By Rob Hotakainen

WASHINGTON — Pop the corks: After years of talk and delay, a historic trade pact between the United States and South Korea kicks in Thursday, and officials predict it will increase wine exports from Washington state by 40 to 50 percent in the first year alone.

The reason: The Korean cuisine relies heavily on beef, and marketers expect Koreans will want a whole lot more of the state’s red wines now that a 15 percent tariff is getting scrapped.

“This is a great opportunity for Washington wine. … This will really widen the door,” said Marty Clubb, co-owner and winemaker at L’Ecole No. 41 Winery, the third-oldest winery in the Walla Walla Valley. He said his company already has been in the Korean market for six years but will now have a big chance to expand.

“The interest in high quality wine is clearly there,” Clubb said.

Officials say it’s just one example of what to expect as the two nations officially expand opportunities for trade.

Despite the slow economic recovery, Washington state exports hit an all-time high in 2011, rising 21 percent over the previous year to $64.6 billion. And officials say that implementing the new trade pact, first negotiated by the George W. Bush administration, will provide an immediate boon for agriculture in the nation’s most trade-dependent state.

Congress signed off on the new trade deal in October, but it took months to finalize the details. Now, effective immediately, tariffs will be lifted on a wide range of products, including cherries, potatoes and apples, big crops for the Pacific Northwest.

As a result, Korean consumers _ at least in theory _ will pay lower prices for those products.

Officials say one of the biggest winners will be the state’s beef industry. Demand is expected to grow as a 40 percent tariff on beef is phased out over 15 years.

On Capitol Hill, members of the Washington state congressional delegation, who lobbied hard for the agreement, say it’s sure to fuel demand for the state’s products and help reduce unemployment.

“A lot of people have been waiting a long time for this,” Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell said Wednesday. “We’re a very trade-dependent state, and so when you can get trade deals done like with South Korea and open up huge market opportunities for markets like wine and cherries and beef, it means millions of dollars and jobs.”

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said the agreement “will level the playing field” and give the state’s businesses an opportunity to expand into growing markets.

“Too many of our state’s products have been slapped with tariffs by Korea for far too long,” she said.

Until now, for example, South Korea had imposed a 24 percent tariff on sweet cherries. Without it, consumers are expected to save from 75 to 90 cents per pound at the market, officials estimate.

And the trade pact is good news for Washington state potato growers, who produced 9.8 billion pounds of potatoes in 2011 and led the nation in per-acre yield. According to industry figures, nine of every 10 potatoes are sold outside of the state, with South Korea already ranking as the fastest-growing market for U.S. frozen potatoes.

With the trade deal now scrapping an 18 percent tariff on frozen French fries and other potato products, potato exports to South Korea are expected to rise by at least $35 million this year.

Matt Harris, assistant executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission in Moses Lake, Wash., said that getting rid of the tariff will make it easier for the U.S. to compete with growers in Canada, China, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

But he said it’s impossible to predict what the agreement will mean for Korean consumers because most of the frozen potatoes are sold to retailers in the food-services industry. On average, the commission estimates, 87 percent of the state’s potato crop is sold to processors who convert them into fries, chips and mashed potatoes.

“It’s going to be a free market,” Harris said.

Cantwell predicted that the pact will lead to lower prices.

“I would assume that that’s why people do it,” she said, adding that eliminating the tariffs will make it easier for South Korea and its “rich environment of consumers” to buy the state’s popular products.

“There’s a lot about Washington state that’s already known in Korea. … I think people view our agriculture products and things they’ve been able to access very positively,” she said.

Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire said she plans to visit South Korea later this year “to commemorate the new agreement” and to explore and develop new business ties for the state. She said the pact “is great news for Washington state” and called South Korea “one of our most important export markets.” Officials have been awaiting the March 15 implementation date since it was announced last month by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk after a final round of negotiations over the long President’s Day weekend.

