The Arkansas State Plant Board is considering recommendations for dicamba use in the 2018 growing season that Monsanto calls “unwarranted” and BASF considers to be a “rush to judgement.” On August 24, the state’s Dicamba Task Force voted to recommend a cutoff date of April 15 next year for the use of all dicamba products, including Monsanto’s XtendiMax and BASF’s …
John Deere Acquires Blue River Technology
Deere & Company has signed an agreement to acquire Blue River Technology, a leader in applying machine learning to agriculture based in Sunnyvale, California. As an innovation leader, Blue River Technology has successfully applied machine learning to agricultural spraying equipment and Deere is confident that similar technology can be used in the future on a wider range of products, May …
SMART Farmer Robb Fraley
Robb Fraley isn’t our typical SMART Farmer, but after growing up on a small Illinois farm, his work has helped farmers around the world produce food more sustainably with science and technology that has helped increase yields by decreasing threats to crops. That technology is genetic modification of plants, creating GMO crops that are resistance to insects and disease, able …
Bayer Showcases Cotton and Peanuts
The peanut and cotton crops are looking especially good right now in Georgia and with harvest still about two weeks away farmers are hopeful Hurricane Irma will spare them. “Harvest season is always critical and you can have a great year and it all be ruined by one hurricane,” said Keith Rucker, Bayer Southeast region technical service rep, during a …
GROWMARK Supports Hurricane Harvey Relief Efforts
GROWMARK has donated $50,000 to support relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey through the Midwest Food Bank, a Salvation Army First Responder organization. The contribution was made through The GROWMARK Foundation, GROWMARK’s philanthropic arm which supports not-for-profit charitable organizations. GROWMARK’s donation will enable the Midwest Food Bank and the Salvation Army to continue their important mission for as long as there …
Wisconsin Sends Cheese to Houston
Driven by online conversations shortly after Hurricane Harvey, The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board (WMMB) coordinated a state-wide effort with Wisconsin cheesemakers to send almost 20,000 pounds of cheese to Houston to provide nutritious food for those affected by Hurricane Harvey. On Friday, September 1, WMMB employees, cheese company employees and dairy farmers, packed a delivery truck in Madison with over …
Mid-Missouri Energy Goes John Deere Green
Mid-Missouri Energy (MME) in Malta Bend, Missouri is home to a new piece of equipment that has helped make the grounds around the ethanol plant a little greener. MME General Manager Chris Wilson won the John Deere ZTrak Z925M Flex Fuel commercial mower during a raffle at the Renewable Fuels Association 2017 National Ethanol Conference. The E85 used in the …
GROWMARK FS at 2017 FPS
GROWMARK and the FS System are the official agronomy and fuel suppliers for the Farm Progress Show every year, providing the inputs to grow the crops for the field demonstrations and fueling all of the vehicles and machinery on site with Dieselex Gold. This year the cooperative also helped celebrate the success of Illinois’ Nutrient Loss Reduction strategy and were …
Bayer and 4-H Launch Science Matters
Opening day of the Farm Progress Show, Bayer and the National 4-H Council announced a new partnership for future innovators in science and technology to help feed a growing population. The nationwide collaboration, Science Matters, is designed to address the need for an enhanced STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workforce by planting a love of scientific exploration in young …
Verdesian Life Sciences Introduces FlexConnect™
At the 2017 Farm Progress Show, Verdesian Life Sciences introduced FlexConnect™, the first closed transfer system for soybean inoculants. Combined with a mixing port, FlexConnect enables applicators to handle and mix inoculants of any volume straight from the packaging, without transferring to a separate tank. This saves applicators time and money by minimizing the waste normally associated with inoculant mixing. …
SPOT 6/7 Imagery to Feed Satshot’s Mapping Platforms
Airbus Defence and Space has entered into an agreement with the GIS mapping engine operator Satshot to provide high-resolution SPOT 6/7 satellite data over a large area of the corn and wheat belt within the continental United States. SPOT 6/7 data is integrated into the Satshot platform, which can be used for deep analysis of specific farmland for further improved …
Harvey Hits Texas Agriculture
Rescuing people trapped in flood waters continues to be the number one priority in Texas but it’s clear that Hurricane Harvey has hit agriculture hard. Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Sid Miller says cotton farmers who were looking at a bumper crop this year were especially hard hit. “Best estimate so far is about a 150 million dollar loss for the …
NFU Announces Biofuels Initiative
National Farmers Union (NFU) has announced an initiative “to advance federal policies that support homegrown and home-produced renewable energy sources.” The effort follows a special order of business that was passed by delegates to the NFU 115th Anniversary Convention in March supporting expanded markets for higher blends of ethanol, like E30, and advanced biofuels. NFU’s initiative is supported by all …
GROWMARK and COFCO Announce Grain Partnership
A new grain partnership was created on Friday between agricultural cooperative GROWMARK, Inc. and global supply chain agribusiness COFCO International Limited (CIL) providing a direct link from farmers in the Midwest to the global marketplace, and China in particular. The partnership includes joint ownership and operation of the barge, truck, and rail terminal at Cahokia, Ill., with frontage on the …
Feed A Bee Plantings for Honey Bee Day
The Bayer Bee Care program launched the grant initiative, Feed a Bee in 2015 with a goal of planting 50 million flowers. They’ve now distributed more than 3 billion wildflower seeds and the organization is moving forward with a grander goal- to facilitate forage plantings or enhancements in every state by the end of 2018. August 19th is National Honey …