While attending this year’s Commodity Classic, I had a chance to talk with Ed Shoup of Shoup Brothers Farms, who has both a hog operation and grows corn in Orville, Ohio, to chat about some of the ways he is increasing yields. He is pictured here on the left in the Stoller booth with Dan Denman of Cortland, OH and Steve Wiser of Carlton, PA. Ed was kind enough to let me in on a few of his secrets. His first line of defense isBio-Forge®, an antioxidant offered by Stoller USA. In a nutshell, Bio-Forge balances hormones in the plants to optimize growth and allow them to better handle stressful situations such as drought, floods or freezes – ultimately helping to increase yields.
“Bio-Forge has been very beneficial. When we use it with products such as Headline or Quilt we’ve seen an excellent response. It has given us more of a boost,” explained Shoup. “The product helps our ears fill out better and the corn is less resistant to insect problems, and when we have a healthier plant, it helps us get through some of the stress.”
Another positive trait is that Bio-Forge helps topical applications work better. When Shoup uses Bio-Forge with strobies (strobilurin fungicides), he sees a return on investment through better yields. “The yield boost we get is what we really like. The icing on the cake is when we can reduce our molds and know that we have higher quality feed going into our hogs,” said Shoup.
His second secret is Stoller USA’s PowerPlus™, which is a great product for him, especially with the rising costs of Nitrogen. He explained that when he applied the nitrogen with PowerPlus it made the nitrogen work better. The plant better utilizes the nitrogen and he saw better uptake on components like potash and phosphorous. This was a double win for him because the addition of this product helped him reduce his nitrogen costs.
Listen to my interview with Ed here: cc-09-joanna-stollerusa.mp3
I think Joel Velasco, Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, had the quote of the day here at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.
A new website is helping to spot the latest job opportunities in agribusiness.
Seth Meyer is with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI). He’s also a speaker here at the Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.
We know that OPEC has had a monopoly control over the price of oil on the world market and we hope that the increase of more environmentally friendly biofuels will force that to change. However, David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley, has created a model to measure how much impact we’re having.
Speaking on behalf of the European Commission To The United States here at the Transition To A Bio Economy Conference was Laurent Javaudin. Laurent sent me a message about coming to the conference via 
Mary Thompson, Farm Foundation, took my photo yesterday as I was doing some concluding work for the day here at their Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global Trade & Policy Issues.
Biofuels production in Canada will impact meat trading patterns according to research by Al Mussell, George Morris Centre, University of Guelph. He says that the increase in biofuels production will turn the country into an importer of grains instead of an exporter. Al was one of the speakers at the Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.
A very interesting presentation at our Farm Foundation Global Trade and Policy Issues conference had to do with the impact on poverty. Tom Hertel, Purdue University, was our presenter.