BASF at #Classic19

Cindy Zimmerman

As it has for many years, BASF once again partnered with the American Soybean Association (ASA), the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), the National Sorghum Foundation (NSF) and the National Wheat Foundation (NWF) to award $20,000 in academic scholarships to 11 agriculture industry students.

Jessica Olson of Warren, Minnesota received the $5000 2019–2020 ASA Soy Scholarship. NCGA presented scholarships to Kayla Beechinor, a junior from Walla Walla, Washington; Catherine Jones, a senior from Bellevue, Nebraska; Amber Oerly, a sophomore from Booneville, Missouri; Osler Ortez, a Ph.D. student from Nicaragua; and Krista Russell from Jerseyville, Illinois. NSF presented $2,500 scholarships to Isabelle Stewart of Columbus, Nebraska, and Payton Harrell of Spearman, Texas. And the National Wheat Foundation awarded scholarships to Kayla Beechinor, a junior at Washington State University; Samantha Fischer, a sophomore at Kansas State University; Adrienne Blakey, a junior from Stillwater, Oklahoma; and Storm Soat, a senior at Michigan State University.

The new bigger and better BASF was on display at the Classic trade show, with new products to spotlight from last year’s acquisitions.

Kerry Grossweiler, BASF Marketing Lead, U.S. Seed Solutions, was on the trade show floor talking with farmers about some of those new products like the soybean seed treatment ILeVO. Listen to Chuck’s interview with him.

Interview with Kerry Grossweiler, BASF

2019 BASF Science Behind Event Photo Album

Audio, BASF, Commodity Classic, Corn, sorghum, Soybean, Wheat

FMC Authority® Supreme Tackles Resistant Weeds

Cindy Zimmerman

Resistant weeds is a wide spread concern around the country and new FMC Authority® Supreme is helping farmers from the Midwest to the Mid-South take on the challenge.

“Authority Supreme was a new product for 2018, we had a limited launch, limited quantities,” said FMC technical service manager Matthew Wiggins at the Mid-South Farm and Gin Show last week in Memphis. “Primarily we’re talking about herbicide-resistant Palmer amaranth.”

Learn more about Authority Supreme in this interview. Interview with Matthew Wiggins, FMC Authority Supreme

Also last week at the Commodity Classic, FMC’s Dr. Brandon Schrage was talking to farmers in the Midwest about staying in front of dicamba resistance with Authority Supreme. Watch below.


AgWired Precision, Audio, Commodity Classic, Farm & Gin Show, FMC, Herbicide, Video, weed management

Pig Farmers Pack 900 Meals for Orlando-Area Children

Cindy Zimmerman

The National Pork Board kicked off activities for Pork Industry Forum in Orlando this week by packing 900 meals to help feed hungry children in the area in partnership with the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. Contributing to a better way of life in the communities where pig farmers live and work is one of the We Care ethical principles.

“We have a We Care principal that we live by and we are really in tune with the environment and we really care about our community,” said NPB member Deborah Ballance of Fremont, NC. “We like to give back to the community we may be visiting.”

Second Harvest Food Bank’s Hi-Five Kids Pack program will distribute the meals. Since 2006, the program supports educators seeking a solution to students who came to school sick and unable to learn on a Monday because they had not eaten since their school lunch the previous Friday. Second Harvest Food Bank partners with elementary schools that have a significant percentage of student participation in free and reduced-cost lunch programs to distribute the packs.

Learn more in this interview with Ballance: Interview with Pork Board member Deb Ballance, North Carolina

National Pork Industry Forum virtual newsroom

AgWired Animal, Audio, Pork, Pork Checkoff

New Alliance Promotes Specialty Grains

Carrie Muehling

The merger of two agricultural organizations promises stronger representation for U.S.-grown identity preserved crops on the global stage.

The Northern Food Grade Soybean Association and Midwest Shippers Association will now operate as the Specialty Soya and Grains Alliance (SSGA).

“As the specialty grains market has grown, the demand for containerized processed soy and especially grains has grown across the world,” said Tom Slunecka, CEO of Ag Management Solutions, which is managing the launch of the new organization.

“This alliance is going to do much of the same thing that the other groups had been doing, with a larger emphasis on marketing and establishing the United States as the premier spot for purchasing specialty grains,” said Slunecka.

The group was successful in securing a $1.5 million Agricultural Trade Promotion grant from the USDA, which they plan to use to begin operations and also to create a new globally recognized brand for United States specialty grains. The boards of the two groups have been meeting together for the past six months, and they are now searching for an executive director to oversee day to day operations.

