Corn Yield Contest Winners Annouced

Chuck Zimmerman

NCGAThe National Corn Yield Contest winners have been announced. It’s been a challenging growing season weather wise but yields have been great.

The National Corn Yield Contest is in its 45th year and remains NCGA’s most popular program for members. This year, NCGA has processed 6,960 entries – a 3.5 percent increase over 2008 (6,727 entries) and 41 percent increase over 2007 (4,932 entries).

“Again this year, we are excited and pleased looking at the yields achieved by our growers,” said Steve Ebke, chair of NCGA’s Production and Stewardship Action Team. “This contest highlights how, through scientific advances and grower innovation, we can meet growing demand for food, feed, fuel and fiber.”

The 24 winners in eight production categories had verified yields averaging more than 300 bushels per acre, compared to the projected national average of 162.9 bushels per acre.

While there is no overall contest winner, yields from first, second and third place farmers overall production categories ranged from 287.0744 to 346.0156 bushels per acre.

You can find all the state and national winners on the NCGA website.

Ag Groups, Corn, NCGA

Olympic Cranberries

Chuck Zimmerman

olympic-cranberriesNow this is going to be impressive. Thirteen million cranberries will be used to make a “colossal depiction of the Canadian Olympic Committee’s logo” and it will be floated in the Fraser River running in front of the Richmond Olympic Oval throughout the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

The tribute celebrates Richmond’s top agricultural crop and honors the Winter Games. The installation will float within a 46,000 sq. foot parameter in front of the Richmond Olympic Oval, home of the 2010 speed skating competitions. Built specifically for the upcoming 2010 Olympic Winter Games, this state-of-the-art building has been called the “crown jewel” of the Games, based on its award-winning architectural beauty and innovative green features.
Richmond is an official Venue City of the Games, and is Canada’s largest producer of cranberries with more than 60 family-owned farms, the majority of which are part of the Ocean Spray Cooperative.

International

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

    Holiday Greeting From IFAS

    Chuck Zimmerman

    uf-christmasThank you for the holiday wishes Mark McLellan, Dean of Research for the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

    If you have a holiday card you’d like to share then send it on.

    Judging from the slowdown in my email inbox, business activity has also started the holiday slowdown. A lot of companies take the next week or two off. I think that’s a good idea.

    It’s a nice time to re-charge your batteries and as one of my former employers always had us do, throw away all the unnecessary stuff you collected in your files and office during the year. It’s amazing how much you collect and think you have to keep “just in case.”

    University

    The Agency Formerly Known As Pure Marketing

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Screen shot 2009-12-17 at 6.51.18 PMPure was known as Pure Marketing & Media. Now the name is purely Pure. The company just announced the launch of a new brand identity built around its exclusive p.u.r.i.f.y.™ brand development process.

    The new identity includes an enhanced Web site as well as a dramatic new logo and supporting tag line: Distilling potent brands™.

    “At Pure, we believe there’s an underlying reason why many brands are lifeless, stagnant or worn-out,” noted Brent Beshore, Pure’s president and chief executive officer. “They often contain impurities such as false assumptions about one’s market or target audience, unfocused positioning, inconsistent messaging, uninspired creative or ineffective communications channels.

    “This is indeed an exciting time for everyone at Pure,” stated Steve Engle, president of Pure Ag—the company’s agribusiness unit. “Unlike traditional advertising and PR agencies, we back our full-service claim with a wealth of internal resources.

    Agencies

    Beach Blogging

    Chuck Zimmerman

    beach-1Agriblogging will be happening from the beach for a few days as Cindy and I try to escape the cold, almost winter, temperatures. Although it’s looking like we’re going to have some weather move in tonight.

    It looks like a chunk of the southeast has had too much rain for a change. We drove past several flooding rivers in Alabama and a couple of inches of new rain are expected by tomorrow. I guess it’s all that “climate change” stuff going on, eh?

    The picture is the view from our deck and actually most any window we look out of here in Panama City Beach.

