McConnel might be best known for its hedge and verge kit, but the Shropshire firm is now trying its hand at seed drills with the launch of its strip-till Seedaerator at this year's Cereals event.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service's Conservation Stewardship Program will provide about $175 million in funding for up to 12.6 million additional acres enrollment this year. Although applications are accepted all year, farmers, ranchers and forestland owners interested in CSP should submit applications by June 14 to their local NRCS office to ensure they are considered for this year's funding. The deadline was extended from May 31.

Monsanto Co is hosting a "Bee Summit." Bayer AG is breaking ground on a "Bee Care Center." And Sygenta AG is funding grants for research into the accelerating demise of honeybees in the United States, where the insects pollinate fruits and vegetables that make up roughly a quarter of the American diet.

This planting season, more than 150 farmers in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota are trialing the first offering from Monsanto's Integrated Farming Systems (IFS) research platform - FieldScripts. FieldScripts will be planted on more than 8,300 acres in Illinois alone.

Orthman Manufacturing has added two new members to its growing dealer support network. Kyle Frazier is a regional product specialist for the Midwest, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin; Paul Hartness has been named territory manager for North and South Dakota and Minnesota.

Syngenta and DuPont announced technology licensing agreements that will broaden each company's crop protection product portfolio and enable both to bring new products to market more efficiently.

Matt Madsen, Ph.D., of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and representatives from Aquatrols Corporation of America recently presented new findings on a patent-pending surfactant seed coating technology at the International Symposium on Adjuvants for Agrochemicals (ISAA).

The Two Blades Foundation (2Blades), a not-for-profit organization focused on the development and deployment of durable disease resistance for agriculture, announced the April 16 issuance of a key patent for gene editing based on the use of TAL effectors.

Cogent3D, Inc, announces contract award to assist USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service to re-engineer their mobile workforce with a new Mobile Conservation Planner App using iCropTrak to allow NRCS staff to spend more time with client collaboration and conservation efforts in the field.

Currently in West Texas, we are in one of the worst droughts since the 1930's and 1950's. We are now entering the third year of this drought. Recently, I did some research on the drought of the 1930's and 1950's. In my hometown of Plainview, Texas (average annual rainfall = 20.17 inches), our rainfall for 2011 and 2012 was 5.63 and 10.48 inches respectively. In comparison, the two lowest years of precipitation during the 1930's was 10.16 and 13.75 inches in 1933-1934 and for the 1950's was 11.29 and 10.39 inches in 1953-54.