Kirk predicted the pact will create “tens of thousands of export-supported jobs with better wages.”

The pact will make nearly 80 percent of U.S. exports of industrial products to South Korea duty-free, including aerospace equipment, agricultural equipment, auto parts, building products, chemicals, consumer goods, electrical equipment, environmental goods, all footwear and travel goods, paper products, scientific equipment and shipping and transportation equipment.

And nearly two-thirds of U.S. exports of agricultural products to South Korea will become duty-free, including wheat, corn, soybeans for crushing, whey for feed use, hides and skins, cotton, cherries, pistachios, almonds, orange juice, grape juice and wine.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Ryan Pennington of the Seattle-based Washington State Wine Commission, a state agency that represents grape growers and wineries.

Pennington said South Korea already is one of the most promising markets for Washington wines. His office is fielding more inquiries from large Korean importers and retailers looking to add more of the state’s wines to their portfolios.

“Wine consumption there is already very good, and the taste for wine by consumers is already very developed,” Pennington said. “So there’s an existing network of trade to plug into very quickly.”

South Korea is the fourth largest export market for Washington state goods, taking in $1.4 billion worth of agriculture exports from the state last year.

One of the two proposed food safety regulations released by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration has a direct impact on farm-level
activities associated with the production of fruits and vegetables grown
for human consumption. 

By:  Daryll E. Ray and Harwood D. Schaffer

One of the two proposed food safety regulations released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has a direct impact on farm-level activities associated with the production of fruits and vegetables grown for human consumption.

The regulations contained in the proposed rule, “Standards for the growing, harvesting, packing and holding of produce for human consumption,” are oriented toward farms that are responsible for the majority of the unprocessed fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S.

In developing this rule, FDA looked at major outbreaks of foodborne illnesses caused by contamination with microbiological hazards — primarily shiga-toxin producing E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Cyclospora, Shigella sonnei and Hepatitis A. “From 1996 to 2010, approximately 131 produce-related reported outbreaks occurred, resulting in 14,132 outbreak-related illnesses, 1,360 hospitalizations and 27 deaths.”

Exclusions from the rule are produce that is rarely consumed raw, produce that is used for personal or on-farm consumption, produce that is commercially processed and receives a “kill step” and farms that have an average value of food sold during each of the previous three years of $25,000 or less. Modified rules apply to farms between that level and $500,000 in average sales during the past three years.

While a large number of small producers are exempt from the proposed regulations, the regulations identify issues that are important for producers of all sizes to take into consideration.

The proposed standards fall into six major areas: worker training and health and hygiene; agricultural water; biological soil amendments; domesticated and wild animals; equipment, tools, and buildings; and sprouts.

While many of the proposed regulations fall into the “that’s obvious” category, serious illnesses and death can be traced to violations of various common sense procedures. As a result, FDA has had to codify a set of standards to protect all of us from illnesses caused by the mishandling of fruits and vegetables during their growing, harvesting, packing and holding.

While one would like to assume that rules would not be needed in the area of personal hygiene, that is the first area listed by the FDA. The new rule establishes qualification and training requirements for all personnel who handle covered produce and requires documentation of the required training. In addition, the rule established hygiene practices “needed to prevent persons, including visitors, from contaminating produce with microorganisms of public health significance.”

The second area primarily deals with agricultural water that comes in contact with the “harvestable portion of covered produce or food-contact surfaces.” This is primarily irrigation water and water that is used to wash or hydrate fruits and vegetables. The requirement is that the water be of “safe and … adequate sanitary quality for its intended use, including requirements for treating such water … monitoring its treatment” and maintaining appropriate records.

The proposed rule establishes “requirements for determining the status of biological soil amendment of animal origin,” prohibits the use of human waste for growing covered produce except in compliance with EPA regulations, establishes “requirements for treatment of biological soil amendments with scientifically valid … processes,” establishes “application requirements and minimum application intervals for untreated and treated biological soil amendments of animal origin,” and requires appropriate documentation.

