Paul Funk is one of the experts at the 2007 Propane Technology Forum who has taken all the talk about innovative propane research a step further. Paul is a scientist with the USDA-Southwestern Cotton Ginning Research Laboratory. He is among the first to put heat defoliation of cotton with propane into practice. Paul and I discussed what he’s encountered out in the field.
You can listen to my interview with Paul here:
Funk_Paul.mp3
Paul Funk’s heat defoliation of cotton isn’t the only way propane-generated heat is being used. Temp-Air scientist Raj Hulasare says propane heat remediation is an ideal solution for treating bins, silos, and other storage vessels for pests. He adds that propane heat remediation is a particularly viable option for certified organic farms, which are restricted from using many chemicals to treat their stored crops.
You can listen to my interview with Raj about the advantages of thermal remediation here:
Hulasare_Raj.mp3
Several experts in the propane industry mentioned the innovative use of propane as an insecticide at the 2007 Propane Technology Forum, but Robert McGee with Texas A&M Agriculture Research is the expert whose presentation focused solely on propane’s capability to eliminate pests. In a brief interview, Robert and I reviewed the main idea of his presentation.
You can listen to my interview with Robert here:
McGee_Robert.mp3
BASF Agricultural Products division president Michael Heinz is in a good mood because prices for farm products are higher and farmers are spending more money on their input costs to increase production. “It makes us very excited because when the farmer is in a good mood, in general, we are in a good mood,” Heinz says. This optimism was the primary message at the BASF global press conference in Germany on Wednesday.
This year has shown the importance of innovations for farmers, and Heinz says innovation is the whole goal of BASF. He is especially pleased with the performance of Headline in improving the health and vitality of plants, especially corn. And he talked about how BASF is working on seven new active ingredients and a new herbicide tolerance project. The increasing production of corn for ethanol in the United States is also creating new opportunities for BASF to help grower meet the increased demand. Specifically he notes the development of a wholly new herbicide with the code name of BAS 800H which has “outstanding activity against broadleaf weeds.”
Listen to my interview with Michael here:
basf-germany-heinz.mp3
I have been an ag journalist for 25 years and never participated in an event quite like the global press conference for BASF here in Germany.
Michael Heinz, President of BASF’s Agricultural Products Division, and Dr. Klaus Welsch, head of the European Crop Protection business, were the headliners at the event and the main news was how BASF sees the global upswing in farming, highlighted by higher prices for farm products, as the start of a long term trend.
There were over 60 ag journalists speaking at least six different languages – English, German, French, Russian, Italian and Spanish or Portuguese (not sure which) – so they represented probably 10 different countries, because we had Americans, British and Irish journalists there. It was amazingly well done. We all had headsets to have the speeches, questions and answers translated – kinda like the United Nations! It was a very class act. Heinz and Welsch spoke in German while the interpreters had to translate the questioners from whatever language they spoke into whatever language we needed to hear.
The picture can give you an idea of what it looked like, and here’s a little sound bite to give you an idea of what it sounded like through the headsets:
basf-global-press.mp3
Raj Hulasare with Temp-Air introduced the application of propane heat remediation at the 2007 Propane Technology Forum and Scientist Terry Smith with Mississippi State University has applied that concept to his research in dairy sanitation. Terry and I discussed how propane heat sanitation offers dairy producers a chemical-free option when maintaining the health of their dairy cows.
You can listen to my interview with Terry here:
Smith_Terry.mp3
The Propane Technology Forum is underway here in Austin, TX. About 100 propane industry experts are on hand sharing ideas about the future of liquid petroleum gas. Industry leaders from across the U.S. are collaborating with other international experts from Mexico and France, focusing on the future of propane growth, marketing and innovation. It’s early in the day, but the morning’s presentations have already touched on an array of uses for propane gas including propane as a fuel source for dehumidifiers and motor vehicles and as an application tool for emissions control and pollution prevention.
I’ll be interviewing several of these industry leaders one-on-one during our breaks to get a better understanding of where the use of propane gas is headed.
Here’s a picture of our cohort at the Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show.
The show takes place in Woodstock, Ontario which is about an hour west of Guelph.
Thanks to Owen Roberts for the pic. They were attending the show as part of the curriculum and this was their photo taking field day.
Owen says that the picture was actually submitted by Kyle Rodriguez.
During our session here today I interviewed Rick Nigol, partner with eLearn Campus Corporation to show how we can easily create and publish one on one interviews.
You can listen to my interview with Rick here: 
Interview with Rick Nigol (1 min MP3)
Or you listen right here: ug-07-1.mp3
Okay. Here’s our first in class post and this is the cohort, as Owen Roberts calls it.
Right now we’re doing this post as a demo of how to write in WordPress.
Coming up soon everyone is going to create their own blog.
This boring sentence is being typed to create more text to wrap around this picture.
