Thomas F. "Tommy" Jones will join Krone North America as incoming president and CEO, replacing Rusty Fowler who will retire after 26 years.

Two radio groups — New York-based SiriusXM Radio (SXMR) and Nebraska-based Rural Radio LLC — have joined forces to form Rural Radio, a 24/7 channel devoted to agribusiness, rural American life and western lifestyle. It was launched on July 15.

U.S. farmers successfully overcame a cold and wet early spring this year, planting 97.4 million acres of corn, up slightly from 2012, according to the Acreage report released recently by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). This is the highest acreage planted to corn since 1936 and marks the fifth year in a row corn acreage has increased in the U.S.

U.S. farmers can learn to better manage corn borer pests by watching a 30-minute Focus on Corn presentation by Dr. Scott Stewart, professor and IPM specialist at the University of Tennessee. The presentation can be accessed online through Sept. 30.

Oregon State University has selected a weed management specialist with the Extension Service for a major endowed professorship. Andrew Hulting began July 1 as OSU's fourth Hyslop professor. He will serve in the role for five years.   Hulting will train graduate students to work on weed management projects, including in-depth studies of grass weed species, such as annual bluegrass and roughstalk bluegrass.

Farmers can rid their property of unwanted vehicles while helping to generate money for a Missouri extension agency.

Purdue University is launching ISOBlue, an open-source project that aims to provide farmers with easy access to agriculture data. Aiming to free farmers from vendor-controlled data, the product provides information, via smartphone, by the industry-standard ISOBUS port located on tractors, harvesters and equipment.

Grasshoppers are becoming a problem on some farmland in areas of the Lone Star State, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert. The hoppers are now winged and are moving into crops and orchards, said Allen Knutson, an entomologist at the extension service in Dallas.

Farmers enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) may request to hay certain acreage, according to information from the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA). The earliest date CRP acreages can be hayed in Aug. 2, says Brad Pfaff, executive director of the Wisconsin FSA. Managed grazing of acreage is also allowed under certain rules.