One of the founding members of the U.S. Grains Council is the National Corn Growers Association. Attending the USGC International Marketing Conference is NCGA CEO Rick Tolman, seen here addressing one of the meetings. Rick, who worked for USGC for many years, says that NCGA considers the Grains Council their international trade partner. The two organizations have a very strong …
USGC 50th Membership Meeting
We’re celebrating 50 years at the U.S. Grains Council. I’m in Puerto Vallarta for the 7th USGC International Marketing Conference and 50th Annual Membership Meeting. Tomorrow morning I’ll be going AgWired Live TV with the opening general session starting at 8am, central. So tune if you’d like. I’ll also be recording the session too. If you’re an ag journalist please …
BASF Launches Headline Training Module
BASF Corporation has just launched a new online training program – www.planthealtheducation.com – to educate growers on how Headline® fungicide for maximum benefit. The training program examines the three pillars of Plant Health—disease control, stress tolerance and growth efficiency—and how Headline fungicide can best affect the most important aspects of growing a healthy plant. The audio-visual presentation also examines the …
Techniques for Increasing Corn Yield
Dr. Ron Heiniger with North Carolina State University is an expert in corn. For many years, he has been researching how to increase corn yields and some of the research he has done in his test plots are showing promising results – 300+ bushels per acre results. To put this number in perspective, the average bushel per acre yield for …
NCGA Says Cap and Trade Will Hurt Farmers
After a detailed analysis, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has come out in opposition to the House version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act HR 2454, better known “cap and trade” legislation. “Since the passage of this bill by the U.S. House of Representatives in June 2009, the National Corn Growers Association has maintained a neutral position …
Record Crop Production in 2009
Despite weather challenges in 2009, American farmers produced record corn and soybean crops. According to USDA’s crop report out this morning, U.S. corn for grain production is estimated at a record 13.2 billion bushels, up 2 percent from the November 1 forecast, and 1 percent above the previous record of 13.0 billion bushels set in 2007. U.S. grain yield is …
Summary of U.S. Grains Council 2009 Corn Mission
For those of you who didn’t get to follow along with the U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission trip I went on last month I have prepared a slide show that will give you a pretty good overview of all we saw and learned. In the show you can hear from some of the key individuals I interviewed including the U.S. …
Last 2009 Headline Harvest Report
So, here it is, the last BASF Headline Harvest report for 2009 with an Illinois farmer who has finished his harvest this year. Jim Wade of Clifton says he just finished up about two weeks before Christmas but it wasn’t as bad as 1967 when he was still had corn in January. “The biggest thing was setting in line, all …
Headline Harvest Report from Kankakee
Who would have thought we would still be doing BASF Headline Harvest reports the last week of the year? This week we traveled to northern Illinois where there is still lots of corn in the fields and lots of flooded areas due to the extremely wet fall. I talked with Ron Hansen of Kankakee, who still has about 300 acres …
Corn in the Snow
The final USDA crop progress report on this year’s harvest released last week showed that 95 percent of the nation’s corn crop was finally harvested, just a few days before Christmas. Illinois was on par with the national total, reporting five percent of the crop left in the field. I saw some of that corn this week during a visit …