MyWay RTK Grows in 2011

Cindy Zimmerman

2011 has been a phenomenal growth year for MyWay RTK.

myway rtkThe service was launched in the fall of 2010 to bring subscription-based Real Time Kinematic positioning and wireless Internet access to the state of Illinois. That has been more than accomplished with coverage throughout the entire state and base stations being added almost daily in other states from Iowa to Idaho and Kansas to Mississippi.

growmark sid parks“It would be fair to say the number of people that are participating has exceeded early expectations,” says GROWMARK precision agriculture manager Sid Parks, who recognized the benefits of the service early on for FS member cooperatives. “We deal with lots of different venders, different colors of equipment, different brands, different service providers and we had a need to be brand neutral,” he said.

MyWay RTK was the perfect solution to provide high quality, cellular modem based RTK differential correction service with accuracy to the one inch range, an improvement from perhaps 3-6 inches often used and with better year to year consistency. “The RTK quality signal is delivered through the internet and cell towers rather than FM radio signal,” Sid said. One important benefit to that is improved repeatability from one base station to the next. “Any place I have cell phone access, I have the potential to deliver that signal via modem.” In the future, it will also give the capability to share files and maps back and forth between the field vehicle and the office.

Sid is quick to point out that neither he nor GROWMARK has any ownership in MyWay RTK, they just knew a good thing when they saw it. “When I first found out about it, I went around with a company representative to our FS companies to show how they could participate – whether they chose to be a member or not, participate in the sales of subscriptions or as a user,” he added.

You can listen to my interview with Sid about MyWay RTK here: Sid Parks Interview

Audio, GROWMARK, Precision Agriculture

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Members of the United Farmers Cooperative signed a letter of intent to purchase the Marquette, NE based Midwest Ag Partners LLC.
  • The Kansas Soybean Commission and the Kansas Soybean Association are hosting the 2012 Kansas Soybean Expo on January 11.
  • North America’s premiere used combine network is here.
  • A series of webinars on using social media, mobile apps and other technologies to help increase business is being offered by Penn State Extension in collaboration with Ohio State University Extension and University of Minnesota Extension.
    Zimfo Bytes

    ZimmPoll Year In Review

    Chuck Zimmerman

    This is the first full year of our ZimmPoll so I thought it would be interesting to take a look back and share some statistics with you. I am frequently asked how many people responded and what their demographics are. The number of respondents is easy but knowing who they are and details about their life is not since there’s no registration process. But here are a few numbers I can share with you.

    To start with, the average number of responses is 110. I’m not sure about you but I think that’s a pretty good number. The total varies widely each week and I think that has a lot to do with the question itself and the particular week and activities that might draw attention elsewhere. So the swing in number of responses goes from highest for the question, “What do you think of USDA’s proposed GIPSA rule?” at 446 to lowest for the question, “With net farm income up this year, how is your income?” at 32. I’ve also noticed that the number of responses varies to some extent by how aggressively we promote it via social media channels like Twitter and Facebook.

    Some other questions that generated a higher level response include: “Which biofuel feedstock do you think has best future?”; “Do you believe in man made climate change?”; “What’s Your Favorite Meat?”; “What mid-term grade would you give Ag Sec. Tom Vilsack?”; “Will higher cost (13%) of Thanksgiving dinner affect your meal?” and “Which Republican Candidate for President is best for Ag?.”

    So with question choice being very important I’d like to ask what questions you’d like to see us ask. Please post your ideas in comments. Is there something you’d like to ask the agricultural marketing community? What would it be? Thank you and I look forward to another year of checking the “pulse” of the community.

    ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.

    ZimmPoll

    The Farm Sale

    Melissa Sandfort

    Last week marked a quasi-sad day in my life…my dad had his farm sale. The entire north end of town was filled with wagons, trailers, trucks, tractors, implements, combines, and miscellaneous farm parts. It was a culmination of more than 40 years in the farming business, all sold in a matter of six hours.

    Sitting on the lot were some of the things that made me proud to say I was a farmer’s daughter. He technically still IS a farmer — but you know what I mean. It was almost like a few of my childhood memories were sold when the auctioneer pounded his gavel and off the tractor went to a new owner.

