This week, during the Ag Associates Conference hosted by StollerUSA, I had the opportunity to talk with Mike Molnar, with Town and Country Ag. His company is a co-op working in nine counties in North Eastern Ohio and three of their locations provide full-service ag products and applications for growers.
Molnar told me that he has been using Stoller products for the last four years to help overcome one of their biggest challenges which is poor soil. “We’re always looking for ways to improve root growth to get better yield in our crops,” he said.
He, along with other growers in the area, are still learning and he recently did a trial with grass hay where he has seen some pretty drastic results using Bio-Forge and Folizyme together. He mentioned that he has also done some good things with soybeans using Golden Harvest Plus, a Stoller product.
“If you’ve got a plant stalled or not growing the way you want it to, you can get that plant to jumpstart a little bit and take off and start growing again for you,” explained Molnar.
Molar has learned some important things working with Stoller, one of which is that its not just about nutrients. It’s also about the hormone balance of the plant. “Cytokinin is a hormone that’s manufactured in the root tips. So, if you have a root system that’s not actively growing and not making new root tips, you’re not going to have the hormone production or the nutrient uptake you need to have maximum yield of your crop,” said Molnar. “Anytime during the growing season that our roots stops growing, we’re losing yield.”
I got out in the field on Wednesday at Sunbelt Ag Expo and the most active area was hay baling. As you’ll see in the video clip, there were a lot of machines being demonstrated. I also stopped at the precision ag demonstrations and will have an interview from there to post later as well as getting to learn about switchgrass at a plot that was grown here for the first time this year.
Vermeer had cow-calf producers in mind when they designed the new Rancher 665 round baler.
According to Vermeer Forage Marketing Manager Dan Belzer, the new Rancher 665 baler design fills a niche many cow-calf producers have been asking for – basically, the ability to produce bigger bales with a “right-sized” baler that requires less horsepower. “Now, with a minimum 60 hp tractor, every day cow-calf producers can roll up large-diameter bales, which they can easily move around with their medium-sized loaders. Also, because the Rancher 665 baler is ‘right-priced’, it’s very competitive with used late-model balers in the same class, which gives Rancher 665 baler owners the extra peace of mind of having new product warranty.”
Belzer adds, “the name depicts a no nonsense, tight-fisted, independent, rugged, individual” – kinda like the guy in the promo photo. Looks a bit like a young Baxter Black to me – is he for real?
While I’m on the subject of hay equipment from New Holland, let’s add one more item. This one is the new H5270 Tedder.
In the haymaker’s race against the rain, a New Holland H5270 six-rotor pull-type tedder provides the edge by fluffing heavy, damp crop and distributing it evenly for faster drydown.
Dave says one of the improvements in this model are that “it’s a very easy unit to get down the road or through a gate” since it folds up to a 10ft. width. I asked him how business was doing and he says it’s very good this year. He’s had many positive comments from growers and suspects that many have waited a long time to replace their hay equipment. Right now he says they’re in the market to buy.
You can listen to my interview with Dave here:
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Small square balers aren’t the only new balers from New Holland. How about those big square balers?
I spoke with Colin Skoronski in the New Holland exhibit about this big BB9060. New Holland is certainly making some style changes which you can see in the rounded edges for example. Colin says they’ve made a lot of improvements in this line of balers. One of them is an increase of about 5% in bale density.
When I asked him about feedback he says, “The guys are excited. The hay industry is going well. More and more guys are looking at the productivity of the big square bales.” When it comes to service he says, “Top Service is a program that commits to the customer that we will take care of his problem. New Holland is committed to keeping that customer running.”
You can listen to my interview with Colin here:
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New Holland had a lot of new equipment on display. One item getting a lot of attention was their new small square baler. One of the reasons is a retro-vintage logo on the side.
I spoke with Mark Long, Marketing Specialist in the Hay and Forage group. He says they just introduced the new small square baler and that it’s been about 15 years since they’ve made this many improvements. To let growers see where those improvements have been made, they’ve made little cards on magnets at each spot on the unit. They’re handing out number coded flyers with information about each location of an improvement. That makes it very easy to see what’s new.
Mark says their focus is on serviceability and durability. They’ll be celebrating their 700,000th small square baler this October. He says that over the years the market for the small square balers has backed off but the company hasn’t forgotten what got them here.
You can listen to my interview with Mark here:
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Commodity Classic took place in Anaheim, CA. You'll find all of Chuck, Cindy and Joanna's photos here.
Happy Ag Week
It's time to thank our farmers and ranchers for all their hard work to feed us.
In this week's program I interview Linda Tank, CHS, Inc., who is Chair of the Agriculture Council of America, the group coordinating National Ag Day. Learn more about their activities, especially this week in Washington, DC.
He, along with other growers in the area, are still learning and he recently did a trial with grass hay where he has seen some pretty drastic results using Bio-Forge and Folizyme together. He mentioned that he has also done some good things with soybeans using Golden Harvest Plus, a Stoller product.
According to Vermeer Forage Marketing Manager Dan Belzer, the new Rancher 665 baler design fills a niche many cow-calf producers have been asking for – basically, the ability to produce bigger bales with a “right-sized” baler that requires less horsepower. “Now, with a minimum 60 hp tractor, every day cow-calf producers can roll up large-diameter bales, which they can easily move around with their medium-sized loaders. Also, because the Rancher 665 baler is ‘right-priced’, it’s very competitive with used late-model balers in the same class, which gives Rancher 665 baler owners the extra peace of mind of having new product warranty.”
While I’m on the subject of hay equipment from New Holland, let’s add one more item. This one is the new 
and 
Small square balers aren’t the only new balers from New Holland. How about those 
New Holland had a lot of new equipment on display. One item getting a lot of attention was their 
It's time to thank our farmers and ranchers for all their hard work to feed us.
