Call from the Combine for Farm Bill Now

Cindy Zimmerman

Congress is back in session for a couple of days this week, but all indications are that no action will be taken on a farm bill at this point before the current bill expires.

Knowing how fluid the situation in Washington can be, that’s no reason to give up hope yet and National Corn Growers Association president Garry Niemeyer says they are urging farmers to call Congress from their combines to make their voices heard. “This being Farm Safety Week, pull your combine over and shut it down, but call your congressman,” Garry said. “Tell them exactly what you think. That’s what we need.”

Garry says they are completely frustrated by the lack of action on a farm bill in the House. “This is just ridiculous,” he said. “We have big problems out here and (members of) Congress have really not done their job.”

Go to FarmBillNow.com for more information about contacting your congressional representative.

Listen to Garry’s comments here: NCGA president Garry Niemeyer

Audio, Corn, Farm Bill, Farming, NCGA

XS, Inc Testing AgVeritas on New Network Infrastructure

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 365Let’s talk big data and precision agriculture in this week’s program. Listen in on a conversation I just had with Bill Barton, Principal, XS, Inc. and Timothy P. Carroll, Sr. Network Engineer. XS, Inc. just announced a major upgrade to their storage area network (SAN) infrastructure.

As a drought in the Midwest raises food prices, farming efficiency and getting the most from farm lands has become more essential than ever. XS, Inc is known in the food and agriculture industry for its ability to provide internet-based applications to help its agricultural clients drive efficiency and business value within their own organizations. To keep those online applications up and running, XS, Inc. selected Dell Compellent storage arrays, PowerEdge servers, PowerVault disk storage, and Latitude laptops. Since XS, Inc. moved to Dell Compellent this year, the company has maintained 99.999 percent storage availability to support the company’s rapid growth

This move comes in a timely fashion to support a new service offering, AgVeritas software.

XS, Inc. is the first agricultural SaaS provider with commercially accessible spatial statistics software, AgVeritasTM, transforming a traditionally expensive and time-consuming process to a highly available solution for agricultural clients. AgVeritas analyzes soil variability, elevation, drainage and the amount of sunlight and provides customers with the information they need to effectively manage their field. The company also collects more point of sale transaction data than any other service provider, providing its largely agricultural customers with insight and analytics to make educated business decisions on where and what to plant to optimize available farm land. The Dell infrastructure is critical to supporting XS, Inc.’s big data applications due to its flexibility and reliability.

So, what does all this mean? That’s what we talk about in this week’s ZimmCast. Today’s farmer has a real need for comprehensive information right now, right where he is, so he can make important farm management decisions. I was very intrigued by the idea of “spatial statistics” and Tim explains that in our conversation. From my perspective AgVeritas is once again showing the XS, Inc. is ahead of the curve. AgVeritas is currently in field trials and should be ready for prime time by first quarter 2013.

BTW. ZimmComm is about to go through a major upgrade of all our behind the scenes infrastructure which should be complete by mid November.

Listen to this week’s ZimmCast here: XS, Inc. & AgVeritas

Watch a video about AgVeritas:

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsors, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong and Monsanto, Roundup Ready Plus, for their support.

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page.

Agribusiness, Audio, Precision Agriculture, ZimmCast

No Rain for BASF Great Grower Kip Cullers

Cindy Zimmerman

Even a Great Grower needs a little help from above to end up with a great crop to harvest, but Southwest Missouri farmer Kip Cullers says they got virtually no rain this season, resulting in yields that are “dismal at best.”

When we talked to Kip back in April for the BASF Crop Protection Great Growers series, he was thrilled with how quickly planting had progressed and how fast the corn was emerging. But the weather rapidly took a turn for the worse after that time. “It hadn’t rained in Southwest Missouri since the first of April until last weekend,” he said. “It’s so hard to overcome no help from Mother Nature.”

