This flying machine has got to appeal to the kid in any farmer or rancher who loves to play with remote-controlled toys. It’s called the AutoCopter, it costs about $30,000 up front and less than $2.00 an hour to operate, and it can let you see your crops, land, fences, barn roof, wind turbine or whatever from a bird’s eye …
Disagreement on Ethanol Policy
The food versus fuel debate is back in full force, creating division between the crop and livestock industries at a time when it would behoove them to work together against the very real threat of animal activism. This reached an interesting level last week when Rick Tolman, CEO, National Corn Growers Association (ZimmComm client) published an editorial taking the American …
Developing Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers In France
Sophie Marquis works for GPN Agriculture in France, pictured here with Andrew Semple, VP International Sales, AGROTAIN. She says there’s a lot of pressure in France and other EU countries on the development of new fertilizers that can increase yields while helping with environmental concerns. She says there are some products available now in their market but it sounds like …
Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers Improve Sustainability
When it comes to sustainable food production, enhanced efficiency fertilizers are starting to play a role. At the Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference Charlie Walker, Incitec Pivot Ltd., Australia was on the program to talk about how they’re using urease and nitrification inhibitors to accomplish this. If you like a good Aussie accent then you’ll enjoying listening to Charlie. He’s a …
AgChat Nation
If the AgChat Foundation has its way the whole nation will be participating in a weekly Twitter conversation. Okay. Maybe that’s a little grandiose but the goal of the Foundation is to get many more farmers involved with Agvocacy by telling their story and interacting with consumers and each other via social networking. In this week’s program I’ve got another …
Spring Planting Advice
It’s spring planting time and in this week’s program you’ll hear some ideas and suggestions for row crop farmers. I interviewed Syngenta Crop Protection Technical Support Representative, Michael Leetch this morning. He’s based in Iowa and says there are areas that still have up to five percent of their corn left standing. Couple that with a very wet start to …
Using Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers for Corn and Wheat
Using enhanced efficiency fertilizers (EEF’s) in corn and wheat was the subject of a presentation by Greg Schwab, University of Kentucky, at the Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference. We’re just starting to see these products make their way into large acre crop use. I spoke to Greg after his presentation and he says he works very closely with farmers and crop …
International Fertilizer Efficiency
We had a great mix of international attendees at the Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference in Miami. I spoke with two of them after being introduced by AGROTAIN Marketing Communications Manager, Carrie Doza, pictured in the middle. To the left is Dr. Surinder K. Bansal, Potash Research Institute of India and on the right is Daniel O. Claudino dos Santos (a …
Representing Global Fertilizer Industry
In this week’s program we’ll learn about the International Fertilizer Industry Association. IFA, along with New Ag International, conducted the first International Conference on Enhanced-Efficiency Fertilizers to be held in the U.S. this past week in Miami. I was there courtesy of AGROTAIN. The Director, Agriculture Service, for IFA is Patrick Heffer who welcomed us to the conference at the …
Enhanced Turf Nutrition
Enhanced turf nutrition was the subject of a presentation by Elizabeth Guertal, Auburn University, at the Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference. Elizabeth says EEF’s are very important to the turf business for two reasons that include economic and environmental. She says that she’s done some work in this area that found that the controlled release sources had much less nitrogen loss …