The U. S. Department of Agriculture is seeking assistance to find all active farms and ranches in the United States. To do this they are sending nearly one million potential farmers and ranchers a National Agricultural Classification Survey (NACS) during the month of December to find any place that produces and sells or could sell $1,000 or more of agriculture products in …
John Deere Prototype Electric Tractor Unveiled
In advance of the Paris International Farm Show (SIMA) in France John Deere has unveiled what it says is the “First fully battery-electric high-hp tractor.” This photo is from the SIMA new products website page. I don’t have much other information at the moment but it looks like the company is doing a lot of work on the electrification of …
Meet The 2016 ARA Retailer of the Year
The Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA) presented this year’s Ag Retailer of the Year Award during the the ARA Conference & Expo to Gar Tootelian, of central California. The award, sponsored by Monsanto, ARA, and AgProfessional magazine, is highly esteemed by the industry and honors the very best among ag retailers. Gar Tootelian was represented at the ceremony by president Greg …
FMC & ARA Hosting Safety Planning Workshop
FMC Corporation has shown tremendous continued support for the Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA) through the company’s sponsorship of the ARA Conference & Expo. In the new year, FMC will also sponsor a workshop with ARA that will focus on preparing, responding, and sustaining a crisis plan. This new workshop stems from a crisis communications workshop that FMC has held for …
Keep Waiting for Apple AirPods
I’ve been asked about Apple AirPods too many times to ignore. So here are my thoughts. Bottom line is: there are no AirPods right now. I would forget about them and move on. Here’s why. There is no good alternative. That’s it. I’ve done my research for you. But you probably think there has to be something. Not really. Some …
Review of #ASTACSS from President LaVigne
President and CEO of ASTA, Andy LaVigne, breathed a big sigh of relief at the success of this year’s conference. After planning and scheduling the largest seed conference of it’s kind in the world, all you can do is hope people show up– and show up they did. “We had to bring in tables and chairs,” LaVigne told Cindy Zimmerman. …
BASF’s Future #Seed Giant at #ASTACSS
Justin Clark is a Technical Marketing Manager for BASF Ag Products who was named Future Giant of the Seed Industry by Seed World this year. At the ASTA CSS and Seed Expo, we talked with Clark about BASF’s recent agreement with FMC for in-furrow seed protection. “We think it’s a unique technology that addresses a grower need,” said Clark. “As …
Chromatin Talks #Sorghum at #ASTACSS
One of the S’s in ASTA CSS stands for sorghum and one of the sponsors for the American Seed Trade Association 71st Corn & Sorghum Seed Research Conference 46th Soybean Seed Research Conference and Seed Expo is a company that’s all about sorghum. “Chromatin is a sorghum-focused company – we only work in sorghum,” said Charles Miller, Chromatin vice president …
AgCompass Helps You Navigate Your Software
The technology has been around for years now but there is still some confusion when it comes to cloud computing or hosted software solutions and who can benefit from it most. Ken Wedig, who was retired from John Deere after 30 years, partnered with Everett Chambers in 2003 to create AgCompass, one of the pioneers in the technology which supports …
The Shark Farmer Podcasts From #AgChat
Shark farming in Illinois. I didn’t find much about that on Google. Google knows everything of course. But I did meet the Shark Farmer, Rob Sharkey, this week at the 2016 Cultivate & Connect Conference in KC, MO. Rob actually produces a regular podcast on Tuesday’s called Sharkfarmer Podcast. It’s not only a play on his name but he started …