    In 40 years, I’m amazed at how agriculture has changed and how it continues to change. I guess I shouldn’t be sad because the equipment is going to other farm families, or to their children in hopes of carrying on the ag tradition, but it marked the end of an era for our family.

    The sheds have been cleaned out, leaving room for another business to grow. And maybe it’s good to have a “cleaning day” here and there but for me, the sheer size of the sale was a bit overwhelming. Like doing spring and winter cleaning and tossing out your whole closet and starting new again. (Now that would be fun.)

    I told dad he had to keep at least one tractor or my son would be forever disappointed. He did.

    Until we walk again …

    Uncategorized

    Pensacola Bay In The Morning

    Chuck Zimmerman

    This morning I got to take two of my daughters fishing. We had a cold start but things warmed up as the sun got higher in the sky and the fish started biting. This oversize redfish was what we were after. By oversize I mean he was just over 27″ so he had to go back in the water.

    I hope you’re having a great holiday week. Cindy and I, along with our daughters are enjoying some time in the west Florida area. But we’re still working some too. I like this combination.

    Uncategorized

    Beef Tops On Holiday Table

    Chuck Zimmerman

    It looks like beef wins in our latest ZimmPoll. We asked the question, “What is your Christmas/Holiday dinner entree?” Beef got 34% of the vote followed by Pork – Ham/Other cut at 27%, then Turkey at 24%, then Lobster and Wild game each got 7% and Fish at 1%. I guess you normally only have one at a time but I like them all!

    Our new ZimmPoll is now live. We’re asking the question, “What do you think is biggest ag story of 2011?” There were a lot of big ag stories so we had to pick a few that stood out for us. Let us know what you think.

    ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.

    ZimmPoll

    Zimfo Bytes

    Melissa Sandfort

      Zimfo Bytes

      Kip Cullers Tops 100 Bushel Soybeans Again

      Cindy Zimmerman

      It may not be another world record, but Kip Culler’s soybean yield of of 108.8 bushels per acre this year was enough to win him another place in Missouri’s 100 Bushel Club.

      farm progress show 2011The southwest Missouri soybean rock star took first place in the irrigated category for this year’s Missouri Soybean Association yield contest, while Steve Riegel of Washington won the conventional category with a yield of 86.3 bushels per acre. Both used Pioneer® brand Y Series soybean varieties, as did Steve Turner of Hopkins who was the runner up in the conventional category with a yield of 83.3 bushels per acre.

      Kip set the world soybean yield record in 2006 with 139 bushels per acre, then beat that the following year with a yield of 154.57 bushels per acre. When another grower achieved a yield of more than 100 bushels per acre in 2008, the 100 Bushel Club was formed and Kip was inducted. Last year he broke his record again with 160.6 bushels per acre. So, while Kip is likely pretty disappointed with his 2011 beans, it’s still a winning yield and pretty stunning considering the weather conditions this year. Congrats, champ!

      Pioneer, Soybean

      Sorghum Checkoff Chooses McCormick as Agency

      Cindy Zimmerman

      McCormick Company has been chosen as the agency of record for the United Sorghum Checkoff Program (USCP).

      According to McCormick, they will serve USCP from the company’s Amarillo, Texas, location with assistance from staff in the Kansas City office.

      USCP is headquartered in Lubbock, Texas, and is a producer-funded organization with focus on crop improvement, high-value markets and renewable fuel opportunities for grain and forage sorghums.

      Agencies, sorghum

      Farm Program Atlas

      Chuck Zimmerman

      The USDA Economic Research Service has a Farm Program Atlas online for your searching pleasure.

      The Farm Program Atlas is a web-based interactive mapping tool that displays payment and participation data on major farm programs and covered commodities at the county level — to visualize how these Federal farm programs vary across the United States. Users can select maps displaying county-level data for nearly 100 variables. Each map may be viewed for the entire country or users can use a zoom tool to focus on a single region, State, or county. When viewing a program map, users may also click on a single county to view a table of data on all the variables associated with the program for that particular county.

      With these tools, users can:

      • View maps showing levels of participation and benefits from key farm programs
      • View maps comparing participation and benefits from selected programs
      • View all data for any county on a selected farm program
      • Print a version of the map or save the image in a graphics-file format for use in other documents or presentations
      • Download a spreadsheet containing all the data for a selected county or for all U.S. counties included in the Atlas

      USDA