7:00 PM - Dinner served

8:00 PM - Dinner speaker

8:45 PM - Speaker Q&A

9:00 PM - Closing remarks

Dinner Keynote Presentation Summary:
Weather risk in production agriculture is ubiquitous and the successful execution of a crop plan requires accurate weather forecasting and analysis. We plan our operations based on weather averages and our experiences over recent growing seasons, but each year presents a new set of weather challenges. In this talk we will focus on how to use the abundance of weather data to stay ahead to disruptive weather events. We will talk about the limits of predictability for weather events and learn about the resources available to monitor changes in the longer-range forecasts. We will talk about disruptive technologies in predictive analytics – like Artificial Intelligence. We will review the major lessons from the 2024 growing season and talk about the high impact events like widespread hail damage, tornadoes, derechos, the late summer/early fall Midwest Drought, and the hurricane season. We will talk about the big seasonal drivers like El Niño and La Niña discuss the outlook for the next 3-9 months. We will finish with a discussion about the 2024-25 growing season in South America, which competes directly with major US commodity crops.