The hot, dry summer has taken a toll on the corn crop, according to the latest USDA forecast. The estimate for corn production this year is now 12.5 billion bushels, down 3 percent from the August forecast but still more than last year and would still be the third largest corn crop in history. Yields are expected to average just …
Pioneer Offers Local Resources to Improve Profitability
Pioneer Hi-Bred’s big announcement at the 2011 Farm Progress Show was a new program focused on evaluating innovative production practices on a local basis through a national network of agronomy trial managers (ATMs). “The focus is really local,” says Curt Clausen, Pioneer agronomy sciences director. “It’s really about local crop management, innovation and knowledge.” Pioneer is doubling the number of …
Farm Progress Show Field Demo Hosts
I was out watching the field demos in the hot sun yesterday and was pleased to meet the hosts of the demo plots Dawn and David Brix. “We take care of about 225 acres that we use for combine and tillage tune up and then Tuesday and Wednesday during the shows we have demos out there,” David told me. They …
Growing Blackberries in the Midwest
We see so much focus on corn and soybean row crop farming at the Farm Progress Show that it was refreshing to learn about growing blackberries! We also got to eat some of my favorite berry. Of course I remember coming home from picking in our patch where I grew up covered with scratches and picking out thorns. Things are …
Illinois Farm Bureau is Proud GROWMARK Parent
As GROWMARK enters its 85th year, the Illinois Farm Bureau (ILFB) is proud to have watched the cooperative grow into something bigger and better over the years. “The GROWMARK system started under the auspices of Illinois Farm Bureau years ago, so we’re kind of the parent of the organization,” said ILFB president Philip Nelson at the cooperative’s annual meeting last …
GROWMARK Annual Meeting is Value Driven
The theme of the 2011 GROWMARK Annual Meeting is Value Driven and there are over 1,000 stakeholders attending the meeting in Chicago this week. I spent a few minutes with Dan Kelley, Chairman of the Board and President of GROWMARK, prior to the opening reception Thursday night about what value-driven means to GROWMARK. “The GROWMARK system has historically been recognized …
Tweet Your Farmer To Learn About Food
In this week’s program we get a wrap-up of the AgChat Foundation’s Agvocacy 2.0 Conference. I spoke with Michele Payn-Knoper, founder of the weekly AgChat conversation on Twitter and an AgChat Foundation board member and also Amanda Sollman, who took on the project this summer of helping us put on the conference. Michele says we had 115 attendees which is …
Iowa Corn Trophy Reaps Publicity
P.T. Barnum has been quoted as saying “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” but those in the agriculture industry might disagree with that at times. The vicious backlash over the Iowa Cy-Hawk series football trophy, sponsored by Iowa’s corn growers, might be one of those times – or it might not. The trophy shows an Iowa family together after …
AGROTAIN’s Tim Healey Wears Many Hats on CTIC Tour
Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) past chairman Tim Healey of AGROTAIN wore many hats during last week’s 2011 Conservation In Action Tour, including bus monitor, sponsor, interviewee and interviewer. “We’ve been doing this for five years now and each year the conservation tour gets better,” Tim told me at the end of the tour in northwest Ohio. “We hear from …
Generations On The Farm
The National Agri-Marketing Association held its annual Boot Camp this week in Kansas City. One of the sessions focused on “generations” on the farm. I visited with one of those generational presenting teams, Ken and Brad McCauley, father and son Kansas farmers. The idea of the session was to learn about the challenges and rewards faced by family farmers. After …