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 …
Monsanto Learning More on CTIC Tour
The more you learn, the more you know… that seems to be the approach our friends at Monsanto are taking, especially this year when drought is making for some real challenges on Midwest farms. During the recent Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour, Chuck caught up with Dave Gustafson, who serves on Monsanto’s sustainable agriculture team and is a board …
FMC Shows Potential of Anthem in Field Plot Tour
FMC officials are hoping to have EPA approval of their new herbicide Anthem by this fall. In the meantime, this summer they launched a series of plot tours across the Midwest to show off the new product. Chuck caught up with the Anthem Field Plot Tour as it made its swing through Ames, Iowa and spoke with Rick Ekins, FMC …
Growing Options for Nutrient Management
Keynote speaker Dr. Newell Kitchen, USDA-ARS, had a unique title to his presentation, “From Poking Holes to Precision Sensing: Options Growing for Nutrient Management.” He wanted to be clear that the options available to farmers today for managing nutrients are growing. He started out with a historical perspective on what has taken place in this area in recent years. One …
Remote Sensing Still Developing
The first of the two keynote speakers at the International Conference on Precision Agriculture is Dr. David Mulla, University of Minnesota. Dr. Mulla is a past chair of the conference btw. His topic was “Key Advances and Remaining Knowledge Gaps in Remote Sensing for Precision Agriculture.” So he talked about what we know and what we don’t know. It’s clear …
11th International Conference on Precision Agriculture
There are precision agriculture enthusiasts from 45 countries attending the 11th International Conference on Precision Agriculture. This conference is held every two years and is taking place in Indianapolis, IN. To learn about what’s new for this year’s conference I spoke with Dr. Rajiv Khosla, Colorado State University, who is the President of the International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA), …
Wyffels: Geared for Pro Midwest Corn Growers
Many times we hear about how big a company is or its reach throughout the world. That can be all well and good, but sometimes you want a local company that understands your needs and might be able to be more flexible. That’s where our friends at Wyffels Hybrids come in. During the recent Wyffels Hybrids Corn Strategies in Vincent, …
Real Farms Show Real Results on Tour
One of the nicest things about trips such as the Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour is the chance to see real farms with real crops growing under real conditions. Chuck stopped at Marcus Maier’s farm in Illinois where they were showing split application of nitrogen on corn. Maier explained they’re trying to display how varying rates of nitrogen in …