    ZimmComm Announcement

    Obama Administration Partners with Ranchers to Combat Climate Change

    Amanda Nolz

    usda U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack today spoke at the key note event, Clean Energy Investments: Creating Opportunities for Rural Economies, at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, according to a recent release by USDA. In an effort to improve the environment, Vilsack hopes to provide opportunities for food producers to do just that.

    “Rural economies will benefit from incentives in comprehensive energy legislation that reward production of renewable energy and sequestration of greenhouse gases,” said Vilsack.

    Climate change is one of the great challenges facing the United States and the world. But for our farmers, ranchers, and those who make a living off the land, the challenge presents unprecedented opportunities. Secretary Vilsack shared how the Administration is actively partnering with rural communities to create solutions for curbing greenhouse gases and preventing the worst impacts of climate change.

    Secretary Vilsack shared how the Administration is actively partnering with rural communities to create solutions for curbing greenhouse gases and preventing the worst impacts of climate change.

    To read the entire article and learn more about the program, link here.

    Environment

    Headline Harvest Report from Conrad, Iowa

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Getting these BASF Headline harvest reports done this fall (yes, it is still fall) has been a challenge, to put it mildly. We’ve been trying desperately to get interviews set up with farmers since late October – in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. We did okay in Missouri, but when the harvest kept getting later and the rain kept falling, it just continued to get postponed. We had to cancel a trip to Iowa last week when the blizzard came through, but we went up this week even with below zero temperatures

    BASF headline harvest brent schipperOur second day in the frigid state brought us to the home of Brent Schipper of Conrad, where we had to record in the office to avoid becoming popsicles. Despite the weather challenges and a late harvest, Brent is very pleased with his crop this year, which was helped by Headline fungicide. “With the late harvest, the corn did stand very well,” Brent said. “The yield increase helped because Headline eliminated some of the disease pressure we had from the cool, wet weather.”

    Brent saw a yield advantage of 4-5 bushels on soybeans and 10-20 on corn because of Headline, which he has been using for about six years now. There were some acres he did not spray with Headline, but because he saw such a definite yield difference this year, everything will be sprayed next year. “It showed one year of not spraying everything cost us in the end,” he said. “It’s a good insurance policy.”

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

    Audio, BASF, Corn, Soybean

    Learn About BBQ

    Chuck Zimmerman

    If you love BBQ then you might like BBQ Pitmasters, a new series on TLC. It airs Thursdays at 9pm Central.

    The BBQ & Grilling channel is here to help you cook an amazing meal on the grill. Read how to smoke a chicken, grill a juicy hamburger and learn how to obtain the perfect grill marks on your foods.

    Here’s a promo and description of the next episode:

    Cooking skills, nerves and patience are tested at the historic Riverfest Barbecue Cookoff in Decatur, AL as the Pitmasters battle for the $3,000 top prize. Paul tries to avoid last place placement, Lee Ann’s schedule is threatened by a power outage and Tuff Stone uses spreadsheets for BBQ?!

    Food, Video

    Headline Harvest Report from West Union, Iowa

    Cindy Zimmerman

    BASF headline harvest henry millerI guess it would be more correct to call these BASF Headline POST-harvest reports, even though there is still about eight percent of the corn left in the fields at this point. Iowa farmers are pretty much done with this season, including Henry Miller of West Union, which is in the northeast part of the state. We caught up with him on Monday as Mother Nature was sending in a blast of frigid temperatures to welcome his 7th grandchild who was born early that morning.

    Henry finished his corn harvest just about two weeks ago and he is very glad to see the 2009 season with its weather extremes coming to a close. “It was very far from normal,” Henry told me. His biggest challenge this year was summer hail storms. “In June we had corn knee high, we had hail that stripped it and beat the beans practically in the ground. Then in July, we got hit (with hail) on the other farm about tasseling time.”

    Because of all the bruising to the crop, Henry’s agronomist recommended using Headline fungicide, which was the first time he ever used it. “The yields were better than what I expected, it stood good, we had no problems with standability – I guess Headline helped us out there,” Henry said.

    Listen to my interview with Henry here:

    Audio, BASF, Corn, Soybean