Sorghum Growers See Good Growth Potential

Joanna Schroeder

Commodity Classic is a gathering of farmers who grow many crops, including sorghum. I wanted to learn more about the organization that assists sorghum growers, the National Sorghum Producers, so I spent a little time with their Chairman, Gerald Simonsen.

Simonsen began by telling me about a great victory that had recently for sorghum growers. The organization has some issues with the formulas used to figure price election for crop insurance. After more than eight years working on the issue, they have gotten the methodology changed. In 2009, the price election was 77.8 percent of corn – in 2010, the price election will be 97.8 percent of corn.

“That’s a huge difference in coverage for producers,” said Simonsen. “On a personal note, on my farm, it means a difference of $35 per acre in crop insurance.”

While the National Sorghum Producers handles a lot of policy issues, they are also very involved in sorghum’s use for ethanol. Today, 1/3 of the sorghum crop goes into ethanol production. They may grow, however, as more research is dedicated to producing ethanol from sugar-based sorghums like sweet sorghum and cellulosic and biomass production using energy sorghums or forage sorghums.

While Simonsen doesn’t anticipate more sorghum production by “leaps and bounds” he does anticipate “a slow and incremental gain over the next few years.”

You can listen to my interview with Gerald below.

Commodity Classic Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2010 Commodity Classic
is sponsored by: BASF and New Holland

Audio, Commodity Classic, Ethanol, sorghum

Westfield Ag Week Photo Contest

Chuck Zimmerman

Westfield Insurance has a blog called Grains of Knowledge. I really like the name and the content looks great. Yes, blogging is alive and well.

One of the things that struck me right away is their tagline, “News and insight from Westfield’s farm and agribusiness insurance team.” Just think about that a minute. “News.” Yes, news. It’s not just for the “media” anymore. In fact, I’ve been saying for a long time that we’re all media. Sounds like Westfield gets it so of course you can follow them on Twitter.

By the way, according to their top post they’re running a photo contest for Ag Week.

To celebrate National Ag Week, Westfield Insurance is hosting an online ag photo contest to honor America’s farmers, ranchers and agribusiness owners who work hard every day to produce safe, affordable food! Please review the rules below and submit your original ag-related photos of kids, animals, landscapes, or agri-business owners to grainsofknowledge@westfieldgrp.com. We will select one grand prize winner and two runners-up to receive a special prize!

Agribusiness

Raising the Bar at Commodity Classic

Cindy Zimmerman

Commodity ClassicWith 202 companies exhibiting in 816 booths, the 2010 Commodity Classic Trade Show once again raised the bar on must attend industry events in agriculture. The show surpassed previous turnout for a Commodity Classic held in California with 1,369 growers attending and a total attendance of 4,330.

ZimmComm’s coverage of the 2010 Commodity Classic also raised the bar once again, setting a record for number of posts. Three of us covered the event in Anaheim, posting a total of 78 stories on Agwired, Domestic Fuel, Precision Pays and Corn Commentary, 58 of them with audio. We also uploaded nearly 1,000 photos and produced five YouTube videos – one of which has already been viewed over 4,200 times. There were too many tweets to count! Of the 202 companies exhibiting at the Classic, we did interviews with 26 of them, including our sponsors and all of the hosting commodity groups.

We would like to once again express our gratitude to sponsors BASF and New Holland on Agwired, and John Deere on Precision.AgWired.com for enabling us to cover this event for our readers.

See you next year in Tampa!

BASF, Commodity Classic, John Deere, New Holland

Taking the SOY Challenge

Cindy Zimmerman

Each year, soybean growers around the country take the American Soybean Association (ASA) and BASF up on their challenge to reduce weed competition, increase plant health and protect yields – but only three are chosen.

BASF SOY Winners JonasWe already met first place winners David and Sue Roehm in an earlier post. Today we meet Dave and Mary Jonas of Pinnconning, Michigan, one of two runners up in the 2009 Secure Optimal Yield (SOY) Challenge, which won them a trip to Commodity Classic and $2000 in cash.

