Apps continue to be created to perform helpful agricultural functions. So let us know if you’ve made the investment. Thanks.
ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.
The Certified Angus Beef ® brand sold 70 million pounds in June, the highest volume month in the company’s 33-year history, 4.3% above the previous June and some 10 million pounds better than June 2009.
The 2011 Citrus Expo seminar program will feature firsthand presentations from citrus growers who have successfully implemented emerging ideas in their operations.
DuPont announced that it has acquired Innovalight, Inc., a company specializing in advanced silicon inks and process technologies that increase the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells.
Receiving one of the awards from the AAEA was John Harvey (pictured on right).
These awards are just some of the many awards that are presented during the Ag Media Summit. I will try to find an electronic copy of them and provide a link as soon as I can.
Fred Myers received one of the awards too (pictured on right). Earlier in the day he received recognition during the luncheon for fifty years of service to AAEA.
I visited with Fred before the awards banquet about his service award. He says he doesn’t know where the 50 years have gone. He’s always considered AAEA “his organization.” He also received a nice letter from our Secretary of Agriculture. Fred also has a book that he’s written. If you’d like to know more about it or order one just send him an email.
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
David conducted a presentation on delivering expert opinion via social media to an audience at the start of International Poultry Expo week. He's got some great information about who consumers trust and how you can use today's consumer behavior to help communicate your message.
Her name used to be Fuzz but now it’s just black kitty. It was just easier that way. 
The 
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