The fourth area deals with wild and domestic animals and requires a reasonable waiting period between grazing and harvesting of covered produce.

The next area, equipment, tools and buildings establishes “requirements related to equipment and tools that contact covered produce and instruments and controls (including equipment used in transport), buildings, domesticated animals in and around fully-enclosed buildings, pest control, hand-washing and toilet facilities, sewage, trash, plumbing, and animal excreta;” and requires “certain records related to the date and method of cleaning and sanitizing equipment used in growing operations for sprouts, and in covered harvesting, packing, or holding activities.”

The sixth area of regulations is concerned with sprouts and establishes various measures with regard to growing of seeds or beans for sprouting along with measures that must be followed in the sprouting process. There are also requirements for testing of the growing environment and irrigation water for specific pathogens. Again, as in other areas, there is the requirement for documentation that appropriate procedures have been followed and results recorded.

Some of the rules seem common sense actions one would automatically take in growing fruits and vegetables. Others take a little more thought, but are grounded in problems that have caused serious outbreaks. While production costs and retail prices will be affected, one or more of these rules may prevent us from getting seriously ill, and thankfully, we may never know if it does.

Editor’s Note: Ray is the director of the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural Policy Analysis Center. Schaffer is a research assistant professor at APAC.

Precision farming–using sensors, automatic sprayers, and even drones and satellites–are letting farmers manage each plant in their fields perfectly, leading to farms that are much less resource intensive.

Michael J. Coren

Record-setting drought across the U.S. in recent years has pushed everyone to look for new ways to save water. So while nature and beer don’t always go together, it was natural for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to join forces with America’s beer brewers to change how farmer irrigate their crops. For the non-profit, conserving America’s rivers meant growing America’s barley, one of the primary ingredients in one of our favorite cold beverages, with less water.

The key is precision farming: the convergence of digital technology that allows farmers to apply just the right amount of fertilizer and water on their fields. Humans have practiced a rather crude form of agriculture for millennia: we douse fields to give them as much water and fertilizer as we think they need. Yet field conditions may differ drastically within a few feet.

Now measuring and application technologies from automatic sprayers to satellites are so cheap and effective, farmers can use precisely the right amount of resources on every square foot of a field. Experimental projects are even testing how to dispatch farm drones (crop-spying quadcopters for example) that measure everything from reflectivity to water loss to optimize the efficiency of a farm’s operations.

“From our perspective: what’s good for the farmer is good for the environment,” writes Lisa Park, a spokeswoman for TNC. The Conservancy first started working with farmers in Georgia while trying to protect freshwater mussels in the Flint River. It found that if it could divert water from fields, more remained for threatened wildlife. “What we’re doing in Georgia and Idaho is catching on around the world,” says Park. “Farmers are now making the switch using science and technology to supply the goods we need.”

In Idaho, the nonprofit is collaborating with MillerCoors to support farmers who upgrade their irrigation systems to new precision agriculture systems. Farmers have begun installing new sprinklers, nozzles, and computer-controlled irrigation covering thousands of acres that conserve millions of gallons of water each day. “As a brewer, we know that the area we can have the biggest impact in reducing water usage is within the agricultural supply chain,” wrote Kim Marotta, MillerCoors director of sustainability. “The learnings and savings in the first two years of the [pilot project] farms were significant–a cumulative 270 million gallons of water reduced.”

Farmers and the environment profit. Yet the central technology in this effort–variable rate irrigation (VRI)–wasn’t a commercial endeavor delivered directly to farmers clamoring for the technology. It took almost a decade of academic research before an unusual alliance of NGOs and local and state government agencies sought to commercialize the VRI technology in the private sector. A  successful grant-funded pilot project caught on among other farmers who are now applying it across acres in a dozen states, while major agricultural equipment manufacturers are promoting it.

