I have lots of favorite The Far Side cartoons. One of my favorites is one that fits my mood as of late. I would like to reprint it here so you can get the full effect but, you know, with copyright laws and all, I would perhaps be writing my next column from a jail cell.

So picture this. A student is raising his hand in a school class and says to the teacher, “Mr. Osborne, may I be excused? My brain is full.”

With this new API integration, Fusionware simplifies data acquisition for farm managers, agronomists, and data analysts. This new integration enables Fusionware to sync on-farm data seamlessly. Regarding machine assets, Fusionware can easily track data from the John Deere Operation Center for total run-time, idle time, and location. For precision ag metrics, this data includes acres planted by field, seed spacing, and harvest data that syncs John Deere’s data sets directly with Fusionware.

Fusionware’s focus since 2020 has been to optimize the entire farming operation by minimizing duplicate input into multiple systems.

www.fusionware.com

National Potato Council Welcomes New Program Coordinator

The National Potato Council (NPC) has welcomed new Program Coordinator Madeleine Poulin to assist the council as it promotes the interests of U.S. potato growers, their families, and the rural communities they support.

“Madeleine will be a tremendous addition to the team,” said Kam Quarles, NPC CEO. “As a recent college graduate with a passion for the agriculture industry, she brings a fresh perspective and vision to the organization as we continue to stand up for America’s potato growers on Capitol Hill.”

A 2022 graduate of Elon University in Elon, North Carolina, Poulin earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in environmental and sustainability studies and policy studies, with a concentration in sustainable food production. In 2021-22, she interned at the university’s student-run Loy Farm and Garden, where she gained hands-on experience in farming and business management. Through her coursework, Poulin also visited farms in North Carolina and spoke with farmers about their experiences, needs, and challenges.

As harvest equipment and growers become faster and more efficient at loading storages, it’s essential for ventilation systems to keep up. Faster loading time results in greater heat load per day being put away than ever before. Between field heat and heat of respiration it is critical the ventilation system can keep up to ensure a successful start to a long storage season. This additional heat is compounded by the current trend of increasing ambient temperatures during harvest (Figure 1). Current storage designs offer storage managers more tools than before but how do we best use them?

Removing field heat more quickly has another benefit – disease management. As Nora Olsen, Mike Thornton, and Phil Nolte have described in the article, Harvest Temperature Consequences, when pulp temperatures are warm, the chance of potatoes becoming infected with Pythium dramatically increases. Additionally, pink rot can develop if inoculum is present. The article goes on to describe how proper airflow is essential to addressing these issues. Other articles such as Diagnosis and Management of Potatoes Storage Diseases, also by Nora Olsen, Jeff Miller and Phil Nolte, explains how cooler temperatures in storage reduce and slow the spread of disease. This will only be possible if the field heat can adequately be removed.

The Mayo Telescoping Loader quickly fills the planter to complete the efficient planting operation for more acres per day. This high-capacity loader is very durable with a variety of uses including transloading, short-term piling and truck loading. Options include wireless remote control. A very versatile machine for your operation.

No single strategy consistently reduces PVY incidence from year to year or location to location. As a result, current recommendations are to incorporate multiple tactics. In this article, one of several recommended strategies — use of a crop border — is discussed.

Understanding how PVY is moved is the first step to devising strategies to manage it. PVY is acquired from infected plants and transmitted to healthy ones by aphids. Dozens of aphid species are capable of vectoring PVY, and they do so in a non-circulative, stylet-borne (and non-persistent) manner. Furthermore, an aphid can pick up PVY particles on its mouthpart (stylet) quickly while it probes infected plants in its search for a plant on which it can feed. The virus particles are then rapidly released from the aphid’s stylet as the aphid moves to a new plant and continues to probe. The entire process of taking up the virus from an infected plant and transmitting it to a healthy one can take less than a few minutes, before insecticides can kill the aphid.

With this acceptance, the Teton Russet becomes the ninth variety of potato to be used by McDonald’s in North America.

“We’re proud to add the Teton Russet to our short list of potato varieties used to make one of our customers’ favorite menu items – our World Famous Fries,” says Daniel Roche, McDonald’s Global Quality System Manager, Agricultural Products. “All our potatoes meet a set of strict standards for everything from size and shape to varietal, color and storability – and the Teton Russet has proven to produce golden, crispy fries with a fluffy baked potato inside and our unique signature flavor that our customers love.”

The Teton Russet has already begun rolling out to suppliers/restaurants as early as August as harvest began in the Pacific Northwest.

The organization represents Red River Valley potato growers with a purpose of development and promotion of quality potatoes and potato products. These growers combined, raise over 80,000 acres of process (fry), chip, fresh and seed potatoes in North Dakota and Minnesota.

In partnership with Ten Acre Marketing, a Grand Forks-based agricultural marketing consulting firm, the name and design of the grower organization was reimagined. The primary logo mark features a red N encircled with a small carrot arrow pointing up, indicating north on a compass. The secondary mark further supports this image and includes the state outlines of North Dakota and Minnesota, and well as the new tagline: Generations of Flavor.

This year EPA participants (many of whom were new hires during COVID) were provided information on pest management related to growing seed and in the pre-plant, planting, in-the-field, and post-harvest stages. They had the opportunity to spend time in the fields and in the facilities where their decisions will be implemented with all the potential consequences, both negative and positive, that may result. Presenters included growers, extension educators and researchers from across the country on weeds, pathogens, nematodes and insects.

Today, potato producers are in a battle against chaotic economic circumstances. Whatever the source of this chaos, whether politicians, economists, or global influences, economic chaos rules the day. These are some of the most challenging economic times people in business today have ever faced. Navigating this unpredictability is a serious matter. How to succeed from now until calm returns is the challenge, and calm is not just around the corner.

Recent legislation makes clear that most politicians have learned nothing from previous mistakes.