Experiences and Lessons in Growing an Impactful, Local On-Farm Research Program in South Central Nebraska

Sarah Sivits, Cropping Systems Extension Educator Author

10/02/2023 Added

21 Plays

Description

This presentation will highlight steps taken and lessons learned as a new Extension Educator growing a locally dynamic on-farm research presence over 6-7 years in south central Nebraska as part of the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network.

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[00:00:00.750]The following presentation
[00:00:02.220]is part of the Agronomy and Horticulture seminar series
[00:00:05.790]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:00:09.810]Okay, good afternoon, everyone.
[00:00:10.980]Thank you for joining today.
[00:00:12.360]We are starting the agronomy fall seminar series for 2023.
[00:00:17.430]Welcome, everyone here in the room, and those online.
[00:00:22.020]We have the pleasure of introducing today, Sarah Sivits.
[00:00:26.552]She's a cropping system associate extension educator
[00:00:29.460]here with Nebraska Extension.
[00:00:32.010]She joined Nebraska Extension in 2016,
[00:00:36.840]and in 2017 she started working
[00:00:38.717]in the On-Farm Research Network,
[00:00:40.830]and she will be presenting some of that data here today.
[00:00:44.220]She holds a master's in plant pathology from UNL,
[00:00:48.540]and she also was awarded recently
[00:00:51.600]by the National Association of County Agricultural Agents
[00:00:54.480]with a Achievement Award.
[00:00:56.310]So congrats on that.
[00:00:58.050]So we'll be hearing, we'll have her talk,
[00:01:00.090]and at the end you'll be able to make some questions.
[00:01:03.210]For those online you can pose those questions in the chat,
[00:01:06.450]and for those in the room,
[00:01:07.560]we will be passing the microphone to ask those questions.
[00:01:11.130]These seminars will be also posted in our website,
[00:01:14.100]so you can go back and check them in the future.
[00:01:16.800]So thank you for being here.
[00:01:18.480]And the room is yours.
[00:01:20.263]All right, thank you so much.
[00:01:22.260]I'm gonna stand on this side so I'm not blinded.
[00:01:24.810]But thank you, everybody, for being here today.
[00:01:27.990]A couple of familiar faces that I recognize, mostly new.
[00:01:32.250]Like you said, my name is Sarah,
[00:01:33.750]and I just wanted to talk a little bit
[00:01:35.430]about some of my experiences doing on-farm research
[00:01:38.340]and working in extension.
[00:01:39.810]And for some of you that are students,
[00:01:43.470]I heard that we have some interns in the room,
[00:01:46.260]this is probably gonna be a little helpful
[00:01:48.240]for you to decide, you know,
[00:01:49.950]is extension a path that maybe I wanna do?
[00:01:52.530]And I know that in the past
[00:01:54.030]that you've had other extension faculty come in
[00:01:57.390]and talk a little bit about doing on-farm research
[00:01:59.820]and their experiences with it,
[00:02:02.070]and probably a little bit more data heavy.
[00:02:04.830]Not that I don't have data to share,
[00:02:06.390]I do have a little bit in here,
[00:02:08.220]but I know Chris Proctor has come in,
[00:02:10.530]Laura Thompson, Jenny Rees,
[00:02:13.380]folks like that.
[00:02:14.280]And so I just wanted to give a little bit of my perspective
[00:02:18.360]and what I've done since I've graduated.
[00:02:21.720]All right, so a little bit about my background.
[00:02:23.790]I'm originally from Illinois.
[00:02:25.230]I came out here to do my master's degree,
[00:02:27.510]and I wanted to do it in plant pathology.
[00:02:29.910]I worked on Goss's wilt of corn,
[00:02:31.710]which historically speaking,
[00:02:32.760]if you know anything about Goss's wilt,
[00:02:34.230]it was first found in Nebraska in Dawson County in 1969.
[00:02:39.630]And so I worked on that under Dr. Tamra Jackson-Ziems,
[00:02:43.860]who's a plant pathologist here, corn and sorghum specialist.
[00:02:46.950]And then I also was co-advised by Dr. Greg Kruger,
[00:02:50.340]who was a weed scientist.
[00:02:51.960]He has moved on from the university.
[00:02:55.290]But I graduated in 2016, and at the time-
[00:03:00.540]I grew up in 4-H.
[00:03:01.860]I'm not sure if anybody is familiar with extension and 4-H
[00:03:04.920]and things of that nature,
[00:03:06.540]but when I was a master's student,
[00:03:09.990]I had the opportunity under Tamra
[00:03:12.090]to have an extension appointment.
