Illinois Farm Family Hosts Wyffels Corn Strategies

Cindy Zimmerman

wyffels corn strategies illinoisThe Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011 event in Illinois this week was hosted by one of the best looking farm families you’ll ever see.

Pictured here, starting with Bill Wyffels on the left, are Mike and Susan Pratt, Peter and Emily Pratt, Andy and Katie Pratt, and the absolutely adorable Natalie and Ethan, who are the 5th generation in the Pratt farm family. They were all the gracious hosts to about 600 farmers who attended the Wyffels event. (Click on the photo for a bigger version.)

I talked with Katie about what all is involved in hosting such an event. “We took approximately ten acres out of one of our corn fields, six of that was planted to grass where the exhibit area, parking and tents were set up, and the rest of it was set to plots,” she said. They were all set up and ready to go on Monday, when that straight line windstorm that blew across Illinois and Iowa hit. “But, amazingly, the weather is wonderful today and the corn is standing back up again, thank God!” Katie said.

Katie also talked about her other job, as an Illinois Farm Families blogger on WatchUsGrow.org. “That’s where several women are blogging just about daily life on the farm and answering questions,” she said.

Listen to or download my interview with Katie here: Katie Pratt

Be sure to check out the Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011 Illinois Photo Album for more cute photos of Natalie and Ethan!

Audio, Corn, Seed

Wyffels Corn Strategies is Learning Experience

Cindy Zimmerman

wyffels corn strategies illinoisThe farmers who attended the Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011 event in Dixon, Illinois on Wednesday were challenged to “learn at least one new thing” to help improve their operations, but most probably got lots more than that out of the day.

Dr. Mike Boehlje, agricultural economist with Purdue’s Center for Food and Agricultural Business, shared his thoughts on “All Things Volatility” with the growers. “We are seeing volatility at an unprecedented level,” he said, both in terms of corn prices and the cost of inputs. “I mean, when you lose about a buck off the price of corn in two days – that used to be the price of corn, a buck, and we lost that in two days.”

Dr. Boehlje’s main advice for growers is to determine their cost of production per bushel, not per acre. “That’s what you sell,” he said. “Knowing your costs is a critical part of any successful business, whether it be manufacturing widgets, or automobiles, or corn.”

Listen to an interview with Dr. Boehlje here: Dr. Mike Boehlje

wyffels corn strategies illinoisAnother presenter at the event was Jim Bower, owner and president of Bower Trading, who talked about some of the factors growers should consider in making decisions out ahead.

“These next two to three weeks are going to be terribly important to price discovery,” he said. “They’re going to do themselves well to pay really close attention to the models of weather and how they impact the market on a daily basis.” Jim says he is particularly concerned right now about a potential weather pattern developing that would push the extremely hot and dry weather that has been sitting over Texas and Oklahoma up into the Midwest and Eastern Corn Belt, which could push yields down.

Jim talked about other important factors that are more long term than the weather, such as increasing global demand for protein.

Listen to or download my interview with Jim here: Jim Bower

Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011 Illinois Photo Album

Audio, Corn, Seed

Corn Grower Perspective On Conservation Project

Chuck Zimmerman

CTIC TourOne of the participants on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour was Mike Plummer. Mike was representing the Illinois Corn Growers who are one of the stakeholder group supporters of the project. I sat down with him to get his perspective on the project.

Mike says that the Illinois Corn Marketing Board is working with the project in an advisory capacity. He says the participating farms are putting some very good management practices in place from which they are collecting data to study. From a corn grower perspective the watershed is a great place to start since it is highly tile drained. The management practices developed will be useful in other parts of the state. He hopes the project will show which management practices will improve quality without harming yield. You can listen to my interview with Michael here: Interview with Michael Plummer

CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour Photos

AgWired coverage of the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Field Tour is sponsored by
Ag Groups, Audio, Conservation, Corn, CTIC

An Authority On FMC Authority

Chuck Zimmerman

Sam Lockhart, FMC Technical Sales Manager (pictured on right), is one of the teachers on the company’s Summer Plot Tour taking place this week. I visited with Sam after the activities in York, NE. He works a northern territory that has had a lot of moisture, in fact too much. That presents some challenges. Farmers have struggled to get weed control products out. Some have had to do aerial application. But those who were able to get early applications of the FMC Authority line of products have seen much cleaner fields.

Some of the questions Sam has received from retailer participants deal with weed resistance and how to control these weeds early on. He say they want to know how to “switch out the modes of action they’re using from doing the same old thing they’ve been doing for years which has worked until the last couple years here – Roundup, Roundup, Roundup. How do I break that up?” The answer he says is the FMC Authority line and their new product that will be out soon, Anthem.

You can listen to my interview with Sam here: Sam Lockhart Interview

Sam was also out in the test plot and one of our presenters showing us how well a combination program of Authority and Anthem has performed as you can see in this video:

FMC Summer Plot Tour – York, NE

Agribusiness, Audio, FMC

Get Interactive With PAQ

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 310What’s new in the world wide web? Lots of things. In this week’s program I’m sharing a conversation with Quentin Rund, PAQ Interactive. Quentin’s company is putting on the InfoAg Conference that’s taking place right now in Springfield, IL. We sat down and chatted about websites, apps and social media.

PAQ Interactive is a technology services company specializing in Web and GIS solutions. Our web design and development work focuses on the web as a communication tool. More than static pages, we assist our clients through the design of interactive, content rich, fully customizable web sites that allow our clients to use their web technology investment for internal and external communications. In GIS services, PAQ consults with clients in creating and maintaining a business-level GIS. We provide training, custom programming, data analysis, and GIS project management solutions to create or expand on our clients initial investment in GIS.

