You can’t underestimate the value that an event like the recent Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour. “It’s a real gem,” Ivan Dozier, Illinois State Conservationist with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) told Chuck during one of the stops on the tour. He said he’s been involved in water shed planning for a long time, and it makes …
Drought Drawing National Attention
The widespread drought is now garnering national attention, with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack today meeting with President Obama on the situation and giving a press briefing at the White House. Calling it the “most serious situation we’ve had in 25 years,” Secretary Vilsack said the president is fully informed about the damage being inflicted by the weather on crops …
NCBA Comments on EPA Dust Standard
The Environmental Protection Agency agreed with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and withdrew its proposed Livestock Reporting Rule late last week. Now, NCBA is hoping EPA will also agree on the dust standard. NCBA testified at an EPA hearing in Philadelphia Tuesday in opposition to any attempt to lower the coarse particulate matter (PM) standard as part of the …
Producers See Performance, Flexibility of Anthem
Not only are the folks at FMC anxious to see the release this fall by the EPA of the herbicide Anthem, but if the reaction at the recent Anthem Field Plot Tour in Ames, Iowa is any indication, so are the producers who showed up at the tour. Dean Getting, Retail Marketing Manager for FMC, said people were able to …
Below: 300-Bushel Corn is No Accident
Getting 300 bushels an acre out of corn takes careful planning and doesn’t happen by accident. That was the message from Dr. Fred Below of the University of Illinois gave to those attending the Wyffels Hybrids Corn Strategies event in Vincent, Iowa heard this year. “[Farmers] have to select the best hybrids; they have to feed those hybrids with the …
Ag Lender Sees Value of Conservation Tour
Who better than a person who makes long-term investments in the land, an ag lender, to offer an evaluation of the long-term conservation efforts on display at the recent Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour? “It’s a wonderful thing. It’s trying to let others know that farmers are being very responsible stewards of the land,” Gary Bressner, an ag lender …
Corn Growers Heading to Hill With Message
Corn growers are heading to Capitol Hill this week with a message – they want a farm bill NOW! “All of the NCGA corn farmers, 127 delegates are in Washington DC, and we’re going to present our message that we want a farm bill now,” said National Corn Growers Association president Garry Niemeyer of Illinois. “And hopefully we’re going to …
Getting to Know BASF’s Nevin McDougall
Nevin McDougall has been the Senior Vice President, Crop Protection for BASF North America for three years now and his face should be familiar to many in agriculture who have attended Commodity Classic during that time, but he has actually been with BASF since the American Cyanamid acquisition. “Really, with legacy company, I’ve been with BASF for 19-20 years,” he …
Midwest Drought Puts FMC Products to the Test
The Midwest drought has hit farmers in the region with a double-whammy this summer. First, obviously, many crops are just withering and dying in the hot, dry conditions. Second, the lack of rain hurt some of the pre-emergence herbicides out there, allowing weeds to choke what crops were able to beat the heat. During the recent Anthem Field Plot Tour, …
Wyffels Hybrids Ready for Tale of Two Seasons
If you look at the last two summers in the upper Midwest, you couldn’t find a sharper contrast: plenty of rain, too much of it in many cases last year, and bone dry and hot across much of the corn growing areas this year. That’s part of what the folks at the Wyffels Hybrids Corn Strategies event in Vincent, Iowa …