[00:03:13.680]That's part of what my funding was.
[00:03:16.020]And so it gave me the opportunity to go to field days,
[00:03:18.660]talk to producers, present a little bit,
[00:03:21.420]and find that avenue of extension.
[00:03:24.090]Which, if you're not super familiar with what extension is,
[00:03:27.390]UNL is a land-grant institution.
[00:03:29.520]So there's, for the most part one in every state,
[00:03:32.100]sometimes there's two.
[00:03:34.020]But we are a land-grant institution.
[00:03:36.330]So here it would be UNL,
[00:03:38.550]in Kansas it'd be Kansas State for example,
[00:03:41.220]Iowa State University,
[00:03:42.810]all examples of land-grant institutions.
[00:03:45.900]And we are the outreach of the university.
[00:03:48.360]So historically speaking,
[00:03:49.980]we were the ones
[00:03:50.813]that would be taking that information from the university
[00:03:54.180]and distributing it to our local producers, clientele,
[00:03:57.510]whatever that looks like.
[00:03:58.650]And we still do that today.
[00:04:00.660]So I took an extension educator position
[00:04:03.570]in Dawson, Buffalo, and Hall counties.
[00:04:06.090]I'm actually housed out of Dawson County.
[00:04:08.730]Whoops. I'm sorry, I have no idea what I did here.
[00:04:13.260]Apologize.
[00:04:14.160]But I started working out in Dawson County.
[00:04:16.290]That's where I am housed.
[00:04:17.370]I'm accountable to two other counties.
[00:04:19.950]And so with that being said,
[00:04:22.620]there's a lot that I've had to learn over time,
[00:04:25.350]because each county is a little different.
[00:04:27.180]They try to aggregate you together as much as possible.
[00:04:31.380]Thank you.
[00:04:36.090]Okay, thank you.
[00:04:38.130]But still, even across my three-county territory,
[00:04:41.820]there's differences in farming practices there.
[00:04:44.280]And so you definitely kinda have to figure out
[00:04:46.650]what works best for that.
[00:04:47.700]But I've been in since 2016.
[00:04:50.670]And what I wanted to do for this presentation in particular
[00:04:53.700]was just talk a little bit about my experiences.
[00:04:56.370]And for those of you that are students or interns,
[00:04:58.950]or maybe you're newer as a faculty member,
[00:05:00.810]you know that it's difficult to step into a position
[00:05:04.410]when there's not a ton of direction.
[00:05:06.420]And so you have to figure things out.
[00:05:08.130]And extension is very much that way.
[00:05:10.800]Some appointments and programs are a little more defined,
[00:05:14.130]as to this is what you will do.
[00:05:16.080]When I started,
[00:05:16.913]I didn't have a computer for, like, two weeks,
[00:05:19.170]and just had to jump in
[00:05:21.360]and figure out what I wanted to do with my programming.
[00:05:24.990]It's a little bit of a learning curve,
[00:05:27.000]you still are learning every single day.
[00:05:29.700]And so I just wanted to share that
[00:05:31.860]through this presentation.
[00:05:33.420]But one of the things
[00:05:34.320]that I was able to fit into my niche of programming areas
[00:05:38.610]was doing on-farm research.
[00:05:41.490]So I'll talk a little bit about On-Farm Research Network,
[00:05:44.190]how it started, et cetera, in the next slide.
[00:05:46.080]But I also understand that folks like data,
[00:05:49.590]and so I just kinda wanted to present
[00:05:51.450]a couple of the studies that I have done
[00:05:53.490]over the past several years,
[00:05:55.770]and so you can kinda see what our farmers are interested in.
[00:05:59.340]So the On-Farm Research Network,
[00:06:01.020]if you're not super familiar with it,
[00:06:03.570]it was first started back in the late 1980s.
[00:06:08.850]There was a couple educators
[00:06:10.020]on the eastern side of Nebraska,
[00:06:12.180]who, they got together with some producers.
[00:06:14.820]And I understand that, you know,
[00:06:16.860]in university settings we like small-plot research.
[00:06:22.500]Farmers, not super applicable,
[00:06:24.720]just gonna tell you that right now.
[00:06:26.610]So their idea of doing research for the most part is,
[00:06:29.167]"Well, I left a strip in the field."
[00:06:31.110]We all know, statistically speaking,
[00:06:32.640]that's not gonna tell you anything.
