In an effort to address the nationwide shortage of service technician labor, John Deere has received approval from the U.S. Department of Labor for its new Registered Apprenticeship Program and is making it available to its Agriculture & Turf and Construction & Forestry dealers. The program will provide dealers with a formalized, on-the-job and technical training plan to help them …
Precision Ag Bytes 7/17
Andrew Pylypchuk has joined TerrAvion as Vice President of Enterprise Sales. The integration of TerrAvion high-resolution imagery in the Farm Dog mobile scouting app gives agronomists a way to effortlessly view your TerrAvion data layers on your phone or tablet while you are in the field scouting. Applied GeoSolutions, the Conservation Technology Information Center and The Nature Conservancy haverelease of …
FMC Growing U.S. Biologicals Portfolio
FMC has just submitted two new biological pesticide strains to the EPA for approval. These biologicals, which FMC anticipates will receive EPA approval in late 2020, will be used for seed treatment, in-furrow and transplant application to target diseases like Sudden Death Syndrome, Fusarium, Rhizoctonia and Phytophthora. This unique combination of two bacilli strains offers a new option for growers …
ISPA Definition for Precision Agriculture
The International Society for Precision Agriculture has publised their official definition of the term, precision agriculture. This is from the ISPA newsletter. “Precision Agriculture is a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual data and combines it with other information to support management decisions according to estimated variability for improved resource use efficiency, productivity, quality, profitability …
Soil Health Institute Releases Progress Report
Based on data from the 2017 U.S. Census of Agriculture, the Soil Health Institute (SHI) has released PROGRESS REPORT: Adoption of Soil Health Systems. The analysis includes a state-by-state breakdown of changes in adoption from 2012 to 2017 for cover crops and no-till production. Cover crop and no-till practices both support biological activity in the soil. Cover crops are particularly …
Precision Ag Bytes 7/10
Bayer CropScience, The Mosaic Company, Syngenta and the Conservation Infrastructure Initiative co-led by the Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance and Iowa’s Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship have signed on as a Diamond-level sponsors of the Conservation Technology Information Center Conservation in Action Tour. The tour, which will be held August 20 and 21 in Des Moines, Iowa, is CTIC’s 12th …
Consider Corn Challenge Winners Announced
The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) announced the winners of the Consider Corn Challenge II this week at the BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and AgTech in Des Moines, Iowa. Three winners were chosen, each with a unique technology to improve a product or process using field corn to produce biobased materials. ExoPolymer, Inc. intends to create a new …
Precision Ag Bytes 7/3
Farm Market iD released its annual farmer, crop and farmland database update on June 28, 2019, providing powerful insights from the 2018 crop year. Insights gathered from the 2018 crop year data include: 2,867,449 active farmers (includes both owners and operators); 323,552,517 planted acres; average age is 63.1 years old; average Gross Farm Income is $168,368; 64.3 percent have a …
Hemp Farming is Getting Real
The seeds planted in the 2018 farm bill legalizing the production of hemp as an agricultural commodity are starting to grow. Florida has officially entered the field with the governor just signing a measure allowing an agricultural hemp program to be developed. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried believes hemp could be the boost the state’s farm sector and rural areas …
USDA Corn Acreage Report Surprises
With all the weather-related planting delays we’ve had, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Acreage report out Friday was a big surprise to the trade with corn acres estimated to be three percent higher than last year. At the same time, soybean acres are estimated to be the lowest in six years. Corn planted area for all purposes in 2019 …