Listen to Chuck’s interview with Tom here: Interview with Tom Slunecka, Specialty Soya and Grains Alliance

Audio, Grains, specialty crops

ZimmCast on the Bayer AgVocacy Forum

Chuck Zimmerman

This week’s program includes where in the world the ZimmComm Team has been as well as interviews from one of those places.

We’ve been to Destin, FL for BASF Legacy Club events, then on to Orlando for the Commodity Classic and associated activities. At the same time, Cindy was in Memphis with FMC for the Mid-South Farm & Gin Show.

In this week’s program, I’m sharing interviews with Darren Wallis, Vice President, North America Communications at Bayer CropScience and Willie Vogt, Executive Director, Content and User Engagement, Penton Farm Progress Group. They talk about the Bayer AgVocacy Forum that took place prior to Commodity Classic.

I hope you enjoy this week’s program and thank you for listening.

Listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 610 - Bayer AgVocacy Forum

Audio, BASF, Bayer, Commodity Classic, Farm & Gin Show, ZimmCast

Fighting Fescue Toxicity

Carrie Muehling

The decrease in productivity caused by fescue toxicosis has been estimated to cost U.S. beef producers more than $2 billion per year due to reduced growth and diminished reproductive efficiency. At the recent Cattle Industry Conference and NCBA Trade Show, Alltech territory manager Klair Hartzold talked to us about how Alltech is focusing on prevention.

Listen to Jamie’s interview with Klair here: Interview with Klair Hartzold, Alltech Territory Sales Manager


2019 Cattle Industry Convention Photo Album

AgWired Animal, Alltech, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Cattle Industry Conference, Video

AMVAC Excited About Growing Portfolio

Cindy Zimmerman

American Vanguard Corporation, parent company to AMVAC Chemical Corporation, is celebrating 50 years in business this year and the future has never looked better.

“We’re excited about the 2019 season as we continue to innovate around our existing product portfolio and add elements to our portfolio through recent acquisitions,” said Jim Lappin, AMVAC Crop Marketing Manager, Corn and Soybean Portfolio, at last week’s Commodity Classic.

During Classic, it was announced that AMVAC has entered into an agreement for the purchase of selected product lines and related inventory from Willowood USA, which would include more than a dozen herbicide technical registrations and nearly two dozen formulation registrations. The acquisition must be approved by a bankruptcy court which will rule by mid-April.

Lappin talks about the AMVAC portfolio and new products for 2019 including Force® 10G HL corn soil insecticide for broad-spectrum control of listed corn rootworm and seed-attacking pests –
Interview with Jim Lappin - AMVAC Corn/Soybean Portfolio


