iCropTrak Soil with 1 Tap Entry for Serious AgNerds

Chuck Zimmerman

iCT SoilAgNerd Alert!

One tap data entry is important. Because as Aaron Hutchinson, President, Cogent3D, says, “Every click is money.” That’s part of the improvements in the latest release of iCropTrak. Aaron says the company has also created a new version of the product called iCropTrak Soil. This version provides a lower cost alternative for those who don’t need an advanced system and currently has special pricing.

In addition to Rapid Scouting enhancements like Rapid Observation and Action Items, the new iCropTrak includes a series of augmented map functions to make field understanding fast and easy.

  • Map Annotations to provide additional map reference data
  • Work Order Status Annotations to provide where and what quickly
  • Follow Me Upgrade to keep you on the map at any speed
  • Map Sketch to allow you to draw on the map and save results for reports
  • Recent Forms puts field history in chronological order

Version 4.1 includes the first mobile parts of the upcoming MyJohnDeere.com integration: On-demand data downloading. On-Demand let’s you download only the data you need for the time you need it, then remove it from your iPad when done to have space for other efforts. At multiple gigabytes per field for planting, as-applied, and harvest data, On-Demand provides users control over their data and provides the first peek at the new user definable statistical legends that colorize the data on the fly based on its attributes.

Aaron Hutchinson, Cogent3D President shared the company’s excitement regarding this release stating: “The One Tap Observation capability to mark weeds, pests, and diseases is a labor break-thru in a market where every click is money. ”

You can listen to my interview with Aaron here: Interview with Aaron Hutchinson

Here’s a demo of iCropTrak Soil:

Introducing – iCropTrak Soil from Cogent3D on Vimeo.

Big thanks to iCropTrak for continuing their sponsorship of our AgWired App. If you don’t have our free app please consider downloading for free!

Agribusiness, Apps, Audio, Precision Agriculture, Video

Zimfo Bytes

Talia Goes

    Zimfo Bytes

  • DuPont Pioneer is pleased to announce a $5,000 donation to Farm Rescue, a North Dakota-based non-profit organization that plants and harvests crops free of charge for family farmers who have suffered a major injury, illness or disaster.
  • The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) named DuPont Chair & CEO Ellen Kullman as the recipient of its 2014 George Washington Carver Award for innovation in industrial biotechnology. Kullman is the first woman to receive the honor, which has been awarded annually since 2008.
  • The Georgia peanut industry plans to celebrate by hosting the 2014 Georgia PB&J Day at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, Ga.
  • Members of the ASA Action Partnership met yesterday in Washington to discuss labeling of products containing genetically modified ingredients and the possibilities and implications of “big data,” or the data generated through advances in precision agriculture technology.
Zimfo Bytes

Nutrient Management with OptRx

Melissa Sandfort

Insights Weekly At the 2014 Commodity Classic, Ag Leader Technology sponsored a learning session focused on using crop sensors to find out what your crops need.

Ag Leader did a study in 2009 that showed the advantages of using their OptRx crop sensor technology. OptRx Crop Sensor Product Specialist Chad Fick says this product has been around for six years now and growers are showing more interest as nutrient management becomes a bigger concern.

Chad says OptRx can be a helpful tool for farmers. Listen to Cindy Zimmerman’s interview with Chad from Commodity Classic.

Listen to Fick explain

Become a fan of Ag Leader on Facebook today, and get the latest precision ag videos on the YouTube channel. For more information about Ag Leader products and services, or to visit the blog site, go to www.agleader.com.

Ag Leader, Agribusiness

Impressive StollerUSA Grower Panel at Classic

Cindy Zimmerman

classic14-stoller-panelWe really, really tried, but even with four people at Commodity Classic we were just unable to see and do everything, and one of the companies we regret missing was StollerUSA. However, the good news is that hundreds of growers from around the country were able to find out more of what StollerUSA has to offer from farmers like themselves.

classic14-stoller-signStollerUSA sponsored one of the first Learning Center Sessions at the Classic on “Ideas to Break Through Yield Barriers.” It was standing room only for the session where at least 600 farmers gathered to hear top growers from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Texas talk about their successes and failures to become local, state and national yield winners each year. Our longtime friend and colleague Ken Root was moderator for that event, as well as continued conversations with the growers at the StollerUSA booth in the trade show.

We were able to get an interview with one of those growers – Adam Watson who farms 4,000 acres of white corn, yellow corn, seed corn and soybeans in Villa Grove, Illinois. That would be thanks to the tenacious and talented Sally Behringer who tracked us down in the media room on the last day of the show!
classic14-classic-growerAdam passed on some of the yield-busting tips he had been sharing with other farmers all week, such as staying up to date on new technology. “This year we’re implementing a UAV,” he said. “We’re going to have sensors on it to give back data to us. I want to know today what I need to do tomorrow.”

