Dear Future Crop Tour Participants,
It's almost time to hit the road on the News from the Coffee Shop’s Buchanan County Crop Tour! With a pretty good planting season and a great growing season, the 2011 Crop Tour will undoubtedly be a closely watched county event in its first year.
By coming along on the Tour, you'll be involved in the first widespread county survey of this year's corn and soybean crop potential. Tour participants will learn more about the crop faster than anyone else in the county or industry and have the chance to compete amongst other scout teams in a yield estimation contest.
The format of the Tour will be as follows: We'll gather at the starting point- Vogel Crop Service’s new building in Independence on Aug. 20, 2011, at 9:00 a.m. for orientation. At this meeting, we will form scout teams, match up riders with drivers and make everyone comfortable with the sampling procedure and yield estimation contest. Scouts will travel by vehicle in 4 separate scout teams to allow for coverage in all four districts of the county. Each scout team will travel to producer’s fields located in their district and be estimating yields for both corn and soybeans.
Two pre-determined local producers have been identified within each of the counties 16 townships. These producers have been directed to select 1 field of corn and 1 field of soybeans for the scout teams to measure and provide the teams with the particulars on each field. These producers have also agreed to provide actual yield results in the fall in order to determine our Yield Estimation Contest winners. They will also be invited to the tour’s evening gathering back at the starting point to share their crop insights with the group.
The official truck of this year’s Crop Tour is Chevrolet, and we are proud to have 4 donated Chevrolet trucks from Dunlap Motors identified as the lead scout vehicle in each district. District scout team leaders will be operating these vehicles and be responsible for determining their team’s route, measuring details, lunch stop, and overall contest success on tour day. Noon meals will be on your own and you will likely be stopping at one of Buchanan counties great bar and grills depending on the district you’ll be in. Your four district scout team sponsors are: Don’s Insulation- Donnie Struael, Bob Hanson- Pioneer Brand Products, Aurora Elevator, Inc., and Security State Bank.
Be sure to make plans for this Tour! Saturday night's final stop and grill out back at Vogel Crop Services building in Independence promises to be exceptional! Producer participation on this year's Tour is critical to its success. We hope to offer preliminary tour reports that evening during the grill out. This format has been designed to allow for plenty of time to network with other tour participants and local producers who share critical insight and understanding into our local crop conditions.
The information gathered is sure to have great value and be well worth the time and effort. Even if you can't attend the entire Tour, please feel free to join the scouting effort for a few hours or stop by that evening for camaraderie and results.
There will be updates and more details about the Crop Tour available on the News from the Coffee Shop blog from time to time as they become available. The address to this site is www.peteburmeister.blogspot.com. All Crop Tour results, contest winners, and pictures will be posted on this website, so be sure to check it often for updates.
Please RSVP to Pete Burmeister at 319-327-0806 or prburmeister@gmail.com by August 5, 2011 if you plan to attend the tour and participate in the Yield Estimation Contest.
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