[00:06:34.140]So how do we work with them
[00:06:35.910]in order to make these research studies practical for them,
[00:06:40.590]as well as applicable
[00:06:41.790]and giving them data at the end of the growing season
[00:06:43.920]that is meaningful.
[00:06:45.810]So in 2012, this actually went to a statewide effort,
[00:06:48.780]but we had these educators and producers
[00:06:52.110]that wanted to do this research
[00:06:54.240]to help answer these questions for these producers.
[00:06:57.870]And so what the On-Farm Research Network does,
[00:06:59.730]it encourages partnerships with faculty, producers,
[00:07:03.330]agronomists, industry representatives.
[00:07:06.120]It could be various organizations.
[00:07:08.250]It just depends on what the goals are of that study
[00:07:10.950]and who we need to bring to the table.
[00:07:13.320]We wanna conduct
[00:07:14.310]scientifically sound on-farm research trials,
[00:07:17.160]and we wanna share that research-based information
[00:07:19.830]the best ways that we can,
[00:07:21.930]in the way that is understandable to them,
[00:07:25.020]and facilitate co-discovery and technology transfer.
[00:07:29.190]Extension is all about relationships.
[00:07:31.860]You're not gonna get anywhere
[00:07:32.940]if you can't build those relationships
[00:07:34.530]with your clientele, your stakeholders,
[00:07:37.140]your industry representatives, et cetera.
[00:07:42.210]So if you're not familiar with this,
[00:07:43.950]'cause what I will tell you
[00:07:45.330]is that on-farm research is definitely unique
[00:07:48.960]for Nebraska and the On-Farm Research Network.
[00:07:53.100]Like, during my introduction here,
[00:07:55.200]I recently presented at a conference
[00:07:57.750]out in Des Moines, Iowa about these experiences,
[00:08:02.280]and as a result I have somebody from Purdue University,
[00:08:05.910]so Indiana,
[00:08:07.590]who, they wanna start something like this
[00:08:10.200]at their institution,
[00:08:12.120]because they don't have it.
[00:08:13.260]There's many states that do not. So we're very blessed here.
[00:08:16.620]Our farmers are very curious.
[00:08:17.970]This is one of my farmers in the flannel shirt here.
[00:08:20.820]Love working with him. He is excellent.
[00:08:23.730]But we want to bring them to the table
[00:08:26.280]first out of the gates.
[00:08:27.720]If you don't have their input and their buy-in,
[00:08:30.150]it's going to fail.
[00:08:31.890]So we wanna make sure
[00:08:32.760]that we get those goals and objectives for the producer,
[00:08:36.180]so that way we understand what they want out of that study.
[00:08:40.620]We also look at their equipment.
[00:08:42.180]I've worked with guys who have 16 row planters,
[00:08:45.360]120-foot boom on their sprayer,
[00:08:47.370]and they only have a 10-row combine head.
[00:08:50.310]So how do I make that work on 80 acres
[00:08:53.760]if that's as much as they will give me?
[00:08:56.130]'Cause I need to get enough replication in there.
[00:08:59.850]We sit down with them and we do the protocol design.
[00:09:03.600]Field work, some of it I do, some of it they do.
[00:09:06.480]Treatment applications,
[00:09:07.500]it just depends on what they need
[00:09:09.660]and what they can handle on their own.
[00:09:11.730]Collecting the data, analyzing it,
[00:09:14.010]which of course the On-Farm Research Network
[00:09:15.780]does most of the statistics for that,
[00:09:18.240]'cause they have the program.
[00:09:20.100]And then creating the research report
[00:09:22.170]and presenting it to the producers
[00:09:23.520]in a way that they understand.
[00:09:26.880]So you've all probably taken statistics in here.
[00:09:29.610]Was not my cup of tea, but we all had to do it.
[00:09:33.780]And a lot of our producers,
[00:09:35.520]whether they went to college and took stats or not,
[00:09:38.520]we want to make sure that we're on the same page.
[00:09:41.040]This picture in the bottom in the middle,
[00:09:42.930]where it says fungicide on the left-hand side
[00:09:44.850]and check on the right-hand side,
[00:09:46.590]that's oftentimes what they think is a good sound practice.
[00:09:50.280]Now we know, statistically speaking,
[00:09:51.840]that doesn't tell us anything.
[00:09:53.520]So what we need is good randomization and good replication.
[00:09:56.910]So how do we encourage that? How do we explain it to 'em?
