How would you like to have all the hot water you want without running out when the tank is empty? How about getting a propane powered water heater without a tank? Sounds like a plan to me.
Chris Moran, Gulf State Sales, was in the Georgia Propane Gas Association building at Sunbelt Ag Expo to talk with farmers and other attendees about getting a Rinnai tankless water heater. He had one on display, connected to an air handler since it can also function a dual purpose and heat air as well.
You don’t use hot water 24 hours a day. But, you’re paying to heat water 24 hours a day. With a standard water heater, you heat and reheat the same water even when you’re sleeping. The Rinnai tankless water heater is a more efficient way to heat water. It heats water quickly and delivers an endless supply of hot water for as long as you need it. With the Rinnai tankless water heater, you only pay to heat water when you need it and for as long as you want it.
Listen to my interview with Chris here:
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The propane powered mowers shown at Sunbelt Ag Expo got a lot of attention from farmers and other attendees. On hand to show them off was Richard Carr, National Sales Manager, EnviroGard, a division of Onyx Environmental Solutions.
Richard says they manufacture their own line of mowers but also provide conversion kits for existing mowers. He says you’ll get better fuel economy and cleaner air when you use propane to mow.
EnviroGard’s “Low Polluting Lawn Mower” meets all current and future emission requirements by the Environmental Protection Agency. There is up to a 60% reduction in smog forming emissions and 80% reduction in toxic emissions compared with diesel and gasoline fuel.
Listen to my interview with Richard here:
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There’s no question that if you grill food you’re going to attract a crowd. That’s what Joel Garrett, Garrett Grills, is doing for his second year at the Georgia Propane Gas Association building at the Sunbelt Ag Expo. I don’t think he, or the other members of the cooking crew, could cook fast enough to feed everyone but they were trying. They were cooking pork roasts, sausage, boiled peanuts, cookies, and more. I’ve been a regular sampler.
Joel says that you have a lot more control over temperature when you’re grilling with propane and it’s more efficient. In this interview he’ll give us a look inside this 250 gallon, converted propane tank, cooker and you’ll wish you were there! There were a lot of farmers looking at this cooker with envy.
Listen to my interview with Joel here:
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The President of the Georgia Propane Gas Association is Lynda Humm. She was behind the registration table for their Sunbelt Ag Expo drawings every time I came by their building. You won’t find a friendlier person in the propane industry. I thought it was interesting that her company primarily supplies propane to fork lift operators. However, she knows the value of propane out on the farm.
I spoke to her about the mission of the GPGA which she says is to bring together the marketers and suppliers of propane to promote the use of the environmentally friendly fuel. That’s why they’ve built the big display building on the grounds of the show. She says it allows them a great opportunity to show farmers and others who want to live the country life all the options they have for using propane on their farm.
Listen to my interview with Lynda here:
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One of the companies exhibiting products in the Georgia Propane Gas Association building here at Sunbelt Ag Expo is Flame Engineering. They’ve got a full line of Red Dragon agricultural products.
Red Dragon Agricultural Flamers kill unwanted weeds and grasses, break down old growth to make room for new, destroy insect habitat and provide safe & effective control without the use of pesticides. Prior to herbicides and insecticides, flaming was fast becoming a popular control method in many crops. With so many growers seeking alternatives to pesticides, flaming is making a very successful comeback.
I spoke with their Director of the Agriculture Division, Steve Koch, about what they’ve got to offer farmers. One product that’s impressive to watch is their Poultry House Sanitizer. He says they have a similar product coming out for use in dairies. Benefits include savings in fuel and in poultry they’re finding that the birds are larger and have a lower mortality rate.
Listen to my interview with Steve here:
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The Georgia Propane Gas Association has a very large building here at Sunbelt Ag Expo to display all the latest propane powered appliances and equipment. The gas fireplaces are very popular and they’ve even set up multiple rooms to provide ideas for how you can use them in your farm house.
