iPad Review Part Two

Chuck Zimmerman

Since “ag geek” Willie Vogt just wrote an iPad review I figured it was time for me to provide you with another one. You really can’t have enough geek gadget information can you? I know a lot of you are trying to decide if you should get one now that the 3G version is out. I don’t have a 3G iPad because at this point I am content to use wifi only. So here goes.

To start with, I use this device quite a bit. It is great for taking to Coffee Zone in the morning where there is good wifi. I can take a productive 30 minutes to enjoy some Rocket Fuel, read my email and perhaps respond to some, check my Twitter feeds and all my news feeds. The apps I’m using for this are the built in email app, NetNewsWire, AP, NYT, Reuters, USA Today and Twitterific. I have Tweetdeck but I fell out of love with the desktop version since it’s such a memory hog and actually locked up my computer at times. I never liked the desktop version of Twitterific but the iPad app is excellent. If they come out with an iPad version of Tweetie though I will probably be switching since that’s my favorite for the iPhone and desktop. So for all you farm folks you might think of this as your tool that allows you to keep your fingers clean at the coffee shop when you catch up on news and do some online work. No more ink stains from the printed word. Apologies to my publications friends.

At home I mostly keep the iPad in the living room. I can grab it and sit in my recliner and do all the above in addition to reading books with the iBooks app (iTunes book store) or Kindle app. No Barnes & Noble app out yet but I’ll get it when it is. I’ve read several books now and both iBooks and Kindle are excellent reading experiences.

Web browsing with the built in Safari browser is fun. With good wifi you can pretty much do most of the same things you can do on your computer except anything that requires Adobe Flash. This hasn’t been an issue with me since I just reserve those things for when I’m on my iMac or Macbook Pro.Read More

Equipment

Seed Company Loyalty Drops According to New Seed Study

Joanna Schroeder

While most of the seed decisions have come and gone for the 2010 growing season, farmers are always thinking about the next year and marketers are always thinking about how to encourage farmers to buy their seed. This year, Successful Farming (SF) conducted a seed study, (and they also do a Farmer Insight Study each year) one that they have done every two years for the past 12 years. This year, there was a pretty big surprise.

What wasn’t a surprise said Curt Blades, the Director for Sales and Marketing for SF, is that farmers continue to have a favorite seed company and this has remained consistent for the past six years. But what has changed is the loyalty to that seed company. SF’s research has shown that in the past, a farmer’s favorite seed company mirrored the farmer’s loyalty to that seed company. Yet this year’s research has shown that company loyalty has fallen sharply in the last three studies.

So what does this mean? “In the past six years there’s been some pretty phenomenal advancements in the technology and there have been some wide swings in the genetics some companies have had, explains Blades. “Also, in the same token, there have been some ownership changes and changes in the way seed has been brought to market.”

It will be interesting, continued Blades, to see how it all plays out.

Another interesting element of the Seed Study was that for the first time SF asked if the price of seed was justified and 40 percent said yes. This is good news for the seed companies said Blades.

To learn more about the Seed Study, listen to my interview with Curt below. Still want to learn more? Current SF advertisers have access to the study for free.

Research, Seed

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Join the American Agricultural Editors Association for a Webinar on Tuesday, May 11, 2 p.m. CST — Headline Writing Creativity vs. Practicality: One sings on the printed page, the other draws readers to the Web. Contact Linda Smith (lsmith@farmjournal.com) for more information.
  • The Agribusiness Association of Iowa has donated $100,000 to Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences for scholarships.
  • FalconScan, LLC, is collaborating with the AgJunction division of GVM Inc. to offer standardized work order and data delivery solutions for aerial imagery services to growers and agricultural service providers.
  • Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced USDA’s plan to purchase $161.4 million in a wide variety of foods for federal food and nutrition assistance programs.
Zimfo Bytes

EPA Approves First ‘Refuge-in-the-Bag’ Seed Product

Cindy Zimmerman

acremaxDuPont made history this week when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted approval for the first “refuge in the bag” with commercial registration of Optimum® AcreMax™ 1 insect protection for Pioneer® brand corn hybrids.

“This decision is not only a regulatory milestone, but also great news for corn growers,” said Paul E. Schickler, president — Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business. “Optimum® AcreMax™ 1 products will offer growers increased convenience, reduced refuge and an additional tool for maximizing field-by-field productivity. We are demonstrating the product in farmers’ fields this year to show its value and support the 2011 ramp up.”

