Catching Up With Trimble at AG CONNECT Expo

Joanna Schroeder

When Trimble launches a new product it’s available worldwide and next week Trimble will be launching several new products. I tried to coerce Guillermo Perez-Iturbe, the regional manager for Latin America, to give me a scoop during the AG CONNECT Expo, but he held out. Good for Trimble – bad for me.

Today, the company has a suite of precision ag products available including GPS guidance systems. One of their new products is the EZ-Steer assisted steering system which takes over the steering while the farmer focuses on steering, spraying and more. There are three versions of the EZ-Steer system including the AgGPS FmX Integrated Display. This display has 3D land leveling capabilities and the technologies in the pipeline will add even more options to the current products.

In the past year, Trimble has acquired several key companies in order to, “close the cycle of the ag precision space,” said Iturbe.  The company has a worldwide presence and Iturbe noted that other countries are in very different places in their adoption of precision ag technologies.

The Trimble Team: Sergio Lucas, Vilson Hansen, Guillermo Perez-Iturbe and Rafeal Bull

The Trimble Team: Sergio Lucas, Vilson Hansen, Guillermo Perez-Iturbe and Rafeal Bull

For example, Argentina started precision farming 14 years ago with lightbars and has yet to adopt the higher levels of precision technology while Mexico has adopted the most advanced precision ag technology available but doesn’t use something as simple as a lightbar.

Today, Trimble is working with its customers to better help them identify the best precision ag technologies for their farms, and this is important to the company because they understand that no farmers’ operations are the same.

Listen to my AgWired exclusive interview with Guillermo Perez-Iturbe here.

Audio, Precision Agriculture

AgDay TV Taping Draws Large Crowd at Ag CONNECT Expo

Joanna Schroeder

LiveTapingofAgDayTVIf you’re in agriculture, then you know Al Pell, the host of AgDay TV. Al and his crew were on hand during the AG CONNECT Expo and while there, taped a show. In the background – a standing room only crowd.AgDayTVCrowd2

Chip Flory, with Pro Farmer was the featured guest. The topic of discussion was to be crop reports but with the market movement this past week, this became the topic du jour.

AgDay TV airs on RFD TV each weekday at 8:00 am EST / 7:00 am CT. You can also check out the show on Dish network channel 231 and Direct TV channel 345.

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Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

    AG CONNECT Expo Attendees Learn How to Harvest the Wind

    Joanna Schroeder

    Wind energy for rural America was an engaging topic during the educational session, “Harvesting the Wind,” held yesterday during the AG CONNECT Expo. The session provided an outlook for the wind energy industry in the states as well as offered information on projects suited for rural areas, such as farmers leasing out their land to companies to site windmills. The session was sponsored by 25×25, a nonprofit organization that believes our country can get 25 percent of our energy through renewable sources by 2025.

    HarvestingTheWindPresenters included Lisa Daniels, Executive Director and founder of Windustry, a nonprofit organization that specializes in developing community wind projects. These types of projects are owned by local members of the community and private investors, not wind turbines owned by a utility company. In addition, Steve Wegman, Director of South Dakota Wind Energy Association discussed how his organization is helping South Dakota increase its wind energy through rural projects, and Susan Sloan, Manager, Strategic Partnerships for the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), provided an industry overview that included current and proposed policy and programs to increase wind energy throughout the U.S.

    A few interesting statistics that were shared during the session: the wind energy industry added an estimated 35,000 jobs last year; wind emits no CO2 and uses no water; and today the wind energy industry has the capacity to generate 31,000 megawatts of wind per year. One megawatt generates enough electricity to power 225-300 homes per year.

    In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy authored a report called “20% Wind Energy by 2030,” that is currently being used by the Obama administration for guidance on growing the wind industry. A copy of the report is available at www.20percentwind.org, and don’t forget to visit our AG CONNECT Flickr album.

    Energy

    Networking Night at AG CONNECT Expo

    Chuck Zimmerman

    AG CONNECT ExpoHere’s the happy smiley greeting crew for AG CONNECT Expo Networking Night at Universal Studios. Attendees had the opportunity to go to the Islands of Adventure, Marvel Super Hero Island, which we had all to ourselves.

    Who’s your favorite Marvel super hero? Mine has always been The Mighty Thor although Spiderman comes in a close second. I took photos of the characters on display which are in the updated photo album.

    Thor Marvel UniversalWell, we’re in the home stretch. It’s the final day of AG CONNECT Expo and the temperatures are supposed to be in the 70’s today! I’ll be back out on the show floor today along with Joanna Schroeder conducting interviews and hope to have a wrap up interview from show staff by the end of the day.

    AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

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    Social AGCO

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Social AGCOA year ago would you have thought you’d see this proudly displayed in an agribusiness booth?

    I didn’t think so. But AGCO is connecting socially with their customers as we found out at Tuesday evening’s Tweetup. So how about your company? Are you getting your social network in order?

    If you follow the AG CONNECT Expo Twitter hashtag which is #agconnect then you’ll see how social things are. Check it out.

    AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

    Uncategorized

    Raven Slingshot Introduced at AG CONNECT Expo

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Raven Ryan MolitorPrecision agriculture technology is on display all over the AG CONNECT Expo show floor. I don’t think I’ve seen quite so many exhibits outside of a show dedicated to this growing technology application. Raven Industries is one of the companies exhibiting something new here at the show.

    I spoke with Marketing Manager, Ryan Molitor, this afternoon about Slingshot. He says Slingshot represents a breakthrough in connectivity, online services and hardware. It can deliver advanced RTK correction signal technology and high speed internet using wireless in the cab.

    You can listen to my interview with Ryan below:

    AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

    Agribusiness, Audio, Precision Agriculture, Technology

    Ag Communications Future Discussed at AG CONNECT Expo

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Ag Comm PanelDiscussing the future of agricultural communications was the job of Orion Samuelson, Jim Evans and Mike Yost today at AG CONNECT Expo. Jim has spent a lifetime in agriculture and Ag communications, as a practitioner and professor at the University of Illinois. The panel took place in Successful Farming’s Innovations Theater where they’ve been doing live webcasts of the presentations. You can see a portion of their discussion here:



    Jim will be joined by Radio Hall of Fame personality Orion Samuelson, whom Jim came to know in the 1950s when they both worked in Green Bay; and by Mike Yost, who, as the former Administrator of USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS), has extensive cross-cultural communication experience. Yost is also the owner-operator of Yost Farm in West-Central Minnesota and a former chairman of the American Soybean Association.

    “I have never seen a time of such need and potential for skilled communicators who can deal with the complexities of agriculture and the food enterprise of societies,” he reports. “Through painful and costly experience, agri-marketers, producer and consumer groups, the food industry, government agencies and others are learning that the old, one-way, top-down approaches don’t work. Thousands of case examples around the world testify to the urgent need for better models and methods of communicating within agriculture, and between agriculture and the societies that depend on it. Professional Ag communicators can help lead the way in that effort.”

    Not everyone who teaches communications has had such a lasting and powerful influence on students, but Evans’ devotion to his students and his commitment to the highest standards have been so influential across the decades that his former students are now raising funds for a new “James F. Evans Endowed Chair in Agricultural Communications” at the University of Illinois at Champaign.

    You can make a donation to the Endowment here.

    AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

    Audio, Education, University

    TeeJet Announces New Guidance Technologies At Ag Connect Expo

    Joanna Schroeder

    TeeJet Technologies, based in Springfield, IL, announced their new guidance system that offers guidance and liRichGould_TeeJetve video displayed simultaneously.  The news about the Matrix Guidance System with RealView Guidance Over Video was announced during the AG CONNECT Expo in Orlando, Fla. and comes in two screen sizes: 570G Model and 840G model with options for four or eight cameras.

    In an AgWired exclusive interview with Rich Gould, vice president and guidance business manager at TeeJet Technologies explained that the really unique feature of the system lies in its ability to connect to a video camera and show real-time video images and in addition to show the guidance information overlayed on the video image. In other words, you are seeing your field on the screen.

    Known as precision agriculture, this type of technology helps farmers to become more efficient whether planting, fertilizing or harvesting their crops. Ultimately, this information leads to reduced costs and higher profitability.

    TeeJet has applied for a patent and Gould notes that, “This technology is applicable to anyone driving back in forth across a field.”

    It can be used on any machine, manufactured by any company, in any country. This is an advantage for growers in developing countries in that they have the ability to jump ahead and adopt the latest technology immediately.

    You can see photos from AG CONNECT Expo in our Flickr album and listen to my interview with Rich Gould here.

    Agribusiness, Audio

    Gators at AG CONNECT Expo

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Gator GirlsMy Alma Mater was out and about at AG CONNECT Expo today. Here are three ag comm students from The University of Florida. They were watching this afternoon’s panel discussion in the Innovations Theater on the future of ag communications. I’ll have more on that later.

    Joanna and I have spent all day collecting interviews which we’ll be posting right here until they’re all posted. It’s probably going to take a few day because we’ve got a lot of them.

    AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

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