It has been a few days since the close of the Iowa Power Show. Years ago, when I first got to participate in the big, late January show we learned it was a week or two of preparation, knowing that we would be losing our speaking voices by the last hour. We got to visit with a multitude of customers we knew plus got introduced to complete strangers as well as people we had spoken to over the phone, but had never met in person. Everyone felt a sense of relief when it was over with. It feels a lot like showing animals at the county fair where you have been working with a steer all season long feeding it, washing and brushing it, teaching it to lead and then hope for the best. After fair time arrives and the next days become a whirlwind with so many things needing to be done. After the showings and auctions are over with, you can take a deep breath and say this year’s project is now complete. In retrospect it was lots of work, but it was worth it. For everyone that stopped by our booth, thanks for your time and attention. Realize that for everyone I got to spend a few minutes with, there were one or two more people waiting, but had a schedule to follow and they had to leave without chatting. Call any time to ask the question you had on your mind.
My Wednesday afternoon schedule got interrupted by a call from a local lawyer representing a client who needed two expert witnesses of which I had done the work to be one. A lucky phone call informed me the judge unexpectedly moved the schedule up 1.5 days and needed me in Boone by a certain time or was going to dismiss things. Making my way thru the show crowd, walking a few blocks to my car, making the 50-mile trip with ten minutes to spare without being guilty of speeding, and getting grilled for two and one half hours was moved to top priority.
A Sports Note
Most Iowa football fans had made watching the 49ers football team playing in the Super Bowl this coming Sunday a must. When else did we get to watch a major sporting event where the two top participants were Cyclone and Hawkeye players who acted like great sportsmen who enjoyed growing up in the Midwest and spoke highly of their time at their respective universities. Alas, as it so happens in a violent game, Brock got walloped by an opposing player and his passing skills he displayed the previous seven game never got to be demonstrated. Maybe next year. At least we get to see the Chiefs with their exciting quarterback who used to be chasing after his Minnesota Twin father, who was on their pitching staff years ago.
The Power Show
One negative about working at the power show and having a booth is that your ability to wander the rows and visit with the attendants is limited. You often don’t have a chance to see which person or company had a new product or idea on display. I did get the chance to go up and see the Greeneye booth and display. At this year’s, and last year’s show they had a section of their boom on display replicating the ones they have on their optically equipped Hagie Sprayers. They had two of their large Hagie operating in the vegetable fields in Arizona last February and March for the purpose of having their engineers fine turn them so they would be ready for the field trials scheduled for operation on farms west of Lincoln, NE.
Many of us had seen mockups and small articles about them in farm magazines, but wanted to see the real thing. The goals of the companies involved were to improve the efficiency of sprayers while minimizing the overspray and overapplication of product inherent with sprayers which are emitting their liquid mix full time in the fields. By setting up optical sensors on the booms, developing the artificial intelligence software package that was required, and coordinating all of the electronic switches so it worked as planned was a giant task. The project was the brainchild of two young Israeli engineers who spent years developing the software that the famous ‘The Nozzle Guy’ – Tom Wolf of Canada and Ohio State Univ declared was lightyears ahead in performance and accuracy. They had help in critiquing things and making suggestions as to how to best cope with wanting to function properly in the era of using overlapping residuals herbicides in today’s crops. Their goal is not to build sprayers, but to develop a strong, light weight boom that would fit on any of the major models of sprayers.
Drone Companies
At both the Farm Progress Show and Power Show there were quite a few booths showing off their aerial sprayers. The questions about them centered on how might they fit in to farmers operation. Could they compete with or replace a high clearance rig? I think it will be more a matter of how they may compliment the $400,000 sprayers. The 2018 and 2019 seasons had excessive rains all summer leaving many high clearance sprayers parked in the sheds or yards for weeks at a time, while the weeds kept emerging and growing taller by the day. In those instances, a larger drone could have been bought in to finish up fields that were half done or sprayed entire fields with pre or post herbicides. The characteristics of the sprayed product often determined which applications proved successful. Gallonage requirements, whether or not they were systemic or curative products were factors that determined if the results were acceptable. Timing, characteristics of the surfactants, temperatures and sunlight amounts during and after application all came into play. Systemic translocation and movement with low use rate products had a greater chance of being successful.
One area in which the drones will find their home will be with micronutrient and fungicide applications where amino acid complexed and chelated products are applied at ounces per acre and act systemically and curatively. We had the Albion Metalosate products spayed with drones and planes this year with great success. We got our feet wet in Aug of 2020 when there was a large influx of southern rust spores in areas just south of Iowa which caused extremely heavy infections of the red pustules erupting and turning all the leave red. Two ounces of chelated copper in two gallons of water gave outstanding control and nearly all the leaves returned to their dark green color and stayed that way for over 1.5 months. I had been around lots of fungicides, but had never seen any results like that before. Anyone wanting to see pictures look for them on our website. Before and after pictures. Also, if there is a phenoxy overspray or drift event, that can be rectified.
One other arena growers need to be aware of is that most crop disease issues are caused by fungal pathogens. If a disease starts causing problems in your fields that is bacterial in nature, what plans and what products might be labeled that you can get your hands on in quick fashion? When that happens in whatever country, most growers and most companies will be caught flatfooted. I am not saying that lightly. Keep your ears open.
Our Neighbors to the South
So, if one of our neighboring countries and one of our main grain customers start requesting a certain kind of grain, do we brow beat them and tell them they are ridiculous? I thought that rule #1 in business is to find out what your customers want and then do your best to deliver what they are asking for. I was informed last week by a person in the know why the Mexican government is asking for non-GMO grain. That applies to feed grains as well. Where might any manure be spread and what might it contain? It is economics and who they are wanting to send their Ag exports to. If there is going to be a premium attached to growing and delivering such grain, any opportunistic producer will want to gather all the facts, weigh his options, and then act accordingly. It’s a free country, or is supposed to be.
Fun with Balloons
When conversations about balloons pop up it is usually about your kid’s birthday party, someone’s graduation or a wedding ceremony. Who would have thought that the Chinese would be so bold as to send a ‘weather balloon’ on a flight entering over Montana dipping over the center of the country and then exiting over the Carolinas. If it was a weather balloon, as the CCP claimed, they should not be worried about divers recovering it on Sunday in shallow water off the coast in preparation of examining the equipment it was carrying. There are also confirmed reports that another balloon was spotted flying across the South American country of Columbia. Maybe they were just picking up some fresh coffee beans?
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.