Adam says he does lots of trials on his farm to learn what works and what doesn’t, and how StollerUSA products such as Bio-Forge have helped him managing plant stress and increase yields. Last year he says his yields for corn were the best ever. “We had a farm average of 213 (bushels per acre),” he said. “That put a big smile on my face.”

Find out more in this interview with Adam: Interview with Illinois farmer Adam Watson
2014 Commodity Classic Photos

Audio, Commodity Classic, Corn, Farming

FarmLink Offers TrueHarvest Benchmarking Tool

Cindy Zimmerman

farmlinkA new benchmarking tool has been developed by FarmLink that can help farmers get the fullest potential from their operations.

“We’re helping a farmer identify where he should go find yield in a cost effective manner and other areas where he’s doing great,” says company president Scott Robinson about the tool they call TrueHarvest, which uses objective data to show a farm’s full range of performance potential, drilled down to a 150-square-foot area called a micro-field.

“The reason they’re 150 square feet is because our combine collection is done on a fleet of about 200 combines, the combine cutting head is about 30 feet wide, travels about 3.5 miles an hour and we collect data every second,” he said. “That data is used to correlate across the other 67 billion micro fields that we’ve developed across the United States that represents all corn, wheat and soybeans.”

true-harvestAccording to TrueHarvest calculations, American farmers could have produced approximately 1.6 billion more bushels of corn and 250 million more bushels of soybeans in 2013, realizing approximately $11 billion in additional revenue. “If farmers increased their performance up to the 75th percentile on average for corn and soybeans, that’s how much money is on the table,” said Robinson.

FarmLink was at the recent Commodity Classic talking about TrueHarvest and getting good reception from farmers according to Robinson, who said they really appreciated that the service was independent and did not require them to provide the company with private data. “It’s really agronomic benchmarking that we’re doing, but it’s for the individual farmer,” he said.

Find out more in this interview with Robinson and in the video below from the MyTrueHarvest.com website. Interview with Scott Robinson, FarmLink

Audio, Farming, Precision Agriculture, Technology

Grassley and Ag Reject Japan’s TPP Offer

Cindy Zimmerman

grassley-headSenator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) took time between votes today to join with several agricultural organizations and voice strong opposition to Japan’s negotiating position in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership to exclude a number of agricultural products as part of a final agreement.

“Japan seems to believe that they’re entitled to keep five sacred agriculture products off the table,” said Grassley, who said he just spoke with US Trade Representative Michael Froman this morning about the issue, stressing that when Japan agreed to join the negotiations they knew everything had to be on the table. “We’ve got to hold their feet to the fire.”

“The third largest country in the world can’t make protectionist moves like that without it having a ripple effect,” he added.

The five broad agricultural product categories that Japan wants to exempt from the TPP agreement are pork and beef, wheat and barley, rice and starch, dairy, and sugar. Participating in a conference call with Grassley today were representatives from the National Pork Producers Council,
American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Oilseed Processors Association, and the National Association of Wheat Growers Association. All of them and more are strongly urging the administration to reject Japan’s offer.

Listen to the press conference here: Ag Groups Reject Japan's TPP Offer

AFBF, Ag Groups, Audio, Beef, NCBA, Pork, Trade, Wheat

ABM Acquires Assets of BioSolutions

Chuck Zimmerman

178Advanced Biological Marketing (ABM) has purchased the assets of BioSolutions, an importer of innovative technologies for the agricultural sector in Southern Africa. The acquisition was finalized in December of 2013. Included is the office in Litchenburg South Africa, a manufacturing facility and a distributor network. ABM branded products will be produced, formulated and packaged there. This facility will manufacture products for the entire African Continent, South East Asia and Australia.

The previous staff from BioSolutions will now be employed by ABM. As market penetration grows and the distributor network is built, staff will be added. Josey Hendriks will serve as general manager and Dr. Ronel Hendriks will be the lead science officer and oversee testing, quality control and research of new products.

“This is an excellent opportunity for ABM to expand its global reach,” said Dan Custis, President and CEO. “As our market penetration continues to grow both domestically and internationally, we saw the need to expand and diversify our production facilities. With this acquisition and future expansion of the facility, we’ll be able to provide our products and reach additional growers more efficiently than what we are currently doing. In addition, having this facility closer to the actual point of contact with the stakeholders is a plus for the farmers in that part of the world”.

Custis states that equipment purchases are moving forward and manufacturing should be fully operational in time to supply products for the 2015 growing season. In the meantime, goods will be shipped from the Van Wert location to meet the demand for this growing season.