The World Champion Soybean Grower says despite the lack of rainfall, they did have good luck controlling weeds this season. “Our herbicides this year worked really well,” he said. “We went back to more pre-emerge herbicides versus going over the top with generic glyphosate and have gotten along a lot better doing that.” Kip says this is the second year they have used that strategy.

Even though this is the second year Kip has faced weather challenges, he’s not looking to change much for 2013. “”Surely we won’t have three years of this in a row!,” he said. “There’s no reason to change a program because of one or two bad years because putting on fungicides and insecticides and taking care of your weeds does pay big dividends if it just rains some.”

We caught Kip this week as he was leaving the Farm Science Review in Ohio and heading to catch a flight to Sao Paulo. With the U.S. crop lowered due to weather this year, Kip says the South American crop is more important than ever. “We need Brazil to raise a big crop just because we’ve created all this demand,” he said. “We need to come through with our end of the bargain and supply all that.”

Kip, pictured here with his wife Michelle at the 2012 Commodity Classic, is a big believer in BASF Headline fungicide for plant health and knows it makes a difference when plants are stressed. “It’s not a miracle drug, but it sure will help you through some tough times,” he said, but noted that when there’s no rain at all, the best help is to “just do a lot more praying.”

Listen to an interview with Kip here: BASF Great Grower Kip Cullers

Audio, BASF

Milk Unleashed Educates Moms

Melissa Sandfort

Milk Unleashed has launched! It’s a campaign to educate moms on the importance of dairy, and offer easy ways to incorporate more milk into their families’ diets with shelf safe milk. It’s sponsored by Tetra Pak, makers of shelf safe cartons for milk, juice, soup, broth and other products.

Shelf safe milk is Grade A fluid milk that requires no refrigeration until the package is opened, thanks to ultra pasteurization and the special Tetra Pak carton. This eco-friendly packaging preserves all the wholesome goodness of milk and helps kids get the vitamins and nutrients of milk anytime, anywhere.

Agribusiness, Dairy

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

Zimfo Bytes

NAMA Fall Conference Next Week

Chuck Zimmerman

The NAMA Fall Conference is coming up quick! As in next week. Are you registered? The Fall Conference takes place September 25-26 in Minneapolis. Remember that this is a new format. It’s no longer the NAMA Trends in Agriculture conference. Here’s some information you might find helpful.

Our venue is the Graves 601 Hotel which is located at 601 First Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN. The hotel is about a 20 minute drive from the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport. The Minneapolis/St.Paul Super Shuttle service is available to take you to and from the hotel. The shuttle cost is $16.00 one way, $32.00 for a roundtrip ticket and reservations are not necessary.

Once you arrive at the hotel and get checked in, the Fall Conference registration desk will be located in the Ballroom Foyer of the hotel. Stop by to pick up your name badge. The Fall Conference kicks off at 2 p.m. with keynote speaker Steven Schussler, founder of the Rainforest Café.

All Fall Conference sessions are business casual. For a schedule at a glance visit http://www.nama.org/fall/.

For a complete List of those registered for the NAMA Fall Conference visit http://www.nama.org/fall/2012Fallattendees.pdf (pdf).

You can follow along or contribute to the Twitter conversation at #NAMAFall12.

If you have other questions about the Fall Conference, give the office a call at (913) 491-6500. I’ll be attending the conference and hope to see you from there.

Ag Groups, NAMA

Cast Your Hambone Award Vote

Chuck Zimmerman

This is just too good to pass up. It’s the VPI Pet Insurance Hambone Award.

It’s that time of year again to crown America’s weirdest pet insurance claim with VPI’s Hambone Award!

From the cat that survived a 15-mile ride under the hood of a car to a potbellied pig that troughed through a medicine cabinet and lived to oink about it, VPI Pet Insurance has received more than a million insurance claims this year and narrowed the field for this year’s Hambone Award to twelve lucky finalists! Voting runs through 25 September on VPIHamboneAward.com. A press release with information on the nominees is attached.