Listen in to this week’s program: Get Interactive with PAQ

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsor, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong, 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.

Audio, Internet, ZimmCast

Email Tops in ZimmPoll

Chuck Zimmerman

Good old email is still dominating our attention when we get online according to our latest ZimmPoll. I can relate to that! Anyone want to come help me clean out my inbox?

So here’s the results in answer to our question, “What’s the very first thing you check online each day?” 47% of you say it’s email. 24% say news; 15% say social media; 8% say weather; 4% say markets and 2% say other. I’m tempted to say that more people are checking social media than weather and markets but we’re not “scientific.” However, these are interesting results don’t you think?

Our new ZimmPoll is now live. We’re asking the question, “How accurate do you believe the USDA acreage predictions are?” 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

  • The USDA announced that industry producers and importers voted to approve a national research and promotion program for processed raspberries. The vote was taken in a referendum from June 8 to June 24, 2011.
  • CrescoAg LLC, introduced its suite of crop decision and risk management tools that will help growers and their trusted advisers better analyze data and make decisions to maximize profitability.
  • The Insect Shield program is being offered to oil and gas, mining, forestry and farming companies and their subcontractors in locations where insect-borne disease is endemic.
  • The American Seed Trade Association membership elected Mike Gumina Pioneer Hi-Bred, Johnston, Iowa, to serve as chairman; Blake Curtis of Clovis, NM, to serve as first vice chairman and Craig Newman, AgReliant Genetics, Westfield, Ind., to serve as second vice chairman.
    Zimfo Bytes

    Stage is Set for Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011

    Cindy Zimmerman

    wyffels corn strategies illinoisThe stage is set for the Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011 in Dixon, Illinois.

    The official event gets underway bright and early on Wednesday morning, but the pre-event kicked it off Tuesday evening at the Pratt Family Farms. The festivities included a delicious steak dinner, homemade ice cream, an opportunity to hear from some of the event partners, and the recording of a segment for this weekend’s U.S. Farm Report with John Phipps. Even though the evening started with a good downpour after everyone got into the tent, by the time it was all over there was a rainbow and a beautiful sunset! Got some nice photos in the photo album already.

    I had a chance to visit with Wyffels Hybrids president Bill Wyffels Jr. about the company that was started by his father in the 1940s. “He started experimenting with seed oats and from experimentation with oats and being successful, evolved into hybrid corn,” he told me.

    Bill says they are very proud of the people who make up the Wyffels team and they enjoy hosting the Corn Strategies sessions each year for producers in Illinois and Iowa. “This is really a learning day and it’s a chance for us really to give back and bring some of the best minds in agriculture all in one place,” he said.

    Listen to or download my interview with Bill here: Bill Wyffels Jr.

    Wyffels Corn Strategies 2011 Illinois Photo Album

    Audio, Corn

    Conservation On The Dairy Farm

    Chuck Zimmerman

    CTIC TourThe CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour included a stop at Kilgus Dairy. The family dairy farm is the only one in the state bottling their own milk. They also grow corn and soybeans and have land for the cows to graze on. They move those cows periodically, allowing the paddocks to grow back. In the picture you can see Matt Kilgus showing our group how to pour our own ice cream in the on-farm dairy products store, Kilgus Homestead.

    Matt says they started the grazing system which got them involved with watershed management. Matt’s uncle was on the steering committee for the CTIC project so they’re conducting several tests and programs, including the use of different types of cover crops. He says that they hope to see some results that will benefit them while also be better stewards of the land.

    You can listen to my interview with Matt here: Interview with Matt Kilgus

    CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour Photos

    AgWired coverage of the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Field Tour is sponsored by
    BASF, Conservation, CTIC, Dairy

    USDA May Get Precision Ag Data

    Chuck Zimmerman

    infoag conference michael scuseI have now moved from Nebraska to Illinois for the 2011 InfoAg Conference. This is all about precision agriculture so most of our coverage will be found on Precision Pays. Thanks to Cindy we have coverage already started since I was a little slow moving this morning. Here’s her report on the opening session:

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Acreage Crop Reporting Streamlining Initiative Project (ACRSIP) may well be the “most important thing that USDA has ever done,” according to Acting Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Michael Scuse.

    Scuse talked about the initiative as the keynote speaker at the opening of InfoAg 2011 in Springfield, Illinois on Tuesday. The concept is to simplify and provide new reporting options for producers. “Rather than a farmer or rancher going to the local FSA office to do their crop reports as they do now and have to give a second report to their agent, they can actually do the report from home,” Scuse said. “Our ultimate goal is for those that have precision ag equipment in their planters and combines to actually use the information that’s collected from that equipment to be downloaded directly to their Farm Service Agency and to the crop insurance agent, to simplify the process even further.”

    Scuse says they plan a pilot test of the program this fall and hope to have it implemented by 2013. “This is how we’re going to provide a better service for farmers and ranchers,” he said. “It will ultimately save the taxpayers a great deal of money with this initiative.”

    Listen to my interview with Scuse from InfoAg here: Interview with Michael Scuse, USDA

    Chuck and I are tag-teaming this InfoAg Conference. He will be covering tomorrow while I head to Dixon, IL for a Wyffles corn strategies field day. Chuck will be doing a presentation on using social media here at the conference on Thursday.


    2011 InfoAg Conference Photo Album

    Our coverage of the InfoAg 2011 Conference is sponsored by: Ag Leader Technology.

    Audio, Precision Agriculture, USDA