A Tribute to the Women who choose Agriculture

 

A big thank you to everyone who shared pictures for this special tribute to women in agriculture!  Likewise, thank you to everyone involved in the agriculture industry!  Your hard work, dedication and passion is amazing!

Spring Safety Tips: Anhydrous Ammonia

It won't be long now before nurse tanks will be seen throughout the countryside in preparation for the much anticipated spring season.  With that comes the application of anhydrous ammonia.  When handled, transported and applied properly, anhydrous can be a very efficient and effective fertilizer. 

Your safety and security is of the utmost importance to the Landmark team.  Therefore, before heading to the fields please take a moment to review these important safety tips!

General Anhydrous Information

• Anhydrous is not a poison, but it is very corrosive to human tissue and internal organs.
• It is colorless in both its liquid and gaseous forms.
• When released from its container, anhydrous expands to 850 times its liquid volume.

Anhydrous Transportation Information

• As classified by the U.S. Department of Transportation, anhydrous is a regulated hazardous material and is classified as a "non-flammable gas."
• All anhydrous nurse tanks must be marked with a slow moving vehicle sign.
• When pulling nurse tanks, drivers need to keep as far as safely possible to the right of the road.  It is legal to drive on the shoulder, but extreme caution should be used to not get close to ditches.
• Tires on anhydrous nurse tanks are designed for use in fields, not on paved roads.  Drive slowly, as the tires are only rated for 25 mph.
• Avoid pulling anhydrous tanks at night, but if you must, use your vehicle flashers.  State law in Illinois requires that nurse tanks pulled at night have an amber rotating or flashing light.
• Use the safety chains when transproting anhydrous ammonia.
• The most common transportation incident with nurse tanks are tank rollovers.  Remember that you are transporting a liquid in the tank, which slushes around and redistributes weight.  Go slowly while making turns and taking sharp corners.
• All transports of hazardous materials must come to a complete stop at all railroad crossings.

Anhydrous Application Safety

• Ensure hoses and quick couplers are in good working order and not passed their expiration date.
• Use the safety chains when pulling ammonia with applicators and toolbars.
• Always wear gloves and goggles when making and/or breaking hose connections, in addition to when opening valves.
• Make sure to bleed out all lines prior to removing hose connections. 

Wishing you a safe and prosperous spring season!



Matt Solymossy is Landmark's Safety Manager and brings with him over 10 years of agriculture safety experience and hands-on training.

Tribute to Women in Agriculture

Women play a very important role in farming operations, and we at Landmark would like to pay a special tribute to them, but we need YOUR help to do so! 

We’re creating a video tribute that will be shared via social media to highlight hardworking women in agriculture.  Participating is easy!  Simply:

·        Submit photos of women involved in agriculture or on the farm that can be used in this tribute video by uploading them to the Landmark Facebook page, or emailing kristi.olson@landmark.coop.

·        Photo submission deadline is April 23^rd, 2014.

·        For each photo entered, the submitter will be entered to win one of three $25 VISA gift cards.

·        The video will be released April 25^th, 2014. 

·        Share the completed video to help spread this very important message about agriculture!

Did you know:

·         Of the 3.3 million farm operators, over 1 million are women.

·         45% of all women operated farms specialize in raising livestock such as calves, horses, swine and sheep.

·        Women are now the principal operators of 14% of the nation’s 2.2 million farms.

Sources:  http://www.americasfarmers.com/2014/03/07/women-in-agriculture/

              www.agcensus.usda.gov

Business of the Week

 A special thank you to the Bank of Sun Prairie and 1310 WIBA for Landmark's recognition of "Business of the Week!"  The two have teamed up to honor the finest businesses in Madison, Dane County and the surrounding area to recognize the major contributions local businesses made to the community. 

National Ag Day!

Each and every day we are so grateful for those invovled in the agriculture industry. Today- on National Agriculture Day- we want to take a special moment and recognize everyone involved in helping to feed the world! Check out our short video, as we say THANK YOU!

The only thing constant in life is change: Landmark YieldEDGE Viewer can help!

"The only thing constant in life is CHANGE."  While this quote holds quite true to many people in their day-to-day lives, perhaps those that experiene constant change more than anyone else are those involved in the agriculture industry.  Weather, input prices and commodity prices, just to name a few, are constantly changing factors that farmers face daily. 

And while farmers don't have a crystal ball that they can use to see in to the future to help them predict these changes, they do have a new tool from Landmark that is the next best thing!  Landmark's brand new technology, the YieldEDGE Viewer, helps growers monitor crop yield, management and weather trends by field. 



Landmark's new YieldEDGE Viewer is user-friendly and is a great tool to assist growers with data management!

The YieldEDGE Viewer is a data management tool that shows growers all of their information that Landmark has compiled about their operation, based on each specific field.  This information can include:  yield maps, fertilizer rates applied each year, soil test data, multi-year yield analysis, seed varieties planted, historical prescriptions by field and historical weather trend's for the farm. 

This program allows for the Landmark team to digitize farms and fields and make educated decisions based on the yields and performance of fields in the past.  Once growers sign up for the YieldEDGE Viewer their field boundaries are created and data is collected and input, along past information on each specific field.

Growers can then log-in to the YieldEDGE Viewer at anytime to access their information.  This new technology allows growers and their Landmark agronomist to detect trends and look at yields, fertilizer applied, weather conditions that year and several other factors to help come up with solutions and ways to improve yields the following year.  Furthermore, they will be able to analyze the data right away and compare it to other growing seasons.



As shown in this screen shot from the YieldEDGE Viewer, many pieces of data are readily available for producers to easily access to help make informed management decisions!

This new technology also shows weather patterns, forecasts and trends.  Additionally, growers are invited to share the data they have collected themselves with the Landmark team to be added their YieldEDGE Viewer account information. 

"We're excited about this new data management technology that we are bringing to growers.  By providing solutions such as the YieldEDGE Viewer, we are able to help our members make important management decisions that will positively impact their operation," says Dan Moehn, Executive Vice President of Agronomy for Landmark Services Cooperative.

Growers interested in setting up an account for, or learning more about the YieldEDGE Viewer are encouraged to contact their Landmark agronomist or Gary Myers at 608.669.5553 or gary.myers@landmark.coop.

Dan Moehn is Landmark's Executive Vice President of Agronomy.  With a dual degree in ag business and dairy science, in addition to over 25 years of ag retail experience, Dan is a true agronomic industry leader.  He can be contacted at 608.819.3119 or daniel.moehn@landmark.coop. 

Real Life Farm Summit

You won't want to miss next week's Real Life Farm Summit! From work-life balance to time management and from goal setting to making time for everything, keynote speaker Roger Seip will share tips on how to make it all happen.

His enthusiastic, high-energy and outgoing personality is sure to inspire and motivate attendees. Check out a sneak peak of Roger Seip with his introductory video:

 

Additional details and breakout sessions for the event can be found here!