Change in agriculture comes slow. Yet the promise of precision agriculture is to find the right mix of profit and environmental protection. “We are also seeing a changing of the guard,” writes TNC’s manager of Idaho’s Silver Creek Preserve. “The old timers are retiring (or dying) and the new farmers are looking for new and better ways of doing things.

The Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA) is now accepting nominations for the Agricultural Retailer of the Year Award. This award is sponsored by Monsanto Company, ARA and AgProfessional magazine and honors retailers who consistently exceed their customer’s expectations and serve as a positive example for other retailers through their outstanding, sustainable and innovative business practices.

The winner of the ARA Retailer of the Year Award will receive the following: two round-trip airline tickets and two nights of accommodations at the Trump Doral Resort in Miami, Florida for the ARA Conference & Exposition, Dec. 3-5, 2013; a round-trip flight to meet with Monsanto representatives and ARA officers for a VIP dinner and tour of Monsanto’s state of the art research facilities in St. Louis, Mo.; a special award presentation at the ARA Conference; and a beautiful crystal award to display at the retail facility. In addition, AgProfessional magazine will include a two-page article featuring the winning agricultural retailer in their magazine and on the ARA Retailer of the Year Award website at www.agprofessional.com/retailer-of-the-year.
The process for nominating a company to receive the ARA Retailer of the Year Award is simple. Click here and complete the online entry form by Friday, July 5, 2013. Retailers are also welcome to nominate their own operation for the award. A panel of judges will select finalists and determine a winner later this summer. The retailer finalists will be judged on the following criteria.
1. Effective Employee Relations

• Hires, trains and retains highly skilled, professional employees
• Competitive compensation & benefits plan
• Commits resources for employees to participate in professional certification and/or self-improvement programs

2. Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability

• Respect for the environment beyond compliance
• Implements daily practices that improve the environment and the image of our industry
• Demonstrates use of sustainable and financially sensible practices that help to conserve and protect our natural resources to ensure a safe environment and food supply now and for future generations.

3. Reliability

• Meets customer expectations, especially during the busiest time of the year
• Implements practices to reduce downtime (fleet management, preventive maintenance, etc.)

4. Community & Industry Leadership

• Civic involvement
• Local, state and national industry association involvement
• Must be an ARA member

5. Relationship Building

• Continually refines strategic alliances with customers, suppliers, employees and state and local governments
• Effective at managing risk associated with the ag retail business, and also help farmer customers manage their risks

6. Technology Utilization

• Embraces a business philosophy that maximizes revenue service streams by focusing on profitable customer services
• Turns raw customer data into more profitable crop production decisions

7. Innovative Business Practices

• Optimizes changing markets by providing personalized services (value added)
• Strives to diversify business strategies
• Implements cutting-edge management tools in all facets of retail business

For more information on the Retailer of the Year award, visit the ARA website at www.aradc.org

The Fertilizer Institute and Agricultural Retailers Association are encouraging fertilizer retailers to use the regulatory Compliance Assessment tool.

The following statement was released by W. Daren Coppock, president of the Agricultural Retailers Association and Ford B. West, president of The Fertilizer Institute:

“The fertilizer industry continues to extend its thoughts and prayers to the people of West, Texas, who are grieving for those in their town who were lost or injured.  We are watching closely as investigators determine what happened and upon a final determination of cause by the Chemical Safety Board we will work together to identify and apply any lessons learned. While that investigation continues, we are reaffirming our commitment to safe operations of fertilizer facilities by alerting the industry to the availability of an important tool to support compliance with existing federal regulations and associated best management practices.

The online Compliance Assessment tool for agricultural retail facilities, developed by the non-profit Asmark Institute, helps control risk and support the continual improvement of a retail dealer’s regulatory compliance effort. We greatly appreciate the Asmark Institute’s willingness to make this tool available free of charge to fertilizer retailers, and we encourage them to join with producers, importers, wholesalers and state fertilizer associations to help increase industry awareness of this and other means of regulatory compliance assistance. It is through the use of tools like this that we are taking steps to redouble our commitment to safety.”

