Author Archives: Chuck

Field Staff for Ag Leader Machine Guidance Support

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Insights WeeklyAg Leader’s Machine Guidance Support Supervisor, Jordan Dittmer, wants you to meet their field support techs.

The Machine Guidance Support Group is now up to three field support technicians. They are located in key areas of the US to best support Ag Leader’s growing needs in the field.

Seth Schrader is the seasoned veteran of the group located in Northeast Indiana. He has been with Ag Leader in this position just under two and a half years. Seth is a graduate of Purdue University with a bachelor’s in Ag Systems Management. He is also involved in their family farming operation where they grow corn and soybeans as well as raise hogs. Before his time with Ag leader he spent 4 years as a Precision Ag Technician. Seth covers the territory of East Central and Northeastern US.

Kerri Birdwell is the second field tech that we hired. She is located in Central California and covers the western seaboard of the US. Kerri graduated from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo with a degree in Ag Systems Management. After college she worked as an Irrigation Specialist for 2 years until she joined Ag leader in the fall of 2011. Kerri was raised on and continues to have a strong involvement in her family’s cattle ranch.

The newest addition to the team is Ryan Mauzey. Ryan has been with Ag Leader since January and is located in Central Missouri. Ryan is a graduate of the University of Missouri with both bachelors and masters degrees in Ag Systems Management with an emphasis in Precision Agriculture. Prior to working with Ag Leader Ryan worked with an Ag Leader dealer for almost 5 years. Ryan’s territory is South Central and Southeastern US.

Find out more about Machine Guidance Support on the Ag Leader Blog.

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.

Summer Training at the Academy

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Insights WeeklyThere are a growing number of training sessions being put online for Ag Leader Technology dealers according to John Mueggenberg, Ag Leader Academy. But it’s hard to beat the hands-on experience of classes at company headquarters in Ames, IA.

John talked with me about the classes planned for this year which cover the full variety of equipment and software offerings from Ag Leader. These classes allow dealer attendees to get out in the field with planters, sprayers and combines. The next round of classes will be this summer.

You can listen to my interview with John here: Interview with John Mueggenberg

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.

G-8 Open Data for Ag Take Aways

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Data, data, data. I wonder how many times that word was used at this week’s G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture? A lot I’m sure. Well, I was not there but Paul Welbig, Raven Industries was.

Paul WelbigHere’s a photo of Paul on the left with Dr. Aboubacar Diaby, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. They are holding an African corn planter.

The conference concluded after participating countries created some action plans for what to do next. You can find those on the website and even more information. A focus of the efforts being made to make more agricultural data sets available to the world wide community is to create resources that will help people in developing countries and where there is a real need for advanced food production. So you might like an example of how this has already been done in other areas. Paul shares a couple of examples that were given at the conference like GPS which exists because of data shared and now used in so many beneficial ways which includes precision agriculture.

Learn more about what was discussed in this week’s conference in my weekly ZimmCast podcast with Paul: Open Data for Agriculture

G-8 Open Data for Agriculture Conf Concluding Presser

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open-dataThe G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture is coming to an end. Interestingly, USDA held a concluding press conference to discuss results prior to the end of the conference. USDA Chief Scientist Dr. Catherine Woteki outlined the federal government’s new Food, Agriculture and Rural data community, which offers a catalog of over 300 data sets as well as numerous apps, tools and statistical products. The community can be found on www.data.gov. Its creation was announced at the start of the conference by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

We are hoping to interview a participant in the conference to learn more about what they took away and will post that here as soon as we are able to do so.

In the meantime, you can listen to the concluding press conference here: USDA Open Data Conference Wrap Up Presser

Preview of Open Data for Agriculture Conference

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Dr. Catherine WotekiUSDA just held a preview press conference for next week’s G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture. On the phone with the press were USDA Chief Scientist Dr. Catherine Woteki and Dr. Simon Liu, Director of the National Agricultural Library. There are plans to do live streaming during the conference and people are encouraged to tweet about the conference with the hashtag, #OpenAgData.

open-dataThe conference, to be held in Washington, D.C., will bring together innovators from all over the world to discuss the importance of open agricultural data to increased food security across the globe, as well as in opening doors for public/private partnerships and economic growth. Woteki and Liu will explain that data is among the most important commodities in the world. By making our data accessible and encouraging others to do the same, we will enable collaborations of data users that will spur innovation and drive economic growth. A number of African countries will be represented at the conference and Woteki and Liu will preview some of the announcements expected to be made during the event.

You can listen to or download the press conference here: USDA Open Data Conference Presser

Happy iPad mini Winner

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Nick Leibold iPad mini winnerHere’s our happy iPad mini winner, Nick Leibold. Thanks to his wife, Kendra, for taking the photo. She says Nick will put it to good use on the farm.

Since Nick is standing in front of a John Deere tractor I wonder if he’ll have to get one of their new custom mobile device mounts for the cab! I’m sure we’ll see more and more of those popping up on the farm accessory list!

We thoroughly enjoyed our contest and want to thank everyone who entered once again. Hopefully we’ll get to do it again soon.