Agribusiness

Manage Your Ground Speed with New Holland

Chuck Zimmerman

Vic ConstableGetting a lesson in Ground Speed Management with New Holland tractors was my second one during Operation Blue Force out on a farm near Bakersfield, CA. Our classroom teacher is Vic Constable. After the lesson I got into a T9 4-wheel drive tractor with track units pulling a massive field “Optimizer” to put that lesson in action. My driver, Ryan, showed how to set up Ground Speed Management as well as Custom Headland Management. After recording his instructions it was my turn to sit in the seat and drive. I did pretty good and learned a few extra lessons that just need to stay in California. 🙂

The 16-speed full powershift transmission with Ground Speed Management (GSM) features both field and road operation settings. GSM Field™ automatically downshifts the tractor and adjusts engine rpm to maintain the best performance, then upshifts and changes engine rpm as load decreases. GSM Road™ selects the proper gears and engine rpm based on speed lever input and load conditions. Even without GSM, get clutch-free, push-button shifting and fingertip control of direction changes.

You can listen to Vic’s lesson here or watch it below: Vic Constable Lesson

If you’d like to see these features in action check out my ZimmGlass video below:

New Holland Operation Blue Force Photo Album

Agribusiness, Audio, New Holland, Tractor, Video

NCGA CEO to Retire

Cindy Zimmerman

classic14-rickAfter 14 years of leading the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), CEO Rick Tolman has decided it’s time to retire – so take a good look at this photo here because it was the last Commodity Classic for Rick as CEO.

The announcement was made today from NCGA that Rick told the NCGA Corn Board earlier this week that he would like to step down as chief executive officer at the end of September

“Rick has been a tireless advocate for corn farmers and our organization,” said NCGA president Martin Barbre in a statement. “However, Rick told us – as much as he loves representing our way of life – he is ready to enjoy more time with his wife, Linda, and their five children and eight grandchildren, and other pursuits. As he said it, we all put off things until ‘someday,’ and, for him, ‘someday’ has finally come, after 14 years of service to the organization and a 37-year career in agriculture.”

classic14-martinMartin added that they are sad to see Rick go but that he is “definitely riding into the sunset on a high note.”

“We all want to leave things better than we found them, and Rick can certainly be proud of his legacy at NCGA,” Martin said, adding that it will be a year of transition, not turmoil. Rick will remain as CEO until September 30 and the board will soon begin the somewhat reluctant process of searching for a replacement.

This post was supposed to be about some of the great news that both Rick and Martin had to share at the Commodity Classic, so that is still what it will be. I did interviews with both of them about some of NCGA’s recent success stories and new initiatives.

One brand new news item Rick announced at the NCGA banquet was that the Smithsonian Institution wants to put the Corn Farmers Coalition DC metro campaign ads in a new exhibition called “American Enterprise” scheduled to open next year in the Museum of American History. “It will last for 20 years and we anticipate about 90 million people seeing it,” Rick said.

In this interview on the final day of Classic, Rick also talks about the great corn grower response last year to commenting on the EPA proposal to gut the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and how NCGA plans to keep that momentum going. Interview with Rick Tolman, NCGA CEO

I talked with Martin specifically about a couple of recent NCGA initiatives – the Coalition for Safe Affordable Food, and the Soil Health Partnership. He also discussed two major policy issues facing NCGA this year – implementation of the farm bill and getting the water resources bill across the finish line. Interview with Martin Barbre, NCGA president
2014 Commodity Classic Photos

Ag Groups, Audio, Commodity Classic, Corn, NCGA

Opinion About Open Ag Data Alliance?

Jamie Johansen

New Holland ZimmPollOur latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “What’s your favorite fish?”

Looks like grilled is a favorite by a landslide. Personally, I agree. I didn’t learn to like fish until later in life and still don’t cook it often, but love when someone makes it for me. It is interesting to see all the fast-food chains adding a fish sandwich to their menu this time of year. Maybe we should have added fish sticks to the list.

Our poll results:

  • Pan Fried – 11%
  • Deep Fried – 19%
  • Poached – 3%
  • Baked – 9%
  • Grilled – 35%
  • Smoked – 9%
  • Soup – 0%
  • Don’t eat fish – 11%
  • Other – 3%

Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, “What do you think of the Open Ag Data Alliance?”

The Open Ag Data Alliance (OADA), an open standards software project to ensure farmers have full data access, security and privacy, has officially been launched with the goal of enabling farmers to have flexibility and control over data-driven decisions on their farm. What do you think about it? Do you think there is a need for this – or do you even understand it at all? Let us know!

ZimmPoll