The Compliance Assessment Tool is available here.

By Linda Geist, University of Missouri Extension

There is a simple, inexpensive way to reduce errors in herbicide applications and limit off-target chemical drift, says a University of Missouri Extension weed management specialist.

Kevin Bradley supports the ‘Flag the Technology’ program by the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

The idea is simple: Color-coded bicycle flags or similar markers placed at field entrances or other conspicuous locations indicate the use of different herbicide technologies.

The system, which is gaining popularity in the Midwest, can make the difference between a healthy crop and a damaged or dead one.

Missouri agricultural retailers who make custom applications to many areas are beginning to use the system.

“When they pull into a field to make a herbicide application, the flags help to assure them they have the right chemical in their tank to match the traits in that field,” Bradley said. “Also, they might be able to look at fields across the road, and if there are different colored flags in nearby fields, then applicators may think twice before spraying in windy conditions.”

Red flags signify conventional crop varieties with no herbicide technology traits while white may represent Roundup Ready technology that is tolerant to glyphosate.

Bright green indicates LibertyLink technology, which is tolerant to glufosinate.

Bright yellow is the color for Clearfield technology, which is tolerant to imazethapyr (Newpath) and imazamox (Beyond).

Multiple flags represent stacked technologies.

Preferred flags are 12-by-18-inch triangles (a little larger than the typical bicycle or ATV safety flag) mounted on 6-foot fiberglass poles.

Bradley said the flag method will likely gain significance in two to three years, when crops with new herbicide-resistance traits enter the marketplace.

Farmers and agricultural retailers who make herbicide applications to large acreages, deal with multiple employees and apply multiple products will find the program of great value.

A brochure about the Flag the Technology program is available at www.aragriculture.org/pesticides. A two-minute video overview from the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture is available at youtube/ChNGbU5TyOY.

Posted by Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

Last week, hundreds of innovators gathered at the World Bank IFC Center to brainstorm about how Open Data can be harnessed to help meet the challenge of sustainably feeding nine billion people by 2050.  The group included delegates from the G-8 group of nations, US Government officials, private sector partners, Open Data advocates, technology experts, and nonprofit leaders – all participants in the first-of-its-kind G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture.

The foundation for such collaboration was set by President Obama’s first ever global development policy which emphasizes broad-based economic growth, innovation, and partnership; and the President’s leadership on food security through the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative and Feed the Future.  Then, at the 2012 G-8 Camp David Summit, the G-8 nations, African partners, the private sector and civil society launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition and committed to host a conference focused on sharing relevant data to help advance agriculture and ensure food security for people around the world. At the end of the year, the White House hosted a Global Development Data Jam—the first high-level U.S. Government event to feature the potential of Open Data to address global challenges.

Last week’s G-8 “Open Ag Data” conference hosted by the USDA, built on this important groundwork by focusing on ways to ensure that Open Data about agriculture are not only available, but also put to good use. It also highlighted some excellent work that’s already underway and making positive change in the Open Ag Data arena, including:

• MFarm has built a mobile application that allows farmers to receive accurate, real-time crop-price information from five major markets in Kenya, via daily text message, six days per week. The service helps farmers to make informed decisions on what to plant when, how to price produce, and where to sell to the largest profit.  MFarm is currently refining their service and will soon begin integrating USAID data into their product to help deliver more accurate price information to users.
• INSEAD has introduced Toto Agriculture, a smartphone interface fueled by USAID data that provides village-specific agricultural data. Users can use this free application to access localized information on soil, pests, climate, and planting tips in over 100 languages.
• iPlant: A community driven collaborative of researchers, educators, and students working to enrich all plant sciences through the development of the cyberinfrastructure essential for modern biology. The collaborative can sequence the genome of an individual cow in 3 hours, taking the time of sequencing from months down to hours.