I went on a tour of their building today with Association Executive Director, Jennifer McKeen. She walked me around and described what Expo visitors will find. You can go on the tour too via video:
Here’s the New Holland crew after just finishing corn harvesting at the Farm Science Review. I spoke to Mike Craig about what they found.
He says they had been running for two days and that they were getting between 130 to 150 bushels with 18 to 20% moisture.
I asked him what’s new from New Holland and he says it’s their 8 row corn head with stalk chopper on each row unit which he says, “Allows us to chop the stalk as the ear is being pulled off from it to help with the residue on the ground.” He says it’s on display at their exhibit. Mike also says he really enjoys the interaction with farmers at the show.
You can listen to my interview with Mike here:
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While I was visiting the Ohio Corn Growers exhibit at the Farm Science Review I had a nice talk with 5 time IHRA Funny Car Champion Mark Thomas. Here he is explaining his car to an FFA student.
Mark is not only a professional drag racer but a farmer himself. He has 500 Holstein cows and farms 2,200 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and alfalfa. You’d think that would be enough to keep him busy!
One of his passions is ethanol. He basically grows his own fuel and has had a mission to help educate the public about this renewable energy source. So that’s part of his message here at the show. I asked him about how his farm business was going. He says that the past year or so has been pretty good but it’s basically making up for years that weren’t so good. However, he says that there’s a lot of uncertainty about the future and with the problems lately in financial markets there’s good reason to wonder.
He says the question he gets asked most often standing by his funny car is, “How much horse power?” It’s got 3,000 HP and goes from zero to 250 mph in 5.7 seconds! Of course he runs on ethanol and he says the car uses just over a gallon of ethanol per second.
You can listen to my interview with Mark here:
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The Ohio Corn Growers Association have a nice building on the grounds of the Farm Science Review. One of their board members has been involved with it for many years. He’s Ron Rockhold, pictured on the right. Ron says he farms in southern Fayette County and has been on the board for going on 20 years. He spends one day working in the exhibit and one day with his brother “taking in the sights.”
Ron says this show is a great thing for agriculture. He says the message they’re trying to get across to growers is what’s happening with legislation, especially the farm bill and the rfs standard. In fact, he says, “. . . talking about the RFS which is even more important than the farm bill because it increases the demand for corn and has raised the price of corn to where farmers are getting their money from the market now instead of from the government.” That’s something he says he’s always wanted to see.
You can listen to my interview with Ron here:
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Harvesting corn and soybeans isn’t the only field demonstration you’ll see at the Farm Science Review. There’s also a section devoted to precision agriculture.
I went out to the field when these got started and spoke with John Deere’s Jamie Bultemeier (pictured on the left). He was conducting a precision tillage demonstration. Jamie’s an agronomist by training so he focuses on crop production as it relates to seeding, tillage, sprayers and GPS equipment.
In his demonstration he was tying two of those together. He says they have a John Deere 2510S strip till rig being guided by John Deere RTK sub inch accuracy steering to allow for repeatable planting next spring. After running down a row a little ways he stopped to talk with farmers and they commented on how moist the ground was even though there had been little rain of late.
Questions he gets asked a lot include, “How should I set it? What fertilizer should I use? What kind of attachments should I put on?” He says he’s spoken with about an equal number of farmers who are using the technology and those who aren’t yet.
You can listen to my interview with Jamie here:
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I also caught Jamie doing an end of the row run during his demonstration which you can watch here:
I think this year’s Farm Science Review has had the best weather of any farm show I’ve ever attended. Of course they had to go through some nail-biting times just prior to the show when the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through. In this week’s show I talk with show manager, Chuck Gamble. He says he’s all about promoting agriculture. In fact, he received one of the new Honorary Farm Broadcaster awards from ABN Radio on the opening day.
One of the new things at the show this year is the re-naming of Chemical Ave. to Conservation Ave. He says this was done “to honor (farmers) who I call the ultimate conservationists.”
