This is an exciting day. Our company is announcing today the release of four new Latham Hi-Tech Seeds corn hybrids with Genuity SmartStax technology.

You can read the entire announcement here.

We’ve been working with Monsanto a long time, incorporating their leading-edge technologies into our seed production. The Genuity/ SmartStax launch looks to be a new threshold in seed technology benefits and innovation. Above- and below-ground pest control, plus RR2 and LibertyLink tolerance, all in one seed. It’s amazing what crop science has achieved, especially in just the past 15 years or so.

Please give us a call in Alexander if we can answer any further questions about our new products or any other Latham offerings. We’re always here to help.

Latham® and “bringing world-class technology home” are trademarks of Latham Hi-Tech Hybrids, Inc. SmartStax^TM multi-event technology developed by Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto. SmartStax, the SmartStax Logo, Genuity, YieldGard VT PRO,YieldGard VT Rootworm/RR2, VT Triple PRO and Roundup Ready are trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC.

®HERCULEX is a registered trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC.
®Liberty Link is a registered trademark of Bayer CropScience.

As the email accompanying this video said, “A good rhythm section is hard to find.” This appears to be a Hungarian video, according the the YouTube file information. Old tractors still have a place in this world. The band isn’t bad, either.

A local power company — Alliant Energy — has begun construction of Whispering Willow Wind Farm in Franklin County. The first wind mill components started rolling in last week and the county’s first wind turbine will soon be constructed. These things are huge! Much bigger than they appear from far away.

According to wind energy experts, a completed wind turbine costs upwards of $2 million. It takes, on average, about 14 semi trailers carrying towers, blades and mechanical housing units to install one turbine. Right now, wind-generated power accounts for 1% of all energy generated in the U.S. by public and private utilities. That 1%, however, constitutes displacement of 29 million tons of coal and 90 million barrels of oil a year. The federal goal is to generate 20% of our power through wind by 2030. Iowa has surpassed California now as the second largest producer of wind energy, behind Texas.

In between showers, our research team has been getting our corn showcase plots planted. These pictures show Bill Latham and Gary Bennett planting our Latham® corn showcase plot near Alta, Iowa. True to the season, this photo was taken after Bill and Gary got wet from a brief shower.

Latham Hi-Tech Seeds planted six corn showcase plots between May 4-6. Four more plots were planted between May 11-13. The seeds were planted with the company’s new corn plot air planter, complete with computer equipment that controls the drop rate and length of row per plot.

It’s part of the itinerary for a sweet road trip coming up this summer. Guess where it is and what it is.

 This “Today Show” piece on Twitter is a nice summary for those are still trying to figure out all the fuss about Twitter. The Twitter nation has been getting a lot of attention lately. It is really easy to get a Twitter account created and your first “tweets” started.  I would also think that farmers tweeting from their combines or from the barn or feedlot would be a lot more interesting that most people’s tweets, which are usually done from their desk or their home, focused on riveting topics such as cleaning the sink or trying to figure out which socks to wear. Twitter may go down as one of the greatest communication tools ever devised, or one of the biggest twops (that’s short for Twitter flop).

Click here if the embedded video from NBC doesnt’ appear below.