But this is just the beginning. At this week’s conference, USDA, USAID, and a number of other entities—both domestic and international—unleashed a host of new datasets, tools, and platforms—with more to come in the weeks and months ahead. For our part, the U.S. Government:

• Launched The Food, Agriculture, and Rural “data community” on Data.gov, which offers more than 300 datasets (and growing!) that relate to the social, economic, and environmental aspects of agriculture. For example, the new community offers Quick Stats—a comprehensive tool for accessing agricultural data profiles by subject area or commodity, such as crops and plants, or livestock. Over the next few months, USDA will make these data available in a robust Application Programming Interface (API) to enable easier sharing of data by third party applications and services.
• The Millennium Challenge Corporation released an open evaluation data catalog that contains household survey metadata from food security programs in Armenia, El Salvador, Ghana, and the Philippines, and more data is coming soon.
• Launched USAID.gov/Developer, a page that curates APIs and datasets specifically for developers looking to scrub in and work with open global development data. APIs include the U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants, or Greenbook, which encompasses all international aid funding allocations.  This data will help developers and researchers more dynamically parse these data, that goes all the way back to the Marshall Plan.

We can’t wait to see what entrepreneurs, nonprofits, researchers, scientists and others around the world do with these new resources, and what exciting innovations emerge. We’re also excited to strengthen our partnership with other countries and the private sector to further liberate data and improve global food security.

The G-8 Open Data for Agriculture Conference was a great start.  We look forward to seeing the Open Ag Data movement continue—leveraging data, collaboration, and innovation to accelerate progress toward our food security goals.

There are steps you can take right now to get involved in the Open Ag Data movement:

• Visit the new Food, Agriculture, and Rural data community on Data.gov
• Join the conversation about Open Agriculture Data using the hashtag #OpenAgData on Twitter
• Check out USAID’s new Developer Resource Page
• Read a blog and watch a video from the G-8 Open Agriculture Data conference.

Todd Park is the US Chief Technology Officer

Tom Vilsack is the US Secretary of Agriculture

By JIM OFFNER

WATERLOO, Iowa — Some farm shows focus on the end user of tractors, seed or other agriculture equipment.

The 28th annual Agricultural Machinery Conference, scheduled for Monday through Wednesday at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center and adjacent Ramada Hotel, focuses on the innovations behind those products, organizers say.

“This conference is a little different than other trade shows in the area,” said Jim Evans, a product engineer with Deere & Co. in Waterloo who has served as chairman of the event for all three years it has been held in Waterloo after it moved from Cedar Rapids. “The targeted audience is engineers from the agricultural machinery industry.”

Deere, and many other companies worldwide, will have employees at the conference, which includes numerous workshops, as well as a trade show.

“We have attendees from the major OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), such as John Deere, Case, and CAT, smaller shortline companies, such as Hagie and Kinze, and suppliers to the industry, both in terms of components, but also engineering services like Diedrichs and Associates and DISTek (Integration Inc.) in Cedar Falls,” Evans said. “Generally, this is not a conference that is attended by the end users — the farmer.”

But, much of what is discussed will concern farmers, the equipment they use and regulations they’ll have to meet, he said.

Fuel emissions are a case in point, Evans said.

“Final Tier IV emission regulations taking place in 2014 are a major topic at our event, with topics on engine solutions and support systems needed to meet probably the most drastic change in agricultural machinery ever,” he said.

Also scheduled are topics on a range of technologies that will be used to increase farmer efficiency and productivity, since growers will have to double production using the same inputs in the next 25 years, Evans said.

The event kicks off Monday with continuing education sessions at the convention center. Among the topics: Overviews of J1939 and ISO11783, Ductile and Compacted Graphite Iron Metal Castings, and Agricultural Tire Design and Applications.

A tour of the John Deere Engine Works is scheduled Monday afternoon. Opening ceremonies are set for Monday evening at Antique Acres in Cedar Falls. “Machinery Pete” Peterson will speak on “Tractor Trends: What is the used equipment market teaching us about new equipment customer needs?”