Dave says the SOY Challenge worked out well for them with a two and a half bushel increase in yield. “They had a certain program they wanted you to follow just to see the difference,” Dave said. Test acres received an application of a BASF residual herbicide, such as Prowl® H20, Scepter® or Extreme® herbicides, and a treatment of Headline® fungicide for disease control and Plant Health benefits. Control acres were treated with a single pass of glyphosate in-crop only – no fungicide or residual herbicide.

The goal is not so much to see how much of a yield bump they get with the program, but how taking part in the ASA/BASF SOY Challenge has helps them to be more successful soybean producers. Contestants must submit a testimonial in words or video to explain how the challenge worked for them. Dave says it worked well enough that they plan to use it on more acres this year.

Listen to an interview with Dave and Mary in the player below.

Commodity Classic Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2010 Commodity Classic
is sponsored by: BASF and New Holland

ASA, Audio, BASF, Commodity Classic

Growers Give Stoller a “Green” Thumb of Approval

Joanna Schroeder

There was a lot to see and hear about at Commodity Classic but maybe the best testimonials for a product are the growers themselves. I spent a little time with two growers who gave several Stoller USA products their stamp of approval. Why? Because they have seen significant increase to their yields.

Ken Miller, both a grower and ag retailer who lives in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, said that he has been selling Stoller USA products for 12 years and has been using them for 10 years. I asked him when he became a believer and he said two years for him to believe in the product. Miller uses Bio-Forge, Sugar Mover Plus and X-TRA power. He is routinely seeing 12-14 bushel per acre increases in his corn yields, 6-7 bushels per acre increases in his soybean yield and 5-7 bushel per acre increases in his wheat yields. One of the benefits he noted was that the Bio-Forge helped the plant to make a “massive root system” that enabled it to take up the nutrients from the soil.

Donny Carpenter, a grower from Dimmitt, TX first began using Bio-Forge on his wheat. Last year, due to increased commodity prices for wheat, he increased his acreage and used Bio-Forge for the first time as a seed treatment. He noted that early on he couldn’t tell the difference between his Bio-Forge treated and untreated acres, but when the crop began to boot, this changed.

“We had a crop that stood better, didn’t try to fall because there wasn’t any lodging and it out yielded the untreated area by 12-15 bushels per acre.”

Although Carpenter plans to reduce his wheat crop this season (commodity prices have dropped again for wheat) he will be using the Bio-Forge on his corn and cotton this year and plans on experimenting with various types of applications.

I asked them both what they recommend for other growers and Carpenter encouraged other growers “to give it a shot.” Miller said, “Use Stoller products because they are proven.”

You can download (mp3 file) or listen to a Ken’s interview here: Miller2.Stoller.CC10.mp3

You can download (mp3 file) or listen to Donny’s interview here: Carpenter2.Stoller.CC10.mp3

Commodity Classic Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2010 Commodity Classic
is sponsored by: BASF and New Holland

Audio, Commodity Classic, Corn, Soybean, Wheat

New Communications Manager For NutriDense

Chuck Zimmerman

NutriDense has a new marketing manager as announced by BASF Plant Science. She’s Heather Goode.

In this position, she will support the NutriDense sales and marketing team through the development of marketing communication plans and tools that align with NutriDense business strategies and objectives.

“Heather has worked on many agricultural accounts in an agency setting and is well-suited to lead our NutriDense marketing communications efforts,” said Fran Castle, BASF North American group communications manager. “We are excited to have her on board, and we are confident that she will be a strong addition to our BASF Plant Science company and NutriDense.”

Goode has eight years experience in agricultural communications. Prior to joining BASF Plant Science, she was a client service advisor at Quarry Integrated Communications Inc. in Durham, N.C., where she worked on the swine business for Novartis Animal Health. Goode began her career on the crop chemical side, working on the Syngenta Crop Protection horticulture business at Gibbs & Soell, Inc. in Raleigh, N.C.

Agribusiness, BASF, Dairy

Farmer Cooperatives Can Tell Story at Workshops

Cindy Zimmerman

Workshops on competition in agriculture, like the one held last week in Iowa, can allow farmer-owned co-ops to tell their story.

ncfcAccording to the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC), Friday’s joint workshop between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) set the stage for farmer-owned co-ops to show how they promote a more competitive agricultural sector.