The Hambone was named after a dog who was locked in a refrigerator and ate an entire Thanksgiving ham. After enjoying his meal (and suffering a mild case of hypothermia in the process), he made a full recovery. Who will join the ranks of previous Hambone winners like Harley, the Rhode Island pug who ate more than 100 rocks, or Ellie, the California dog who ate an entire beehive and thousands of its inhabitants?

Voting for the 2012 VPI Hambone Award will be open to the public Sept. 12-25, 2012 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 26, 2012. For regular updates on the 2012 contest, you can follow VPI on Twitter, like us on Facebook or sign up to receive emails on all things Hambone.

Insurance

New Holland Supporting Illinois Corn Growers

Chuck Zimmerman

Sitting next to the Illinois Family Farmers exhibit outside of Chicagoland Speedway this past weekend was some big iron. As in a New Holland combine and other equipment like tractors and utility vehicles. New Holland is the official ag equipment of NASCAR and lent their support to the exhibit by bringing out the equipment along with some educational materials.

On hand to visit with race fans was Greg Kiesewetter, north Illinois sales manager. Greg is pictured talking with several visitors to the exhibit area on race morning. He says they brought out a variety of equipment for not only farming but also for the construction and consumer market. In supporting Illinois Corn Growers he says they brought a combine with a corn head and a tractor pulling a grain cart to show how the equipment is used in the field. Greg says New Holland is very pumped up about their partnership with Growth Energy and American Ethanol as well as working with the Illinois Corn Growers.

Listen to my interview with Greg here: Interview with Greg Kiesewetter

2012 NASCAR Dollar General 300 Race Photos

Agribusiness, Audio, Ethanol, NASCAR, New Holland

AgVantage FS Puts InVISION and HiSoy in Focus

Cindy Zimmerman

The 2012 Farm Progress Show was a chance for AgVantage FS to put the spotlight on a fresh new look for FS Seed products HiSOY and InVISION corn.

FS seed marketing and development specialist Amanda Weigel told us during FPS that AgVantage FS just expanded into the Boone county area this year. “So I’m doing some marketing to get our name out here in the Boone county area … letting people in the area know what’s going on with FS and GROWMARK.” AgVantage FS is a full-service agriculture and energy supplier headquartered in Waverly with locations in 30 surrounding Iowa counties.

Amanda says they were highlighting the FS HiSOY® brand of soybeans and the new FS InVISION brand of seed corn. “Growers need to know that HiSOY and InVISION are brands that are locally grown, you get local recommendations, and the trials are done locally,” she said. A focus on local results led to a selection of hybrids best suited for wherever a farmer may choose to plant.

Amanda suggests that growers contact their local FS representative to find out more – and check out and like them on the FS Facebook page!

Listen to Chuck’s interview with Amanda from FPS here: Amanda Weigel with FS AgVantage

2012 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2012 Farm Progress Show is sponsored by New Holland and Monsanto Roundup Ready Plus
Audio, Farm Progress Show, GROWMARK, Seed

Family Farmers Meet Kenny Wallace

Chuck Zimmerman

It was NASCAR race weekend once again for the Illinois Corn Growers and Illinois Family Farmers. Our favorite driver and just a stand out agvocate, Kenny Wallace, stopped by to visit with farmers before Saturday’s Dollar General 300 Nationwide Series race. Race fans love Kenny and you’ll see that in the video of his presentation below. Here’s Kenny posing with some of his family farmer fans.

I also got to talk with Kenny after his presentation. He was excited to see some new farmer faces at this race weekend. He says farmers are interested in the same things as all race fans like team communication during the race, how many tires the team gets to run on and more.

You can listen to my interview with Kenny here: Interview with Kenny Wallace

Here’s Kenny entertaining his fans:

2012 NASCAR Dollar General 300 Race Photos

Ag Groups, Audio, NASCAR, Video