This seems like common sense on the surface but University research backs it up. To get more corn yield per acre, plant more plants per acre.
That’s what Dan Johnson, Kruger Seeds, says. He’s in charge of their corn lineup and technical training. At the Monsanto Technology Showcase Tour stop in Elkhart, IA he had a field station devoted to plant populations.
Dan says they talked about Monsanto’s goal of doubling corn yields in the Unites States by 2030. To do that he thinks there are three components to keep in mind. One is to improve the germ plasm to increase yield potential. The second is to develop trait technology that protects that potential and finally, to try some different things agronomically.
One of the things Dan is challenging growers to do is look at their plant populations. “There’s two ways you can improve your corn yield. One is making bigger ears. The easier way to do it is having more ears per acre.” Dan says the technology is allowing heavier plant populations. In fact, he says that University research shows that growers can plant about 10 percent more per acre. He recommends that growers test this on their farm.
You can listen to my interview with Dan here:
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Monsanto Technology Showcase Photo Album
There is a group of indigenous people in Honduras that live off an average of $300 a year… less than one dollar a day. At least two months out of every year they starve. That’s the reality as Billy Collins sees it. Billy has been working with the Chortí Maya, the direct descendants of the Mayan Indians, for five years.
I met Billy in Copán Ruinas, a charming town in Western Honduras not far from the Guatemalan border. The small, cobblestoned town is “base camp” so-to-speak for visiting Honduras’ famous ancient Mayan ruins. That’s why I am here: to see the ruins. But, it’s been three days and I have yet to explore them. Instead, I’ve been exploring the harsh realities of the Chortí Maya, realties that Billy, his wife Mary and a handful of others are committed to changing. And, they’re making those changes largely through agriculture. I spent an entire day with Billy touring villages of adobe huts with straw roofs, bumping and bouncing along dirt roads consistently washed out by the wet season’s frequent rains to get to them.
While Billy and his wife are involved in more than a handful of projects with the Chortí, their SALT project, or Sloping Agricultural Land Technology, is among one of the biggest. It’s a project that’s aimed at training the indigenous people how to cultivate their rolling, mountainous lands more efficiently and successfully. Through a double hedgerow terracing technique, Billy says the Chortí Maya can double, even triple their current crop yields.
“We give them enough to plant like a half acre, enough seeds,” Billy said. “I’m talking about seeds for their terracing. We use leguminous seeds to terrace. We use the A-frame to mark out how terraces should go and then they plant it… We want to stop water long enough to let it drop the soil, let plants get taller, this soil will get higher and they’ll have good soil. In three to four years, if they do this right they can double their harvest.” (more…)
Getting more corn yield per acre was the theme of an interview I did with Shannon Hauf, Monsanto Area Technology Development Manager for Minnesota and Iowa. Shannon was attending a Monsanto Technology Showcase Tour event in Elkhart, IA.
I got to speak with her after listening to a field stop that was all about “stress mitigation.” Shannon says that about three years ago during drought conditions in Illinois, farmers who had planted Monsanto’s YieldGard Rootworm technology were getting yield increases that were two to three times better than what Monsanto had anticipated. So in the following years she says they’ve been doing a series of stress mitigation trials. Those are now being done with the YieldGard VT Triple technology. In plots like the ones we were able to see, you can physically see the difference on the plants themselves.
Simulating drought here on the farm for this tour stop was accomplished by using a tent that allows light to pass through but not rainfall.. . The purpose of the stress mitigation tent is to determine how biotech traits help protect the corn plants from dry weather and other stresses. I can vouch for the fact that the drought-applied plants looked just as healthy as those that received plenty of moisture. Shannon says they monitor conditions below the ground using soil moisture probes and those show that the root structure for the YieldGard VT Triple plants under stress is significantly deeper than the conventional corn hybrids.
She finds it very interesting that this stress mitigation benefit is an “added value” to the technology that was originally developed to assist with weed control and to control pests.
One other thing that Shannon wants growers to consider to increase corn yield is planting more plants per acre. Because advances in germplasm and traits enable corn plants to tolerate higher plant densities, she says a 10 percent increase in plant populations per acre is recommended which will put “more ears on that acre.”