“Family farmers across America have built farmer cooperatives that promote competition, bolster farm income and the rural economy, and help to bring transparency to the marketplace,” said NCFC President Chuck Conner. “While farmer cooperatives were touched on only briefly in this workshop, I hope that DOJ and USDA will use the future workshops to look more closely at how producers can use co-ops as a tool to level the playing field.

“In addition, we continue to be concerned about rhetoric from some that equates being large in size with stifling competition. A large farmer co-op simply has more member-owners—many of whom have medium to small-sized operations—than a smaller cooperative,” Conner continued. “At the same time, the statement made by Christine Varney, the assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, that ‘with [being] big comes a lot of responsibility’ is true and a standard that, we believe, large farmer co-ops in this country meet.”

Friday’s workshop in Ames focused on competition issues for crop farmers, especially the issues of seed technology and livestock marketing. As the kick off event for the first of several workshops to be held this year, it featured opening comments from Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Future workshops around the countrywill focus on the poultry, dairy and livestock industry.

Agribusiness, Cooperatives, USDA

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Agriculture economist Glenn Grimes, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri, and former Iowa state senator and “Master Pork Producer” John Soorholtz were inducted into the National Pork Producers Council Hall of Fame for their outstanding contributions to the pork industry.
  • PEER Bearing Company announces a new product offering for tillage equipment, a maintenance free gang disc tillage bearing, TILLXtreme.
  • Sanofi-aventis and Merck & Co., Inc. announced that sanofi-aventis has exercised its option to combine Merial with Intervet/Schering-Plough, Merck’s Animal Health business, to create a global leader in Animal Health.
  • June 4 to 7, 2010, a new tradeshow called Canada’s Outdoor Equine Expo is poised to bring all breeds and disciplines together.
    Zimfo Bytes

    Happy Ag Week

    Chuck Zimmerman

    ZimmCast 252Happy Ag Week to you. Isn’t American agriculture amazing? You bet it is and it’s time to thank our farmers and ranchers for the abundant supply of safe economical food, fiber and fuel they produce for us. And without a lot of thanks in urban areas and increasing pressure from governmental regulations.

    Thank you farmers for all you do!

    In this week’s program you can hear my conversation with Linda Tank, CHS, Inc., who is Chair of the Agriculture Council of America, the coordinating group for National Ag Day which we’ll celebrate officially on March 20.

    In our interview Linda talks about this year’s celebration and we note the new communication channels now available to help get the message out about the importance of agriculture. She points out that there will be a big three part celebration in Washington, DC on Thursday. Wish I could be there. Here are the planned activities:

    Coffee with the Secretary

    The coffee will take place at 8:00 a.m.on March 18 on the Whitten Patio of the USDA.

    Over 3,500 industry leaders have been invited. This includes sponsors, commodity group leaders, Ag Day supporters, members of congress, etc. Also in attendance will be students from AFA, FFA & 4-H who will be making Hill visits after the coffee concludes.

    Seating is limited to 150 people. The Secretary is confirmed and will speake briefly and the coffee will conclude by approximately 8:30 – 8:45 a.m.

    There is no charge for the coffee but attendees do need to register so we have a list for the security staff at the USDA.

    Mix & Mingle Luncheon

    11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
    U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Washington, D.C.

    Complimentary admittance to Luncheon

    This is a standing luncheon and featured speakers include an Outstanding Young Farmer Honoree and national officers from AFA, FFA & 4-H.

    National Ag Day Dinner & Cocktails

    5:30 p.m.
    USDA Whitten Building Patio, Washington, D.C.

    Tickets: $100 per person, or $1,000 for a reserved table of 10
    Hosted by the Agriculture Council of America in recognition of Ag Week.

    The pork for the dinner will be donated by the National Pork Producers Council and will be prepared by Chef Mark Salter from the Inn at Perry Cabin. Seating is limited (we have about 20 seats left).

    INVITED GUEST SPEAKERS:
    Senator Blanche Lincoln, Chair, Senate Ag Committee
    Congressman Collin Peterson, Chair, House Ag Committee

    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.

    Ag Day