Insight on N-sight

Chuck Zimmerman

Brian WadeFor some insight into the N-sight technique we heard from Brian Wade, AGROTAIN. He was on a panel discussion here at the Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference. He covers Europe, the middle east and Africa and is based in Switzerland. He comes from an Iowa farm too.

Brian spoke about the N-sight technique: A visual and quantitative analysis of urea hydrolysis and ammonia loss from soil. He says the N-sight technique was a project to develop a system to better understand nitrogen losses by “seeing” into the soil. He compares it to an MRI for a body scan. The value to the industry is better understanding to identify ways to reduce the losses. He says “our main goal is to prevent the loss of nitrogen.”

You can listen to my interview with Brian below or watch the video.

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference Photo Album

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Audio, Fertilizer

AgWired High On List of 50 Best Farm/Agriculture Blogs

Chuck Zimmerman

It’s always nice to receive recognition for your work. Carol Brown of Online Degrees.net notified me last night that AgWired is on the list as well as our AgNewsWire.AgWired.com website.

You can find their list of 50 Best Farm and Agriculture Blogs here.

They have some other interesting lists that include 50 Best Beer Blogs and 100 Best College Sports Blogs.

Uncategorized

Reducing Nitrous Oxide Emissions

Chuck Zimmerman

Ardell HalvorsonOne of our keynote speakers at the Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference was Ardell Halvorson, USDA-ARS. His focus was on the effect of EEF’s on nitrous oxide emissions from various cropping systems.

He said that the work he’s been doing shows that the use of EEF’s has helped reduce nitrous oxide emissions in his area in Colorado. He says that this is important since it’s one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. This is good for global climate change.

You can listen to my interview with Ardell below or watch the video.

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference Photo Album

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Audio, Fertilizer, Video

Controlled Release Big Element of Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers

Chuck Zimmerman

Scotts GuysThere are people from universities as well as fertilizer companies attending the Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference. These are the guys from The Scotts Company. I spoke with two of them on a break today. They’re Karl Shrom, Specialty Ag Marketing Manager and Keith Santner, Technical Services Manager. They both work in Scotts Professional Business Group. Many people are familiar with their consumer division and products like Turf Builder. These guys work on the ag side with products that are targeted to specialty markets like strawberries in California.

Scotts is a company that is a world leader in producing controlled release fertilizers which fall into the overall category of enhanced efficiency fertilizers. Karl says these products allow producers better efficiency while becoming more environmentally friendly and also providing economic benefits. Keith says that our natural resources are not limitless so more efficient fertilizer is an important technical advancement for crop production. You’ll hear them echo comments I’ve heard several times today that EEF’s are a growing category of the fertilizer business.

You can listen to my interview with Karl and Keith below.

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference Photo Album

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Audio, Fertilizer

World Market For Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers

Chuck Zimmerman

Sarah LandelsOne of our keynote speakers at the Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference is Sarah Landels, Managing Director, AgIndustries Research & Consulting, Inc. Her job was to talk about the world market for EEF’s. Let’s just call them EEF’s since that’s easier than Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers, okay?

Sarah conducted a study on this subject a few years ago and presented information from it as well as speaking about the future. She says that EEF’s in the ag market are still in the early stages but growing rapidly. In fact, she sees most of the growth in the EEF market in agriculture.

You can listen to my interview with Sarah below.

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference Photo Album

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Audio, Fertilizer, Uncategorized

Smarter Fertilizers

Chuck Zimmerman

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer ConferenceWe seems to have a full house for The New Ag International Enhanced-Efficiency Fertilizer Conference here in Miami. We’re now in the afternoon sessions. I’ve been conducting interviews and recording presentations and I’ll probably be posting them over the next week or so.

You can see that AgWired is online in the back of the room. Yes, that’s my Mac on the table.

Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference Photo Album

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Fertilizer

Nicholson Kovac Selected By USGC For Public Relations Campaign

Chuck Zimmerman

Nicholson Kovac has been selected by the U.S. Grains Council as its integrated marketing communications agency for their 2010 “Partners in Agriculture” international public relations campaign.

Nicholson Kovac will provide public relations services, including media relations and event coordination, for a series of commemorative events that will take place in Japan in 2010. These events, part of the “Partners in Agriculture” series of events, will be coordinated by the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), of the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), with the U.S. Grains Council and other cooperative groups as key sponsoring partners. The program celebrates the rich history of agricultural trade between the United States and Japan, the largest foreign market for U.S. coarse grains.

To ensure seamless coordination between the USGC headquarters in Washington, D.C., USGC employees in Japan and Tokyo-based FAS representatives, Nicholson Kovac has teamed up with the Ashai Agency, a leading integrated marketing communications agency in Japan. Both Nicholson Kovac and Asahi belong to Worldwide Partners, Inc., the world’s largest owner-operated agency network made up of 90 independent agencies.

“Nicholson Kovac provided us the most creative proposal for addressing the complexities of this project. We anticipate this partnership will help to enhance the effectiveness of our efforts,” said Thomas C. Dorr, president and CEO of the U.S. Grains Council.

Ag Groups, Agencies, USGC

Putting A New Face On Agriculture

Chuck Zimmerman

Jeff Whetstine John HassellThe New Ag International Enhanced-Efficiency Fertilizer Conference is underway. Our opening general session is underway. I will be posting from the session later.

Before we got started though I spoke with John Hassell (right), Manager, Research and Agronomic Development, AGROTAIN, pictured here with Jeff Whetstine. AGROTAIN is one of the major sponsors of the conference and my coverage from here.

John says these enhanced efficiency fertilizers are new technology that can help us get more nitrogen to the plant so it can make more grain. This conference will discuss these new technologies with a collection of researchers and industry representatives from around the world. I asked him what he thinks is the one thing these new fertilizer technologies bring to agriculture. He says it will “put a new face on agriculture.” In the past ag has received a lot of blame for using too much nitrogen but that’s going to change now with these new efficiency technologies which increase ag sustainability.

You can listen to my interview with John below.

I’ve also started an online photo album: Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Conference Photo Album

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Fertilizer

Enhanced-Efficiency Fertilizer Conference

Chuck Zimmerman

Hello from sunny south Florida and the New Ag International Conference on Enhanced-Efficiency Fertilizers. I’ll be here today and tomorrow courtesy of our sponsor AGROTAIN.

In just a few minutes I’ll have a pre-conference meeting with the AGROTAIN folks and then the conference kicks off at 10am this morning. So we’ll be learning more about this relatively new class of fertilizers and what’s going on internationally.

AgWired coverage of the New Ag International Conference
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Fertilizer

ZimmComm Crew At Commodity Classic

Chuck Zimmerman

Cindy just found a photo from Commodity Classic in Anaheim that didn’t make it into our photo album.

Pictured l-r are Joanna Schroeder, one of our web editors, Robert, our web guru, yours truly and Cindy. Rob and I met at our hotel for several hours of face to face consultation time since he lives out on the west coast and we don’t often have that opportunity.

Cindy and I are off to south Florida today. Hopefully it will be warmer than the midwest. I’ll be working with AGROTAIN and covering the International Conference on Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers. See you from there.

Commodity Classic