You can listen to my interview with Shannon here:
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Monsanto Technology Showcase Photo Album
After a hearty lunch at the Monsanto Technology Showcase tour stop in Elkhart, IA, last week, growers got to hear from Palle Pederson, Iowa State University Soybean Extension Agronomist. Palle’s work focuses on soybean yields and profitability for growers.
Palle says the field day concept is a nice opportunity for growers to see new technology on display before they need to use it. I spoke with him before his presentation in which he decided to focus on what happened early in the season and what’s going on right now. He also intended to tell growers what they can expect for the rest of the season.
I asked him what he thought about crop conditions across Iowa. He said, “I don’t believe we have that good of crops as people are talking about. I don’t see it in either soybeans or corn.” He says the best crop conditions are in the northwest part of the state. Palle says the current cool weather isn’t helping growing conditions since they’re already 110 to 140 growing units behind a normal year. So part of his message to growers is, “We can’t increase yields right now but we can protect what we have.”
He recommends that growers get out and scout their fields since aphids are showing up in many areas. He believes that at this point, scouting is what it’s all about.
You can listen to my interview with Palle here:
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Monsanto Technology Showcase Photo Album
When Kip Cullers told me two weeks ago that they were expecting 2000-3000 people for the first ever Kip Cullers Record Breaking Field Day, I really couldn’t believe it. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more than that by the time this event ends on Thursday because there had to be at least 500 out there today in the time I was there and that was just half of the first day!
“I’m just honored that everybody drove all the way down here,” Kip told me. “We got Canadians here!”
Kip’s main message to the growers is the mantra he has been repeating continuously since becoming the celebrity all-star of the soybean world. “I preach about plant health over and over and over, I sound like a broken record,” Kip says. “A happy plant is a healthy plant.”
His secrets to high yields are simple - plant the best genetics for your farm and protect your crop with a good insecticide and fungicide program. He is especially strong on BASF Headline fungicide, so much so that he did double applications for both his corn and soybean crops this year since he had some 52 inches of rain early in the season. For growers who might be hesitant about spending the money to buy that protection for their crop, Kip says it’s a no-brainer as far as he’s concerned. “If you’re not using fungicide, you obviously can’t stand prosperity,” he says.
Kip Culler’s Record Breaking Field Day photo album
Listen to my interview with Kip here:
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A record breaking field day on a record breaking farm kicked off Monday night in Purdy, Missouri at the home of Kip and Michelle Cullers.
Kip is the man who put this tiny town in southwest Missouri on the map by being the world champion soybean yield grower two years in a row, not to mention numerous National Corn Yield Contest wins. This week he is giving over 2,000 growers a first hand look at how yields that were previously thought impossible are within reach for them.
BASF’s Headline fungicide is an important part of Kip’s management strategy for his crops and his wife Michelle had the clever idea of using some of their leftover containers as table centerpieces for the kickoff BBQ at their lovely home Monday evening. Pretty nifty, if you ask me.
The record breaking field day is co-sponsored by Pioneer and BASF, two companies that have been instrumental in helping Kip achieve his phenomenal yields. His world record soybean yield last year was 154.7 bushels per acre. Even more impressive was his average yield across the whole farm - at 74 bushels per acre it was almost double the Missouri state average. But, he is hoping to break both those records this year!
The Kip Culler’s Record Breaking Field Day photo album is up and ready for viewing here.
One of the special people I got to meet this week at the Ag Media Summit was the new National Corn Growers Association, Director of Communications, Nancy Bunker Koester.
AMS gave Nancy the chance to meet and interact with a hundreds of ag media professionals and other industry leaders. She is not unfamiliar with this industry, having worked for Monsanto - which is ironically where her predecessor Mimi Ricketts now works. She has also done some consulting work with NCGA in the past.
She is pictured here with Cindy at the AMS 10th anniversary dinner. I did an interview with her earlier in the day about her background and plans for working with the corn growers on important issues.
