ZimmComm Had a Busy 2009

Cindy Zimmerman

2009 was a busy year for ZimmComm New Media.

zimmcomm new mediaBetween the two of us and our hardworking freelancers, we did 4310 posts on all websites, including Agwired, Domestic Fuel, Precision Pays and World Dairy Diary. We also did 176 podcasts and too many audio interviews to count.

We uploaded 11,282 photos to 48 Flickr photo albums and 88 YouTube videos.

The most popular YouTube videos on our channel in 2009 were Daryl Hannah at NBB with 6854 views, the new John Deere planter with 5876, the New Holland Celebrity Tractor Race 4557 and the tractor pull at National Farm Machinery Show 2872. Top stories on Agwired included:
John Deere Unveils Largest Planter
HSUS Challenges American Agriculture
HSUS in Nebraska (tops in comments)
Record Phone Calls on iPhone
Get a Rustler from New Holland

We visited over 60 different cities, from Panama City to Portland, San Antonio to Minnetonka, and San Diego to Boston – and internationally from Morocco to Egypt to Jordan. Read our travelogue here.

Best of all – our readership was up significantly on all websites:
Agwired – up 45% to 158,400 unique visitors
Domestic Fuel – up 15% to 269,000 unique visitors
Precision Pays – up 166% to 29,000 unique visitors
World Dairy Diary – up 68% to 110,000 unique visitors

Thanks to our of our wonderful friends in the industry for making 2009 a great year for ZimmComm. We look forward to continuing our relationships in the new decade.

Happy New Year!

ZimmComm Announcement

AG CONNECT EXPO Registration

Chuck Zimmerman

aem-fox-adI was surprised to see ads for AG CONNECT Expo showing up on FoxNews.com this morning. But we’re getting close to the first ever AEM ag show in Orlando, FL. Got your plans made? I made my plane reservation this morning.

Register Now

Advance Attendee Registration deadline has been extended!

Register to attend AG CONNECT Expo 2010 by Friday, January 8, 2010 and save over 30% on the onsite fee.

AEM

Last 2009 Headline Harvest Report

Cindy Zimmerman

So, here it is, the last BASF Headline Harvest report for 2009 with an Illinois farmer who has finished his harvest this year.

BASF headline harvest jim wadeJim Wade of Clifton says he just finished up about two weeks before Christmas but it wasn’t as bad as 1967 when he was still had corn in January. “The biggest thing was setting in line, all of us had wet corn,” Jim told me, but overall he says “nobody got hurt.”

Jim has been using Headline for three years now for increased yields in corn-on-corn, standability and plant health. “It keeps the plant green and we don’t want that corn to go down, especially now for anyone’s got corn left now sure wants it to be standing,” he said.

Jim got good yields this year despite the weather challenges and won second place in the Ridge Till Non-Irrigated category for Illinois in the National Corn Yield Contest with a yield of 260.841 on his contest plot.

Watch the video interview and listen to or download the audio of my interview with Jim below.

Audio, BASF, Corn, Video

What’s New With Syngenta Seeds

Chuck Zimmerman

Matthew ArnoldI learned what’s new with Syngenta Seeds from Wayne Fithian at the recent NAFB Trade Talk. He says that because of biotechnology the pace of new products is becoming more rapid. According to Wayne, they’re in the final stages of regulatory approval of their Agrisure Viptera for corn which they hope to have available for planting in 2010. Following that they’ll have “water optimization” which is an improved drought tolerance trait. And the list goes on and on.

You can listen to my interview with Wayne below:

See NAFB and NAMA Trends photos here.

Agribusiness, Audio, NAFB, Seed, Syngenta

FFA On Rose Bowl Parade With RFD-TV

Chuck Zimmerman

warner-rosesHere’s Samantha Warner, 19, Archie, MO, putting the last rose on the RFD-TV float before the 2010 Rose Parade. Warner, Missouri FFA President will walk beside the float, which honors the association for its work guiding students toward careers in agriculture.

On the morning of January 1, 2010, the National FFA Organization will make contact with an estimated 42 million people in the United States, and more than 100 million people worldwide, through participation in the 121st Tournament of Roses Parade. Television viewers settled in to watch this New Year’s Day tradition will witness history being made, as the first-ever FFA float in the Rose Parade not only makes its way down Orange and Colorado Boulevards before the crowds in Pasadena, but into the living rooms, and into the hearts, of families watching at home. On and surrounding the float will be the 2009-2010 National FFA Officer Team, National FFA Advisor Dr. Larry Case and the four Stars Over America, along with 52 invited FFA presidents from every U.S. state, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Tune in to RFD-TV New Year’s morning at 11 a.m. (EST) to watch our special coverage of the 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade with hosts Lorianne Crook, Charlie Chase and Pam Minick “live” from Pasadena, California.