Tuesday and Wednesday, the focus will be on the latest in technology and innovation, with with keynote speakers at breakfast and lunch, as well as several technical sessions on subjects such as wireless technology, vehicle simulation and modeling, Tier 4 engine solutions and alternative fuels.

“Waterloo is really in the heart of the agricultural and machinery industry,” Evans said. “More than 220 agricultural manufacturers are based in Iowa or the surrounding states. Of course, John Deere’s biggest operations are also in Waterloo. Because of that, Waterloo is an ideal place for engineers from throughout the industry to meet.”

About 400-500 attendees and 50-60 exhibitors are expected at the conference.

This is an important show,” said Nick Elliott, business development manager at DISTek in Cedar Falls, who is directing the show’s machinery exhibitors. “What really differentiates this show is it gives an opportunity for businesses in the ag community to see, share and show off technologies.”

See the attachment.

West Texas

Ag retailers offer their “can’t live without” apps in CropLife Media Group’s recent tablet use survey.

By Matt Hopkins

Our recent survey of more than 200 ag retailers on their tablet usage has unveiled several key findings (look for an article on tablet use trends soon). But perhaps what everyone wants to know is which apps are the most popular among these ag professionals. Well, you’re in luck. We asked participants to name the one app that is most indispensable for their work. While the responses varied widely, these 10 apps were most commonly listed as “can’t live without” by our survey respondents:
1. Weather. There are number of weather-related apps available for mobile devices, but perhaps the most popular is the one from The Weather Channel. This app combines interactive imagery with Weather Channel expertise. With more than 200 meteorologists and the ultra-local TruPoint forecasting technology, The Weather Channel app helps ag retailers plan their work day.

2. E-mail. According to our survey, “checking e-mail” (94%) was the number one way respondents are using their tablets for work. So not surprisingly, it ranks toward the top of our “most indispensable” list. With dozens of options available, choose the application that benefits you the most and simplifies your e-mail usage.

3. Dropbox. Dropbox lets you bring all your photos, docs and videos anywhere and share them easily. Access any file you save to your Dropbox from all your computers, iPhone, iPad and even the Dropbox Website.

4. Weed ID. The BASF Weed ID App brings weed identification right up to date, forgoing the need to take books into the field to identify potential weed species. Whatever crop you are growing, it is an essential part of good agricultural practice to know the weed species you need to control to use the most appropriate herbicide. There’s also the ID Weeds app, which was developed by the University of Missouri Extension. This app allows you to search for weeds by their common or Latin name, view a list of weeds or identify weeds based upon a number of different characteristics.

5. Agrian Mobile. This app enables access to Agrian’s label database anywhere, any time. Search by product name, registered states, pest controlled and specific product use rates. Features include more than 250 participating manufacturers, instant access to 5,800 crop protection products, labels and MSDS documents, organic search options and more.

6. Documents To Go. The extremely popular office app (over 25 million downloads) allows you to view native Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and attachments.

7. QuickBooks Mobile. This easy-to-use app syncs with QuickBooks to let you manage customers, invoices, sales receipts, and estimates. It allows busy retailers to stay productive, whether in the office or on-the-go.

8. iBooks. More of a personal “must-have,” this app includes the iBookstore, where you can download the latest books (or agriculture-related publications).

9. Connected Farm. Trimble’s Connected Farm app uses your mobile device’s GPS for mapping field boundaries, locating irrigation pivots, marking flags and entering scouting information for points, lines and polygon areas. Scouting attributes include an extensive list of weeds, insects and diseases, and allows you to log the severity of a problem, crop conditions and more.

10. Evernote. Evernote helps you stay organized and on track. The app lets you take notes and create to-do lists, as well as capture photos and record voice reminders. The redesigned iPad version saves time with the ability to create notes with a click via the new Quick Note button and a Recent Notes list for easier multi-tasking.