Another new feature of the show is a “wireless internet cloud.” Chuck says that they didn’t have cable out to the show site but this year they laid in fiber optic and put up over 50 small towers around the exhibit area. It’s fast, reliable and everywhere. So besides us media types, exhibitors now have a new resource.
I’d love to see other farm shows adopt this type of infrastructure at their permanent sites.
The program this week ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. Since I just attended a swine health seminar you get to listen to “Rocket Science” from Brain Buckit. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 187 (15 min MP3)
Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:
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The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes
Speaking of corn, how about soybeans? They were also ready to harvest here locally at the Farm Science Review.
Mid afternoon a selection of combines like this one from New Holland sprang into action in front of the crowd. I didn’t get any data on the crop but it looked pretty good. Although we had some rain early in the week prior to the show things have dried up again enough for it to be very dusty in the fields.
We finally got to see corn being harvested at a farm show this fall.
I went out to the fields and just missed seeing the combines in action. However, I got up above a grain wagon being unloaded for this shot and took a short video clip of it too.
I’m not sure how many acres were harvested today but it was enough to satisfy a very large crowd that came out to enjoy the show.
Field demonstrations got into full swing this afternoon at the Farm Science Review. I think this is the first show to be able to provide in-field demos and farmers were out to see the show.
You really couldn’t have had better weather to harvest corn and soybeans and demonstrate tillage and manure spreading. The breeze even blew away from the people standing and watching.
The Roush Ford F-150 on display at the Ohio Propane Gas Association exhibit here at the Farm Science Review is the big draw. With high diesel prices it’s easy to understand why.
On hand to talk about it is Roush Vehicle Marketing Coordinator, Taylor Bloor. He drove the vehicle down from Michigan. It’s a bright white truck that runs on liquid propane injection. He says you can go to any Ford dealer to order one. Basically, you buy the truck then have Roush customize it for you or you can order a kit to do it yourself.
The vehicles cost more upfront because of the fuel conversion but you make up for it he says in lower fuel costs. For example, at current prices, if you drive 15,000 miles per year you’ll make back the cost in 4 years. If you drive 30,000 miles/year it would only take two. The fuel is much cleaner burning and helps reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
I had Taylor take us on a video tour of the truck which you can watch here:
You can also listen to the tour of the truck here:
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The new President of the Ohio Propane Gas Association is Kent Witt, Hi-Grade Oil Co. He says they’re a supplier of propane. He became President just last month.
Kent says their basically the voice of propane marketers and that you can learn more by coming out and talking with them. He says farmers will find all the propane powered equipment they would be interested in including a lot of heaters and drying equipment.
He mentioned that farmers can find out more at AgPropane.com. He’s pictured here next to a display on using propane to control weeds.
You can listen to my interview with Kent here:
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The second woman to become President of the Ohio Propane Gas Association was Jane Newton, pictured on the left of the propane powered corn popper here at the Farm Science Review. She is a propane marketer with a family business. Jane was President of OPGA in 2000.
She says their exhibit has just about every kind of propane appliance known to man. I caught up with her just as she was taking some chocolate chip cookies out of a propane powered oven.
When it comes to farmers she says the biggest drawing point has been the Roush Ford F-150 they have on display. She says, “They like the look of the truck. They like the cost of the truck and the cost of the fuel since it’s a lot less than diesel right now.” She says she’s thinking about getting one for their business since they haven’t had a propane powered vehicle in their fleet for a while. I’ll have more on the truck coming up later in my coverage.
You can listen to my interview with Jane here:
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One of the people bringing technology to farmers in the field here at the Farm Science Review is Agrow/Dekalb Field Advisor, Troy Putnam (pictured on the Monsanto Mobile Greenhouse).