Ag Groups, FFA

Social Media Use In Business Up Significantly

Chuck Zimmerman

center-marketing-researchFor the third year in a row the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has conducted an in-depth and statistically significant study on the usage of social media in fast-growing corporations. The study is titled, “Social Media in the 2009 Inc. 500: New Tools & New Trends.” I’m guessing agribusiness companies will follow this trend and it is a real trend since they now have good comparative data over several years. Here’s an excerpt from their report:

Social networking continues to lead the way. The technology that continues to be the most familiar to the Inc. 500 is social networking with 75% of respondents in 2009 claiming to be “very familiar with it” (compared to 57% in 2008). Another noteworthy statistic around familiarity is Twitter’s amazing “share of mind” with sixty-two percent of executives reported being familiar with the new microblogging and social networking platform.

The adoption curves for different social media technologies are not all the same.
Interestingly, while social networking and blogging have enjoyed growth in actual adoption, the use of message boards, online video, wikis and podcasting has leveled off or declined. The addition of Twitter (considered by respondents to be both a microblogging site and a social networking site) in the latest study shows that an amazing 52% of the Inc. 500 companies are already using this tool for their business.

Regardless of the particular technology, social media matters and is here to stay.
Forty-three percent of the 2009 Inc. 500 reported social media was “very important” to their business/marketing strategy. And an incredible 91% of the Inc. 500 is using at least one social media tool in 2009 (up from 77% in 2008). In addition, as they ramp up their usage, the Inc. 500 companies are also seeking to protect themselves legally, with 36% having implemented a formal policy concerning blogging by their employees.

Thanks to Podcasting News for the heads up.

Media, Podcasts, Social Networking

FarmConnect.net

Chuck Zimmerman

farm-connectLet’s end the year with something new. FarmConnect.net. It’s a new social networking site created “by farmers for farmers.” The farmers are Mike and Laura Murphy who own a small family farm in South West Michigan and raise beef and lamb on pasture. The old saying goes, you should find a way to make your passion your work, and FarmConnect.net is just that. Mike previously taught E-Commerce at the Illinois Institute of Technology, so FarmConnect.net was the perfect way to combine his passions for farming and Web technology.

FarmConnect.net allows you the option of signing up for your own blog, creating your own groups and discussion forums (either public, private, or hidden) to help spread the word about agriculture to your families, friends, and communities.

If you use Twitter, you will love FarmConnect.net, because it gives you so much more room to say what you want to say than that little box!

Look forward to seeing you on FarmConnect.net

Social Networking

Headline Harvest Report from Kankakee

Cindy Zimmerman

Who would have thought we would still be doing BASF Headline Harvest reports the last week of the year?

BASF headline harvest ron hansenThis week we traveled to northern Illinois where there is still lots of corn in the fields and lots of flooded areas due to the extremely wet fall. I talked with Ron Hansen of Kankakee, who still has about 300 acres to combine, but he says it is still standing pretty well, despite a storm that blew through last week with 40 mph winds. It helped him see a side by side comparison of how Headline helped with standability in this late year. “We had a check on one field and that check was 100 percent down from end to end, and where the Headline was there were spots it was down but it was not down at the root, where as with the check it was,” Ron told me.

Ron says the weather this year has just been “nuts.” “With the cool summer, it’s done some things that I’ve never seen in my lifetime, like not maturing the corn and beans like normal so we are caught with this real late wet corn – but we are having good yields.”

As to when he will get the rest of his crop out of the field, Ron said he just doesn’t know. “I’ve harvested at Christmas, I’ve never harvested at New Year’s,” he said.

Watch the video interview and listen to or download the audio of my interview with Ron below.

Audio, BASF, Corn, Video

Corn in the Snow

Cindy Zimmerman

cornThe final USDA crop progress report on this year’s harvest released last week showed that 95 percent of the nation’s corn crop was finally harvested, just a few days before Christmas. Illinois was on par with the national total, reporting five percent of the crop left in the field.

I saw some of that corn this week during a visit to northern Illinois, around Kankakee and St. Anne. Some of it is still standing well, but some of it got hit pretty hard by a storm that blew in last week with up to 40 mile an hour winds.

cornThese photos are two different fields I saw along the road between Cullom and St. Anne that showed a pretty stark contrast in standability. No idea of who the farmers are who own those fields, what varieties they planted or plant health products they used, but I’d say the farmer with the field in the left photo has a better chance of salvaging a decent crop, whenever that may be.

The states still running the farthest behind in corn harvest are North and South Dakota and Wisconsin. All three were still below 90 percent complete in the final USDA report last week. That final report, by the way, was two weeks later than USDA ever issued fall harvest progress reports.

Corn, USDA

New From John Deere

Chuck Zimmerman

Matthew ArnoldTo tell us what’s new with John Deere I spoke to Matthew Arnold, Sr. Marketing Representative. Matthew was attending the NAFB Trade Talk to discuss the new 8R and 8RT tractors. These tractors range in horsepower from 225 to 345 with larger cabs and more fuel efficient engines. They also have a new suspension system on the 8RT Track models.

The new tractors were introduced to dealers in August and Matthew says the response has been great. The new cab is a feature that has really caught people’s attention since with the redesign the operator can swivel in the seat and have all the tractor’s command controls move with him.

You can listen to my interview with Matthew below:

See more NAFB and NAMA Trends photos here.

Agribusiness, Audio, Equipment, John Deere, NAFB, Tractor