“We have a message to get out about food, fuel and feed, that there’s plenty of corn seed to go around for that,” Nancy said. “And we’re working to fervently to be sure people know that.”
Listen to my interview with Nancy here:
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Ag Media Summit Photo Album
AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
and 
Gotta admit to being pretty proud of this - the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and the Center for Association Leadership has awarded the National Corn Growers Association with a 2008 Gold Circle Award in the category of “Blogs - Association Annual Budget Greater than $2 Million” for Corn Commentary.
John H. Graham IV, CAE, president and CEO of ASAE, said “These organizations show how successful communication vehicles help associations accomplish their strategic goals and mission. I applaud the skilled communication professionals who have mastered their tools and communications strategies to create these exemplary pieces.”
It is interesting that this organization has categories in their communications awards for both blogs and podcasts - wonder how long they have been doing that?
Corn Commentary is just about to celebrate its first anniversary. We built the site for them last summer and it kicked off August 2, 2007. In that time, there have been 413 posts done - by me and Chuck, as well as members of the NCGA staff, including Ken Colombini and Mimi Ricketts (now with Monsanto). We have also posted numerous audio interviews and videos on the blog.
Congratulations to the NCGA for this prestigious award!
One of Monsanto’s Mobile Greenhouse “Street Team” representatives is a student from Purdue. Daniel Stauffer is a Field Sales Intern for Monsanto and is one of the experts farmers and growers at the Michigan Ag Expo can grill about Monsanto’s new Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans. Daniel says one of the most exciting attributes of Monsanto’s “next generation” soybeans is the “drastic” increase in crop yields. Soybean crops, Daniel says, have maintained flat yields for more than ten years. That is, until now.
Daniel isn’t an expert only in Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans though. He’s also contributing to Monsanto’s stress mitigation research on corn and soybean crops, testing traits such as drought-resistance. Daniel says he’s also involved in research with Vistive soybeans and silage corn among a handful of other projects.
I spoke with Daniel at this week’s Michigan Ag Expo. You can listen to my interview with Daniel here:
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Monsanto Summer of Soy Photos
The first speaker here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference is Michael Wetzstein, University of Georgia. His talk deals with two issues. One is on price volatility and the other is on food and fuel. He’s one of 22 speakers on the program and all the talks are dealing with the biofuels issue. I’ll do my best to interview them all. So here we go.
Michael says that gas price volatility can be avoided with fuel diversification by blending renewable fuels with fossil fuels. That’s what his research shows. He also suggests that we could relax gas taxes and reduce the tariff on the importation of Brazilian ethanol.
Another part of his research is on food and fuel and to answer the question of “Is there a direct link between the volatility of ethanol production and the volatility of corn prices. His research has found that there is a link but not a persistent or long lasting one. In fact, in the long run he says there is no direct link.
The bottom line he says is to produce more food. After talking to Iowa corn growers last weekend, I can say that American farmers are certainly doing their best.
You can listen to my interview with Michael here:
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You can also download the interview using this link (mp3).
I’m also uploading pictures to a photo album which you can feel free to use if you’d like: Transition To A Bio Economy Photo Album
At the Iowa Speedway yesterday, the Iowa Corn Growers Association held an outdoor press conference. They used it to help educate media about corn usage by placing banners on the side of a grain trailer showing the relative percentages of corn used for different purposes like livestock feed and ethanol.
I did a short interview with Gary Edwards, ICGA board member. Ken Root, WHO, also participated. Gary farms in Animosa, IA which is in one of the most flood impacted areas of the state. He says that although corn growth is behind schedule and there is a lot of land impacted, he expects that the state will still have a good crop. He wants people to keep in mind that last year they had a record corn crop and this year still has the potential to be one of the biggest. He says the water levels have gone down significantly already and he expects that a lot of those fields will dry out and be re-planted. He has no doubt that they’ll be able to provide all the corn needed for both food and fuel again this year.
I asked Gary if we were all going to starve by mid July and he laughed and said, “NO.” You’d think we were from some of the tv coverage I’ve seen.