AMVAC at 2019 Commodity Classic

AMVAC, Audio, Commodity Classic, Corn, Video

Precision Ag Bytes 3/6

Carrie Muehling

  • South Dakota State University and University of Kentucky plant pathologists have confirmed that Cercospora sojina, a soybean pathogen that causes frogeye leaf spot, has shown resistance to QoI fungicides (quinone outside inhibitor, strobilurin, e.g. active ingredients in Headline and Quadris) in South Dakota.
  • Dr. Todd Wehner has been added to the team of instructors for the upcoming class of the UC Davis European Plant Breeding Academy (PBA). Dr. Wehner has been with the UC Davis PBA since its inception in 2006 and lectured in U.S., Africa and Asia.
  • Concentric Ag Corporation announced that its President and CEO Donald R. Marvin will transition within the next few months to become the executive chairman of its board of directors. The search for a new President and CEO is being conducted by executive search firm Hobbs & Towne.
  • Blockchain, remote sensing and finding ways to build a 21st-century workforce for California agriculture are just a few of the timely topics that headline this year’s Salinas Valley Ag Tech Summit, themed “Tomorrow’s Technology You Can Use Today.” The sixth annual summit, to be held March 26-27 at Hartnell College in Salinas, Calif., also will feature a spectrum of women leaders and entrepreneurs as panelists or keynote speakers.
  • The Yield Lab is pleased to announce the new companies of the 2019 Yield Lab North America. These companies were selected out of a pool of 100+ applicants from around the world that are focused on solutions for more sustainable agriculture and food. The Yield Lab runs a business development program and invests $100,000 into each new portfolio company. The companies include: Aggio, Arch Innotek, Eiwa, Foodshed, Planetarians, and VakSea.
  • AGBRIDGE has developed the AGBRIDGE Drive, which acts like a regular USB drive, but transmits data via Wifi to their cloud automatically. AGBRIDGE is teaming up with Ayrstone Productivity to simplify data movement for farmers.
  • Register now for the Soil Health Institute’s annual meeting in Sacramento, Calif. This year’s theme is Soil Health – A Global Imperative, reflecting just how critically imminent it is that we safeguard and enhance the vitality and productivity of soils to address food, water, climate, wildlife, fiber, fuel, and other global issues.
  • The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) and the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) presented the second annual Davidson Prize to the top three innovative products, selected from the AE50 honorees last week at Commodity Classic in Orlando, Florida.
  • Syngenta has teamed up with Ram Trucks to help U.S. farmers overcome the challenges of today and tomorrow. AgriEdge®, a whole-farm program that combines secure data management across digital platforms and innovative product choices for every crop, is now included in the Ram AgPack.
  • The American Soybean Association congratulates the following regional winners of the 2019 Conservation Legacy Awards. They are: Rob Stout, Washington, Iowa; Dan Gillespie, Battle Creek, Neb.; Rick Clark, Williamsport, Ind.; and Fred Sipes, Ekron, Ky.
  • Midwest farmers now have a resource nearby to provide soil biology assessments quickly and accurately. Midwest Bio-Tech recently opened Illinois’ first dedicated soil health lab.
  • Ceres Imaging, the aerial imagery provider that enables proactive farm management by combining scientific-grade imagery with data analytics and expert customer support, announced the release of its Center-Pivot Analytics Suite, a full-service imagery solution designed specifically for center-pivot irrigated row crops.
  • Deere & Company announced that its Board of Directors elected John C. May, 49, as President, Chief Operating Officer, effective April 1. May will be responsible for leading Deere’s efforts to maximize operational excellence throughout the company.
  • U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) has appointed Dr. Nick Goeser as Vice President, Sustainability Sciences and Strategy. Announced at the Commodity Classic event in Orlando, Goeser’s appointment is directly tied to USFRA’s focus on ensuring farmers and ranchers are recognized for their use of sustainable science and data solutions.
AgWired Precision, Precision Ag Bytes

AlzChem Names U.S. Sales Lead for Creamino

Cindy Zimmerman

AlzChem Animal Health has named Dr. John Thomson as the U.S. Sales Manager for Feed Additives, particularly Creamino, a patent-protected preparation of guanidinoacetic acid (GAA).

During his career, Thomson has managed research programs with a number of different feed and nutrition companies, provided technical support and training to customers and staff, and worked with customers to implement improvements. Recently, he was responsible for the management of research and technical support programs for Creamino, an innovative, patent-protected preparation of guanidinoacetic acid (GAA).

Creamino feed additive was invented by AlzChem in Germany. For more than a quarter of a century, AlzChem has specialized in manufacture and formulation of creatine for human nutrition. The feed ingredient Creamino presents a significant new opportunity to improve animal health and feed efficiency. It is currently sold for broiler and turkey production. AlzChem is committed to expand the Creamino label to allow use for swine and other animals in the future.

Thomson will work out of the U.S. headquarters for AlzChem in Marietta, Georgia.

Read more from AlzChem.

AgWired Animal, Animal Health, Feed, Nutrition, Poultry

Stoneville Legacy Club Welcomes New Growers

Cindy Zimmerman

Cotton growers from the Southeast, Delta and South Texas regions were honored last week for their high yields at the annual Stoneville® Legacy Club™ celebration held in Destin, Florida. The club, now in its third year, recognizes cotton growers for their advanced knowledge and skill used to maximize their yield and profit potential, as well as produce high-quality fiber.

Twenty growers earned membership to the Stoneville Legacy Club and were recognized for harvesting yields in the top 10 percent of their state.

“Stoneville has been around for nearly 100 years and it’s a brand growers trust to consistently perform at high levels,” said Rachel Walters, Cottonseed Marketing Manager, BASF. “Stoneville Legacy Club growers pair our elite germplasm with their quality management to deliver high yields year-in and year- out. We’re honored to provide them with this recognition.”

Learn more about the brand and the club in this interview: Interview with Rachel Walters, BASF

To qualify for the Stoneville Legacy Club, growers must have planted 100 percent Stoneville cotton seed on at least 20 qualifying acres from January 1–December 31, 2018. To view a complete list of winners and learn more about how to qualify for the 2019 Stoneville Legacy Club, visit Stoneville.com/LC.

Listen to interviews with some of the Legacy Club members and award winners, which can be found in the BASF Stoneville Legacy Club virtual newsroom.

2019 BASF Legacy Club Events Photo Album

AgWired Precision, Audio, BASF, Cotton