BASF Crop Protection showed farmers “the magic of quality crop protection” and how to unlock the potential of their crops during the 2011 Commodity Classic. In addition to sharing their innovative crop protection portfolio with visitors, BASF had a variety of activities at their booth throughout the show, including live performances by noted corporate magician Jon Petz, complimentary fruit smoothies …
BASF-ASA Scholarship Winner
A high school senior from Iowa now has $5000 toward his college education in an agriculture field, thanks to the American Soybean Association and BASF Crop Protection. This is the fourth year that the ASA Secure Optimal Yield (SOY) Scholarship, sponsored by BASF, has been presented to an outstanding high school senior planning to pursue agriculture as a degree area …
New Holland Shows Off
During Commodity Classic I visited once again with Mike Harvey, New Holland. We didn’t talk equipment as much as farm show exhibiting. I see Mike at various shows throughout the year so just to be different we talked about what it takes for New Holland to put together all the exhibits at all the shows they do during a year. …
A Record-Setting Commodity Classic
The 2011 Commodity Classic is one for the record books. Attendance at the annual meeting of corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum growers shattered previous records. Total attendance was more than 4826, breaking the previous record at Nashville three years ago by almost 300. Total number of growers was over 1600, compared to the previous record of 1513 in 2009 in …
House Ag Chair at Commodity Classic
The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee discussed government over-regulation and prospects for the 2012 Farm Bill during the general session at Commodity Classic 2011. U.S. Representative Frank Lucas (R-OK) first expressed concern about the over reach of government agencies, especially the EPA. “The Environmental Protection Agency’s assault on production agriculture must stop,” he said, noting that his committee is …
Classic Rock Makes For Great Ending
The 2011 Commodity Classic had a rock and roll ending. The evening entertainment was the Little River Band. I think they played most of their hits and a couple of songs with a new twist. They sounded great and a little loud but then that’s what I remember when Cindy and I saw them a long time ago. The coolest …
AAEA Relaxes At Commodity Classic
The American Agricultural Editors Association held a reception for members attending this year’s Commodity Classic. Quite a few of the 126 members of the ag media attended including past president Karen Simon, Iowa Soybean Association. I spoke with Karen and Willie Vogt, Farm Progress Companies, about this summer’s Ag Media Summit. Karen is the Conference Chair and Willie is chairing …
Self Propelled Guardians From New Holland
The biggest machine in the New Holland booth at this year’s Commodity Classic is their Guardian Rear Boom Sprayer. There wasn’t enough space for it to “spread its wings” though. I talked with Tyler Roberts about the self propelled sprayers now being made by New Holland. Tyler says these machines are ready to get out in the field after being …
BASF Presents Kip Cullers Bobblehead
On behalf of a number of well-wishers in the agricultural world, BASF Crop Protection congratulated soybean yield world champion Kip Cullers during a special presentation at Commodity Classic in Tampa, Florida. Kip, a corn and soybean grower from Missouri, is a rock star in the ag world. He set yet another new world soybean production record in 2010 – for …
The Technical Side of AgHaven
The Chief Technology Officer for AgHaven is Pat McGinty. He’s responsible for the software that runs AgHaven. We talked about their agricultural search engine which is really tweaking the interest of a lot of people. He says that it allows for search results specific to agriculture. It’s not search results from other search engines. He says they crawl the web …