National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) President Bart Schott and his wife Linsey of Kulm, ND were pleased to present this year’s NCGA President’s Award to their Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) during Corn Congress events this week in Washington. The President’s Award is given annually to a leader who has worked to advance issues important to corn growers and agriculture. “I …
Wyffels Corn Strategies Strategy
2011 marks the seventh year for Wyffels Corn Strategies and it just continues to get bigger and better. I talked with event coordinator Matt Barnard and Wyffels Hybrids director of marketing Jeff Hartz, pictured here together enjoying the Illinois event on Wednesday. The concept for the event started in 2005 when the company gathered a small group of growers at …
Life’s Tools
There’s a pile of old tools sitting in the shed and they look a little bit like this. Included are wrenches, tire irons, scissors – and that’s just the top layer! This collection got me to thinking about other life tools necessary to build a family, a career and relationships within our communities. I wanted to share my short list, …
Illinois Farm Family Hosts Wyffels Corn Strategies
The Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011 event in Illinois this week was hosted by one of the best looking farm families you’ll ever see. Pictured here, starting with Bill Wyffels on the left, are Mike and Susan Pratt, Peter and Emily Pratt, Andy and Katie Pratt, and the absolutely adorable Natalie and Ethan, who are the 5th generation in the Pratt …
Wyffels Corn Strategies is Learning Experience
The farmers who attended the Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011 event in Dixon, Illinois on Wednesday were challenged to “learn at least one new thing” to help improve their operations, but most probably got lots more than that out of the day. Dr. Mike Boehlje, agricultural economist with Purdue’s Center for Food and Agricultural Business, shared his thoughts on “All Things …
Corn Grower Perspective On Conservation Project
One of the participants on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour was Mike Plummer. Mike was representing the Illinois Corn Growers who are one of the stakeholder group supporters of the project. I sat down with him to get his perspective on the project. Mike says that the Illinois Corn Marketing Board is working with the project in …
An Authority On FMC Authority
Sam Lockhart, FMC Technical Sales Manager (pictured on right), is one of the teachers on the company’s Summer Plot Tour taking place this week. I visited with Sam after the activities in York, NE. He works a northern territory that has had a lot of moisture, in fact too much. That presents some challenges. Farmers have struggled to get weed …
Get Interactive With PAQ
What’s new in the world wide web? Lots of things. In this week’s program I’m sharing a conversation with Quentin Rund, PAQ Interactive. Quentin’s company is putting on the InfoAg Conference that’s taking place right now in Springfield, IL. We sat down and chatted about websites, apps and social media. PAQ Interactive is a technology services company specializing in Web …
Email Tops in ZimmPoll
Good old email is still dominating our attention when we get online according to our latest ZimmPoll. I can relate to that! Anyone want to come help me clean out my inbox? So here’s the results in answer to our question, “What’s the very first thing you check online each day?” 47% of you say it’s email. 24% say news; …
Zimfo Bytes
The USDA announced that industry producers and importers voted to approve a national research and promotion program for processed raspberries. The vote was taken in a referendum from June 8 to June 24, 2011. CrescoAg LLC, introduced its suite of crop decision and risk management tools that will help growers and their trusted advisers better analyze data and make decisions …