You can listen to my interview with Gary here:
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Iowa Corn Indy 250 Photo Album
This year’s Iowa Corn Indy 250 is over and as usual, ethanol won. Actually, Dan Wheldon, Target Chip Ganassi Racing won the race. You can see plenty of victory lane pictures in my photo album.
However, I was rooting for Team Ethanol. They ran as high as 3rd place but according to driver, Ryan Hunter-Reay, they lost a gamble on fuel strategy. He ran a strong race all day and really wanted to finish on the podium in front of so many fans of ethanol but it wasn’t to be. He finished 8th though and maybe he’ll get some breaks to go his way next time.
I’m out of here and heading home before getting on the road again tomorrow for the “Transition To a Bio Economy” conference in Berkeley, CA. See you from there.
Don’t forget to check out my photo album from all the activities of the past few days.
Iowa Corn Indy 250 Photo Album
We had an inside look at ethanol press conference here at Iowa Speedway this morning. Participating were (l-r), Toni Nuernberg, EPIC, Craig Floss, Iowa Corn Growers Association, Mike Sobetski, LifeLine Foods and Troy Hobbs, Monsanto. They helped answer questions journalists here had about the fuel that’s burning in these IndyCars.
You can see individual posts with each of them on our Domestic Fuel site. But if you’d like to listen in or download the audio for your own use, here’s the links:
You can listen to Toni’s comments here:
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Download it here.
You can listen to Craig’s comments here:
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Download it here.
You can listen to Mike’s comments here:
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Download it here.
You can listen to Troy’s comments here:
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Download it here.
Iowa Corn Indy 250 Photo Album
While I was attending the Corn Utilization and Technology Conference recently, I turned the tables on one of the media representatives covering the conference. Pictured on the left is Andy Vance, Buckeye Ag Radio Network along with NCGA’s Christina Koboldt. Christina was a big help by the way, helping those of us who haven’t attended a CUTC in a while.
I asked Andy why he attended. He says that what’s happening with corn is extremely important right now to his audience and that he couldn’t imagine not being there. Since the CUTC focuses a lot on new uses for corn he wondered if some of the new uses would generate as much public reaction as using corn for ethanol has.
Andy says that there were several Ohio growers present and even leading some of the sessions. He thinks that growers should participate since these new technological uses of corn are very important to their future.
You can listen to my interview with Andy here:
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CUTC Photo Album
Cindy found an interesting story on Cnet, titled, “Corn farmers take anti-Google fight to Washington.” It’s about a letter from the American Corn Growers and some other ag groups to Congress, urging them to look into a proposed advertising partnership between Google and Yahoo. It’s kind of a complicated story to explain easily so I encourage you to read the story if you’re interested. Here’s an excerpt from the letter.
We write to request that your respective Committees hold prompt hearings on the proposed partnership between Google and Yahoo! which threatens to create a monopolistic concentration of power in the market for online search and related advertising. This issue is of immense importance to rural communities that we represent.
As you know, search applications have become the primary portal for all Web users. Cattleman are now buying and selling calves on frontierstockyards.com, seed customers are finding suppliers through search ads displayed on AgriSeek.com, and family farmers are connecting with customers via localharvest.org.
What I think is really interesting is that this points to how important the internet has become to agricultural marketing and how significant search is. I think it shows how important it is for you to be “found” on the web and that’s what new media techniques and social media platforms are made for.
Dr. Glenn Grimes with the University of Missouri has been the definitive voice for the livestock industry as far as economics goes for five decades. He is here at World Pork Expo giving his views on the current state of the industry and what producers can expect and do to survive the next 18 months or so.
“The objective should be to minimize losses rather than maximize profits in the next 12-18 months,” he says. To do that, he recommends the futures markets. “For the first time in my experience, the futures market has offered a much better opportunity to minimize losses than ever before.”
He also says that it will be important for producers to maximize feed efficiency and he addressed the weather concerns that are the big topic of discussion here as fields are covered in standing water from a series of storms. “This weather is too similar to 1993 to make me feel comfortable as to what it may do to the corn crop this year. That’s the last real small corn crop that we had,” said Grimes. Ten billion bushels or less he says could stop or slow down the production of ethanol, however he emphasizes, “We will not run out of corn.”