[00:10:00.630]Most all of my studies that I've done
[00:10:02.730]have been a randomized complete block design.
[00:10:05.220]We've had some split-plot designs in there,
[00:10:08.160]paired comparisons, that kinda stuff.
[00:10:10.710]But making sure that we walk through it with them
[00:10:12.990]as to, "Well, why can't I just plant everything on here?
[00:10:15.510]'Cause that's the hybrid or the number
[00:10:17.220]that I have in the planter."
[00:10:18.877]"We really need you to skip and use your GPS,
[00:10:22.350]or count the rows off,
[00:10:23.520]and we are more than happy to help with that."
[00:10:27.210]Understanding the data.
[00:10:28.620]Obviously if you've looked at statistics before,
[00:10:30.780]you know this is a pretty common table,
[00:10:33.720]but for some of our producers,
[00:10:35.400]they're not familiar with it the first time.
[00:10:37.410]So you have to explain to them,
[00:10:39.210]yes, I got one bushel, or you know,
[00:10:42.030]per-acre yield difference.
[00:10:43.800]To them that might be significant,
[00:10:45.390]but statistically speaking, is it?
[00:10:47.817]And so what do all the letters mean?
[00:10:49.650]What do the numbers mean?
[00:10:51.720]What is a p-value?
[00:10:52.980]That's always a fun one to try and explain to producers.
[00:10:56.490]And so we work with them to make sure
[00:10:58.620]that there's all their questions that get answered.
[00:11:02.850]So just to kinda give you a timeline of what happened,
[00:11:06.660]how I stepped into this role.
[00:11:08.970]Like I said, not a ton of direction.
[00:11:10.650]When I started, I had a desk,
[00:11:12.210]I didn't even have a computer,
[00:11:13.860]and your goal was to go out
[00:11:15.570]and learn about the issues and the farming practices
[00:11:18.090]for that area.
[00:11:18.923]I grew up in Illinois, corn and soybean farm.
[00:11:22.080]However, irrigation, we didn't have any of that.
[00:11:25.950]And so to learn what these producers
[00:11:27.990]have to deal with in that aspect
[00:11:29.730]was really important,
[00:11:31.290]and how they spend their time.
[00:11:33.810]But I had to meet producers,
[00:11:34.993]I had to meet folks in the area.
[00:11:36.960]And I knew that Laura Thompson,
[00:11:39.180]who is the coordinator of our On-Farm Research Network,
[00:11:41.490]had started a couple years before me.
[00:11:43.800]So she was getting her feet on the ground too,
[00:11:46.890]and sharing out this data and this information.
[00:11:49.260]So I did that at various meetings.
[00:11:51.390]Like, private pesticide training
[00:11:53.280]is one thing that I have to teach.
[00:11:54.900]Our farmers every three years
[00:11:56.280]are required to come in and to take that training.
[00:12:00.060]So it was a good opportunity for me to share that.
[00:12:03.270]And that first year in extension, I didn't have any studies,
[00:12:06.300]just kinda learning the ropes.
[00:12:08.040]That second year I was able to get two producers
[00:12:12.150]to agree to do on-farm research.
[00:12:14.100]And it was just a casual conversation. "You interested?"
[00:12:17.610]And I got a lot of nos, but I got two yeses.
[00:12:20.490]So we were gonna roll with that.
[00:12:22.470]Both of 'em were in Dawson County.
[00:12:24.900]And out of those two producers,
[00:12:27.900]they conducted five studies that year.
[00:12:29.910]So that was actually really encouraging,
[00:12:31.890]quite impressive.
[00:12:33.540]And I learned a lot, what to do and what not to do.
[00:12:36.840]But that program has grown throughout the years.
[00:12:39.720]And you can see we've done virtual,
[00:12:43.680]that was really thanks to Covid,
[00:12:46.560]research meetings,
[00:12:47.700]peer-reviewed publications,
[00:12:49.950]and interacting with those producers.
[00:12:51.750]So for those of you
[00:12:53.490]that maybe are more from eastern Nebraska,
[00:12:56.610]where I am located at is here right along I-80,
[00:12:59.640]so Dawson, Buffalo, and Hall.
[00:13:02.490]And now what I'm gonna show you here
[00:13:04.170]is the progression of where these producers are located.
[00:13:07.470]So some of these producers,
[00:13:09.600]it was one year, and they didn't do any more studies.