Backup Today and Don’t Become an April Fool

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World Backup DayHappy Easter which is falling on World Backup Day. Have you taken the pledge to back up your data?

The World Backup Day Pledge

I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and precious memories on March 31st. I will also tell my friends and family about World Backup Day – friends don’t let friends go without a backup.

It is very important that you should not only do this today but very regularly. With all the talk we’re hearing about “big data” keep in mind that is only useful if you have it. Catastrophes happen. Don’t let it happen to your data. Here at ZimmComm New Media, we are backup fanatics and archive the masters of all our photos, audio and video files.

I get asked about this quite a bit and have been meaning to write about it. World Backup Day reminded me to get it done.

Here’s our work flow for backing things up.

1. Local computer backups

Each of our computers has a local backup of all data. For our PC’s I have them automatically backup to our shared server. The server is a computer itself that resides on our office network system. We’re currently using an HP Home Server unit that has a capacity of about 4TB of data. Each computer is backed up weekly or in the case of a laptop, whenever it is connected to the network after being on a long road trip. The server has built in syncing software which allows us to create custom settings for each machine’s backup. You can use other software on your computer to sync straight to an external hard drive. I use a program called SyncBack for this.

For our Macs I use Time Machine, which is part of the Mac OSX operating system. Time Machine backs up to a small local hard drive. I have tried many of them and the most reliable seem to be Seagate external hard drives. I travel with one that holds up to 500GB of data. This small hard drive also serves as a great place to temporarily store photos/audio/video until I archive them which I’ll go into later.

Regardless which type of smart phone or tablet you’re using today, this local backup can play an important role with them, not just your computer itself. If you’re using an iPhone or iPad then make sure you sync with iTunes often to keep your device backed up. I can just about guarantee you’ll be glad you did. The same goes with your Android device or whatever you may be using.

2. Cloud computer backups

Besides this local backup we use BackBlaze to back up computer data regardless of being PC or Mac. It is less expensive than other options and very simple to use. Some of those other options include Apple’s iCloud, which I use for syncing all my Mac/iPhone/iPad data, Google Cloud Storage, Dropbox, which we use for sharing all kinds of files easily, and of course services like Carbonite. There are lots of choices for cloud backups today. Their benefits include the fact that your data can be available from anywhere, anytime, if you need it. Continue reading →

The ROI of Smart Machine Technology

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Dr. Terry KastensDr. Terry Kastens is an Emeritus Professor from Kansas State University. He’s back to farming now and spoke during a Learning Center Session at Commodity Classic sponsored by John Deere. The session topic was “Better Data, Better Decisions: the ROI of Smart Machine Technology.

One of the first points Dr. Karstens makes is that every new technology requires an investment. That provides an opportunity for larger farms who can spread their investment out over more acres, or units of production. This is why you would expect larger farms to adopt new technology quicker than smaller farms. He says that we can expect to see more consolidation in row crop farms analogous to what we’ve seen in the livestock industry.

Another point made in the presentation was that some technologies are adopted at a rapid rate and others at a much slower rate. In the precision ag sector an example of quick adoption is the use of yield monitors. But he says that making sense out of yield monitor data and actually varying rates of fertilizer as one example are being adopted much slower.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Kastens to hear more of his comments on this: Interview with Dr. Terry Kastens

Dupont PrecisionPac Herbicide Solutions

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Dupont Crop Protection PrecisionPac HerbicidesDuring Commodity Classic this year Dupont Crop Protection surveyed grower attendees and found that more than half of U.S. corn, soybean and wheat growers have changed their herbicide tank-mix strategies within the last three years. Changes include using new, different or more herbicides in the same spray tank. Nearly 67 percent of growers surveyed said they or a farm employee handle all herbicide tank mixing on their farm. The rest said they rely on custom applicators to do some or all of the job. The number one reason given for changing tank mixes was dealing with or preventing herbicide-resistant weeds. Ranking close behind was the desire to improve crop yield by reducing weed competition.

To help growers find a solution Dupont has created PrecisionPac custom blended herbicides. I got a tour of PrecisionPac from Davide Schuur, Cereal Portfolio Manager at DuPont. As he’ll demonstrate in the video below PrecisionPac creates custom dry soluble formulations for customers.

A Recorder to Take to the Field

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iRig Recorder AndroidI’m not sure how many of you want or need to have an audio recorder handy when you’re out in the field but . . . Maybe you’ll want to take some notes so you don’t forget something when you’re field scouting, planting or harvesting. If so, here’s an app for your iOS or Android device you might consider using. It’s a simple recording app but it can also be a very powerful audio editing app if you want to get into some podcasting as you agvocate for your business and industry!

It’s the iRig Recording app which is now available for both the iOS and Android platforms. I’m not sure it will become my favorite recording app but I’ll be giving it a try on my Samsung Galaxy Note II and iPhone 5.

It’s a Field Recorder that’s always in your pocket.

Mobile recording and editing app

iRig Recorder is a powerful audio recording app for your mobile device that is convenient and easy to use. Now you can have a professional recording tool at your fingertips anytime, anywhere with intuitive and practical editing and export functions. Capture that great sound bite, inspiring speech, entire lecture or first words easily with your mobile device wherever life takes you.