Listen to the Grimes interview here:
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Or download here:
Glenn Grimes Interview (9 min MP3)
World Pork Expo Photo Album
AgWired coverage of World Pork Expo is sponsored by:
Some of the people attending the CUTC are (l-r) Gary Wheeler and Gary Clark, both with Missouri Corn Growers and Jamey Cline, BBI International. They’re all Missouri boys. In fact, MO Corn Growers is one of the sponsors here at the conference.
I got them all to talk with me a little about the event with their impressions and observations. Some of the things that they mentioned included getting good information, especially on the supply side of things and also with distillers grains as well as new enzyme technology. They all agree that this is a very timely conference for the industry since we’re seeing a lot of change and ideas presented here will help us prepare for the changes of the future.
Here’s my interview with these three amigos:
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You can use this link to download the audio file: Gary, Gary and Jamey Interview (3 minutes)
CUTC Photo Album
I wanted to interview Rick Tolman (l), CEO of the NCGA and Richard Glass (r), VP of Research and Business Development for NCGA together but it didn’t happen that way but we still have a Rick and Rick post anyway. In the picture they’re enjoying one of the presentations taking place at the CUTC.
When I spoke to Rick Tolman he said that he’s always rejuvenated by the ideas, enthusiasm and energy expressed here. He says the exciting story is the productivity in corn production. Like me he also doesn’t see a food vs. fuel issue but one of food and fuel because the corn production pie is growing. But even beyond fuel we’re hearing about other types of new products being made from corn. For example, he says the NCGA offices are being carpeted with a product made from corn.
Here’s my interview with Rick Tolman:
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You can use this link to download the audio file: Rick Tolman Interview (5 minutes)
When I spoke to Richard Glass he said that he’s really impressed with this conference. He says there are people here representing 11 countries counting the United States and that we have 35 speakers in 10 sessions. He says this is perfect timing to have the conference because of all the things going on with ethanol and the push to relieve our dependence on petrochemicals.
Here’s my interview with Richard Glass:
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You can use this link to download the audio file: Richard Glass Interview (4 minutes)
CUTC Photo Album
Some of you may be old enough to remember hearing Sano Shimoda, President, BioScience Securities, (standing in center of picture) speak to a NAMA Issues Forum in Washington, DC a number of years ago. I’d link you to it but we didn’t have websites to post on back then. I remember him talking about the exciting future of biotechnology and I think we’ve seen a lot of what he spoke about happen.
I ran into him at lunch today and talked with him about the CUTC we’re both attending. He says the key here is biofuels and I would agree that there’s a lot of focus on that technology. He says the future of agriculture is using technology to enhance value of the major crops and ethanol and biodiesel are taking center stage.
When I asked him what he advises his clients right now he replied that they face a challenge of committing capital resources to business development while being uncertain about how sustainable and economical ethanol will be and if we’ll continue to see high prices for oil. As he says, he’s just a business guy listening to some seriously technical presentations but he says you have to be impressed with the people here from all over the world working to meet the challenges the industry is facing.
Here’s my interview with Sano Shimoda:
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You can use this link to download the audio file: Sano Shimoda Interview (3 minutes)
CUTC Photo Album
I really hate to do this to you but here’s AgriTalk again. I know, they need their own category, blog, etc. Mike, Mike and John were live from the CUTC today and I’ll see them again this weekend in Nashville for the New Holland/Michael Peterson Celebrity Tractor Race.
I’ve got some more items to post but this has been a day of doing audio interviews, video recording of session presenters as well as still photography. There hasn’t been any posting time but I do have the photo album updated.
Tomorrow I’ll be traveling on to the annual meeting of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council where I’m presenting in back-to-back sessions in the afternoon. So after the reception here tonight I’ll get caught up online and see you from there.
CUTC Photo Album
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Laura McNamara interviewed Aggie-Lance creator and founder, Mark Jewell.