To help deter corn pests from developing resistance to biotech traits, the U.S. EPA requires growers to plant some corn without a specific insect protection trait to serve as a “refuge.” The process of planning and planting a traditional separate insect refuge is time consuming, and refuge corn is at risk for damage and yield loss. Optimum® AcreMax™ 1 insect protection reduces the traditional 20 percent corn rootworm refuge by half and puts it in the seed bag, eliminating the need for separate rootworm refuge while increasing the ease and flexibility of planting the corn borer refuge.

Agwired’s Joanna Schroeder interviewed Pioneer’s Bill Belzer about the product last year as they were awaiting approval. “What this technology does is allow growers to be able to plant more in-plant traits in more acres leading to higher yields,” he says, which is a win-win situation.

Find out more here.

Corn, Pioneer

iPhone App For Humane Foodies

Chuck Zimmerman

I’m pretty sure most AgWired fans like a good steak or hamburger and some, myself included, like a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Right? We support our farmers and ranchers and that includes meat producers of all types. We know that in order to be successful they have to take good care of their animals. That’s partly why we get so annoyed with animal rights wackos who try to paint a whole industry with a misinformed brush just to further their own views which they try to force on everyone else. The worst offenders are groups like HSUS who use emotional misinformation campaigns to try to get unnecessary and devastating laws passed, like they’re doing here in Missouri with their stupid ballot initiative to damage legitimate dog breeders.

Now the World Society for the Protection of Animals has an “Eat Humane Food Guide” iPhone app. You get a flavor for where they’re at right up front in the description of the app which states that most food found in American grocery stores comes from poor animals who have endured extreme suffering and raised in conditions that are “linked” to health and environmental problems. Of course that’s not exactly true is it? There’s plenty of science to the contrary which I’ve linked to on AgWired in the past. I just love the irony of their concern for animals and how they’re treated before they’re turned into hamburger or a variety of roasts.

So, if you want to take their word for it and find “humane” meat then get their app. Hopefully though you won’t buy into their rhetoric about modern food production that’s being done by hard working farmers who care about their animals and the land they live on.

Animal Activists, Food, Wackos

How Farmer Insights Can Improve Your Marketing

Joanna Schroeder

For those of you in the agriculture business, you probably have spent countless hours wondering what farmers are thinking and how best to reach them. Well, there is no need to wonder any longer, now you can just know. How? Through Successful Farming’s Farmer Insight research.

Here is a quick fact: did you know that farmers under the age of 40 are more likely to be online than the general population? Knowing this should affect how you advertise to this generation of farmers.

I spoke with Curt Blades, the Director of Sales and Marketing for Successful Farming (SF) to learn more about their Farmer Insight research and I also learned, that through their parent company, Meredith Corporation, they also have consumer insight research. He explained that every decision from editorial content to revamping a media outlet to counseling advertising partners, is driven by the knowledge they hold of what farmers think and what makes them tick.

Well, here is a bit of information that made me think: 26 percent of consumers consuming food in the U.S. are very concerned about the safety and quality of their food. Blades explained, “As a farm kid, that concerns me…farmers take pride in providing American consumers with the cleanest, safest, cheapest food supply in the world.”

Blades said that while farmers have known this food safety trend has been increasing in recent years, this research validates this concern. It looks like the ag industry has some work on their hands, but Blades, through SF’s Farmer Insight research can help guide us on the best messaging and tools to lessen this consumer concern.

While Blades said that research was a very important tool for them, it is also a very important tool for their partners. Not only is their research available to their advertising partners, but their advertising partners can also commission proprietary research.

You can learn more about SF’s Farmer Insight research by listening to my interview with Curt here.

NAMA, Research

Buy Triscuits, Grow Your Own Garden

Joanna Schroeder

I was in the grocery store last night and just happened to find myself in the cracker isle when a box caught my eye. It was the new branding for Triscuits. What struck me was that NabiscoWorld is now promoting “home gardening” on the box. When you look at the back of the box there are instructions on how to plant your own garden as well as some seed. On this package it was dill but there are four different packages with four different seeds.