Troy says that the exhibit is helping promote the Roundup Ready 2 Yield launch. He describes it as second generation technology that will be in the Asgrow line. Farmers, he says, have seen great yield increases in corn over the years and they have been looking for the same in soybeans. “Roundup Ready 2 Yield will raise that bar and you’ve heard the numbers 7-11% in some of our research trials. We’re so excited about it that we’ll have a couple million acres in the launch for 2009.” Troy says there’s a plan in place to distribute out different varieties to various regions based on maturity, soybean volume and demand of the current Roundup Ready line.
When it comes to advantages of the new technology he says it will mean more beans per plant. An example he sites is that if you plant 180,000 plants/acre and get just one more bean per plant then you’ll have one additional bushel of yield for that acre. So increasing the number of beans on the plant has a major impact on yield.
Troy also talks about their Mobile Greenhouse which he says takes farmers through the process of looking at conventional beans through Roundup beans.
You can listen to my interview with Troy here:
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I spoke with Farm Science Review exhibit coordinator Tracey Lemmon, seen here in one of the propane powered vehicles they have on display. His company installs propane systems for marketers. He says they have quite a list of products for farmers to look at. It includes, water heaters, ranges, stove tops, refrigerators, freezers, vehicles, portable heaters, fireplaces, overhead infrared tube heaters, torpedo heaters, gas grills, garage heaters, smokers, fish cookers . . . Just about everything that runs on propane!
Tracey says they put up the building about 10 years ago and this year he was really glad to have it since the weather was disastrous prior to the show opening. However, their building didn’t have any damage.
He says the show has started out great and that farmers are not only looking at agricultural applications of propane but also others since they’re consumers with homes as well.
You can listen to my interview with Tracey here:
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How would you like to have all the hot water you want without running out when the tank is empty? How about getting a propane powered water heater without a tank? Sounds like a plan to me.
The propane powered mowers shown at Sunbelt Ag Expo got a lot of attention from farmers and other attendees. On hand to show them off was Richard Carr, National Sales Manager, 
There’s no question that if you grill food you’re going to attract a crowd. That’s what Joel Garrett, Garrett Grills, is doing for his second year at the 
The President of the 
One of the companies exhibiting products in the Georgia Propane Gas Association building here at Sunbelt Ag Expo is Flame Engineering. They’ve got a full line of 
The 
We’ve heard a lot about wind damage to corn but I guess it’s not just limited to here in Ohio.
Here’s the New Holland crew after just finishing corn harvesting at the Farm Science Review. I spoke to Mike Craig about what they found.
While I was visiting the Ohio Corn Growers exhibit at the Farm Science Review I had a nice talk with 5 time IHRA Funny Car Champion 
The 
Harvesting corn and soybeans isn’t the only field demonstration you’ll see at the Farm Science Review. There’s also a section devoted to precision agriculture.
I think this year’s Farm Science Review has had the best weather of any farm show I’ve ever attended. Of course they had to go through some nail-biting times just prior to the show when the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through. In this week’s show I talk with show manager, Chuck Gamble. He says he’s all about promoting agriculture. In fact, he received one of the new Honorary Farm Broadcaster awards from ABN Radio on the opening day.
Another new feature of the show is a “wireless internet cloud.” Chuck says that they didn’t have cable out to the show site but this year they laid in fiber optic and put up over 50 small towers around the exhibit area. It’s fast, reliable and everywhere. So besides us media types, exhibitors now have a new resource. 
Speaking of corn, how about soybeans? They were also ready to harvest here locally at the Farm Science Review.
We finally got to see corn being harvested at a farm show this fall.
Field demonstrations got into full swing this afternoon at the Farm Science Review. I think this is the first show to be able to provide in-field demos and farmers were out to see the show.
The 
The new President of the 
The second woman to become President of the Ohio Propane Gas Association was Jane Newton, pictured on the left of the propane powered corn popper here at the Farm Science Review. She is a propane marketer with a family business. Jane was President of OPGA in 2000.
One of the people bringing technology to farmers in the field here at the Farm Science Review is Agrow/Dekalb Field Advisor, Troy Putnam (pictured on the Monsanto Mobile Greenhouse).
When it comes to propane products, the 
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