If you’re interested in this type of app let me know. I’ve used a number of them and would be happy to share.

See Your Machine in the Field

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Kathy Michael John Deere“Machine & Agronomic Data Management: Maximizing Your Productivity” is the title of a Commodity Classic WIN session sponsored by John Deere. One of the presenters was Kathy Michael, Senior Product Manager, John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group.

The way that John Deere is helping farmers maximize their machine and agronomic data is with JD Link, their telematic platform, which is based on wireless communications available on mobile devices as well as table top computers. “Our goal is to make it easier for our customers to collect the data in the field, to see their machines in the field, to see their operators in the field and bring it in to one spot.” Kathy says feedback from customers includes “the more we know about what’s going on, the less phone calls, the less CB radio connections and running out to the field that they need to do.”

Listen to my interview with Kathy here: Interview with Kathy Michael

2013 Commodity Classic Photo Album



Balance GT Press Conference

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MS Technologies Press ConferenceWe published the announcement of the new Balance Gt soybean varieties that will available in 2015 just prior to the recent Commodity Classic in Kissimmee, FL. After that announcement MS Technologies and Bayer CropScience held a press conference for ag media to discuss the product launch and new name.

On the stage are Lauren August, MS Technologies Brand Manager, and Eric Peters, Bayer CropScience Soybean Herbicide Product Manager. These new soybean varieties are giving farmers more choices.

When growing Balance GT soybeans, growers will have the flexibility to use both glyphosate and isoxaflutole during burndown, pre- or post-emergence to achieve broad spectrum weed control of both grasses and broadleaf weeds. Rotating crops, herbicide modes of action and herbicide tolerant traits are good stewardship practices, and three of the best ways growers can achieve effective weed resistance management.

Listen to the MS Technologies press conference to learn more here: MS Technologies Press Conference

2013 Commodity Classic Photo Album

Dupont Pioneer Introduces Field360 Services

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Pioneer Press ConferenceDupont Pioneer held a news conference at the recent Commodity Classic to introduce a new set of services.

The focus of the press conference was the new Pioneer Field360 services. These new services are meant to help farmers increase productivity and profitability by providing more control of field-by-field data without having to become a technical expert.

Pioneer Field360The Pioneer Field360 Services include agronomic decision support tools which are ready for this growing season. They include Pioneer Field360 Notes which streamlines and organizes field-by-field agronomic information among the farmer and Dupont Pioneer agronomists and sales professionals. It is mobile access ready by being compatible with iPad, iPhone and Android devices. There’s also a Plantability App to scan seed tags to indicate suggested planter settings.

Also coming later this season will be Pioneer Field360 Select which is a mobile subscription service. Like the others this service is mobile device compatible.

Listen to the Dupont Pioneer press conference to learn more here: Dupont Pioneer Press Conference

2013 Commodity Classic Photo Album

Aerial Precision Ag Helicopters

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Aerial Precision AgHelicopters are just plain cool, especially if you can operate them by remote control. The Aerial Precision Ag booth at AG CONNECT Expo sold out of their new Multi Ready to Fly units! Using mini hand controlled helicopters for precision ag field imaging work got a lot of attention. These four rotor units were also being demonstrated right on the floor.

I visited with Halee Janes, Aerial Precison Ag, a sister company to Cirrus Rotors, to learn more about these new units they were demonstrating. In the video below you can watch Halee explaining the new units and a short demonstration of them.

Halee says the ag industry can really benefit from aerial imagery for things like checking storm damage, crop production, water damage and getting that information very quickly. The footage from the included camera is stored on an SD card which you would remove and plug in to your computer. The starter kits on sale at the show include everything a farmer needs in a box. Included are a Hero GoPro 3 camera with an SD card that holds about an hour of footage. She says you can quickly get an aerial look at 60 acres, as in just a few minutes. These units can withstand about a 10-15 mph wind, travel up to 2 miles and as high as 400 feet. The batteries included give you about 16 minutes of flight time with wind and heat being the main variables. The units are also pretty customizable as long as you consider the weight.

You can listen to my interview with Halee here: Interview with Halee Janes

Being a Good Steward of Treated Seeds

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ASTA Seed Treatment GuideA guide to seed treatment stewardship is a new project by the American Seed Trade Association along with a collaboration of seed companies, researchers and organizations like CropLife America, National Corn Growers Association and Farm Bureau. Growers will soon find “The Guide to Seed Treatment Stewardship” online.

I spoke with Andy Lavigne, ASTA President/CEO, during Commodity Classic about this project which is very timely since growers are getting ready to get back out in the field. The guide will answer questions like, “How can I protect my treated seeds; What environmental factors should I consider when planting treated seeds; Am I following state and federal regulations for treated seed and What should I do with unused treated seed?”

Right now growers have an incentive to visit and sign up for notifications at www.seed-treatment-guide.com. Two lucky people will win a $500 cash prize!

Listen to my interview with Andy here: Interview with Andy Lavigne

2013 Commodity Classic Photo Album