What initially upset me was not so much that NabiscoWorld is promoting growing your own garden. What upset me is that there are so many companies and organizations engaging in campaigns against production farming. Ironically, at the same time, there are companies and organizations trying to end organic farming as well, such as the Grocery Manufacturing Association, because organic farming is cutting into their profits.

What alarms me with these organized smear campaigns is that not only does all type of farming have its place – your own garden, organic gardening or production farming–but that you’re being giving a pack of lies on all sides to get you to quit eating a carrot that wasn’t (or was) organically grown. If you eat organic, you’ll die because the food supply isn’t safe; if you eat a carrot commercially produced, you’ll die because of the pesticides used in the growing process.

I believe in choice. Each person should have the choice to eat food that is grown in a way that corresponds to his or her own belief system. However, what I don’t believe in, is how people are vilifying production farmers for the safe food they produce to feed us here in America and around the world. And maybe most amazing is that each year they do this on less land with less inputs.

The real issue that consumers should be concerned about is how America is going to take the lead to feed more than 9 billion people between 2040-2050. If you end production farming as we know it, then you remove the only viable way to feed to world in the future. So let’s quit bickering and rally to support ALL American farmers.

Farming, Food, Organic

An IFAJ Congress Retrospective

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 259Thanks to that volcanic ash cloud I could not attend this year’s IFAJ Congress in Ostend, Belgium. To get a retrospective from someone who did attend I spoke with IFAJ President, Mike Wilson, Editor, Farm Futures. Mike found the event inspirational in a number of ways and wrote about his experience on the IFAJ website.

To start with, he marveled at the determination of people who went way out of their way to make it even when it involved extra expense and time to get there. Additionally, he was impressed with the organizers who never lost their cool and kept a positive attitude. Fortunately, IFAJ always has pre-Congress tours and these were well attended this year. That meant that a lot of people were there before the ash cloud problem started. So give the program a listen and let’s all look forward to a great Congress in Canada next year!

Since the IFAJ Congress was in Belgium the program ends with a song titled, “Strolling Through Belgium” by Three Fine Lines from Music Alley.

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsors, Novus International, and Leica Geosytems for their support.

You can listen to this week’s ZimmCast below.

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

Audio, IFAJ, ZimmCast

Record Crop Progress

Cindy Zimmerman

kelly robertson cornRecord planting progress continued around the country last week, despite the rain, and corn planting is breaking records.

USDA reports that 68 percent of the corn crop was planted by Sunday. That’s 28 percent more than the five year average and five percent more than the previous record for this time of year in 2004. Emergence is at 19 percent, ten percent more than normal. Kelly Robertson of Benton, Illinois had time to take some creative shots of his corn breaking ground last week. USDA reports that 39 percent of the crop in Illinois has emerged already – way ahead of normal – with 87 percent planted. Amazing progress!

Soybean planting is now underway as well, with 15 percent planted, seven percent more than average. Cotton and sorghum are also doing well.

Here is another corn planting video – uploaded via TwitVid last week by Mark McHargue of Nebraska.

Corn, Farming, Video

Bayer CropScience Completes Expansion Project

Chuck Zimmerman

Bayer CropScience has announced the completion of their $15 million expansion of the company’s Muskegon, MI crop protection manufacturing site. You’ve got to love getting pictures with a release!

Area elected and civic officials joined company global and local executives for a ribbon-cutting event to celebrate completion of the two-year project. The expansion is adding 10 full-time employees at the site, bringing total employment there to 60.

“The expansion demonstrates our company’s on-going strategic commitment to providing agronomic solutions for U.S. corn, cotton, canola and soybean farmers,” said Wolfgang Welter, Member of the Board of Management responsible for Industrial Operations at Bayer CropScience. “This multi-million investment in our glufosinate ammonium plant provides the capacity increase we need to further expand our highly successful Ignite brand herbicide in the United States.”

Pictured left to right at the Muskegon ribbon-cutting event are: Chris Evans, Head of Manufacturing, Americas; Michigan State Senator Jerry Van Woerkom; Andy Hurst, Bayer CropScience Product Manager; Michigan State Representative Mary Valentine; Wolfgang Welter, Head of Industrial Operations; Harold Lofton, Plant Manager; Lothar Doellinger, Head of Technology, Investments & Site Support; and Karl Bloss, Senior Process Engineer.

Agribusiness