[00:13:12.870]Some of these producers though,
[00:13:14.490]like the first gentleman that I talked about,
[00:13:16.410]we've been doing studies together since the very beginning.
[00:13:20.100]And so even though we have a dot that's represented,
[00:13:23.460]it's just showing where that producer is located.
[00:13:25.920]They can do more studies of course, year after year.
[00:13:29.520]So I had two in Dawson County in 2017.
[00:13:32.969]In 2018 we grew.
[00:13:35.220]And again, I have three counties here in the middle.
[00:13:40.230]This is 2019, this was actually a lead classmate of mine.
[00:13:44.700]And then this was 2020.
[00:13:46.260]So I had two additional producers on there.
[00:13:49.200]But the number of studies jumped.
[00:13:51.270]And I'll talk about that here in a little bit,
[00:13:52.787]'cause 2020 was entertaining for everybody, with Covid.
[00:13:57.210]'21, '22, and this is '23.
[00:14:02.970]So you can see I kinda have different areas
[00:14:05.550]where I have clumps of producers.
[00:14:08.010]And some of that is
[00:14:09.150]the producers are talking to their neighbors,
[00:14:11.130]and "What are you doing?"
[00:14:11.963]You know, they're always looking across the fence,
[00:14:13.140]seeing what their neighbor's doing.
[00:14:14.850]But some of it is thanks to crop consultants in the area.
[00:14:18.240]They know producers that you might not have access to.
[00:14:21.240]So those are the people you wanna get to know,
[00:14:23.640]and then they introduce their producers,
[00:14:26.700]and you build relationships from there.
[00:14:28.470]It's all about relationships, all about networking.
[00:14:32.310]So to talk a little bit
[00:14:33.390]about how my producer numbers and consultants
[00:14:36.210]have changed over time.
[00:14:37.770]You know, that first year I started with two producers.
[00:14:41.280]In total I've worked with about, almost 30.
[00:14:44.610]So that has been fun.
[00:14:46.290]11 of these were single-year producers.
[00:14:48.900]They, you know, did it for one year,
[00:14:51.180]didn't wanna do it again.
[00:14:52.080]That's fine.
[00:14:52.913]You know, I'm working with their livelihood here.
[00:14:55.080]I'm totally okay with that.
[00:14:57.540]17 of 'em though have wanted to come back.
[00:15:00.840]Now that has not been every year.
[00:15:02.580]Maybe they do a couple years and then they're done.
[00:15:04.740]Some I've got they did,
[00:15:06.570]that first year they took a couple years off,
[00:15:08.460]and then they came back to do a couple more studies.
[00:15:11.280]And again, of course Don has done this since 2017.
[00:15:14.220]So he's been a lot of fun to work with.
[00:15:16.770]Consultants. Again, that is an avenue.
[00:15:20.040]Ag professionals can't thank them enough
[00:15:22.380]for their cooperation.
[00:15:24.120]And that's kinda ebbed and flowed over the years too.
[00:15:27.450]The one consultant though that I worked with in 2020
[00:15:30.690]and have ever since,
[00:15:32.520]he has been wanting to do on-farm research for years,
[00:15:35.220]but he could never find a producer.
[00:15:36.667]And so in 2020 he finally got one.
[00:15:39.720]And it has grown ever since then,
[00:15:41.970]so that's been really encouraging to see.
[00:15:45.660]Producer participation and consultant participation
[00:15:48.420]for that manner
[00:15:49.560]is so critical.
[00:15:51.150]None of this would be successful without their buy-in.
[00:15:54.210]Again, this is their livelihood that we're working with,
[00:15:56.820]so we wanna make sure
[00:15:57.900]that they are completely on board with it.
[00:16:01.620]They are there for the protocol design.
[00:16:03.570]Some of 'em do field work, some of them do not.
[00:16:07.230]It depends on how much time they have,
[00:16:09.150]and that was a definite learning curve for me.
[00:16:11.670]This is Michael, he's one of my producers.
[00:16:13.860]He's a lead classmate of mine,
[00:16:15.780]and he wanted to come out
[00:16:17.310]and learn how to take stand counts.
[00:16:19.110]Okay.
[00:16:20.040]I was more than happy
[00:16:21.270]to accept the help at that point.
[00:16:23.400]So he did, and he learned a lot.
[00:16:26.190]And he didn't know how to do it beforehand.
[00:16:28.290]So that was really encouraging.
[00:16:31.050]But a lot of my producers,
[00:16:32.610]they don't have time to take stand counts.
[00:16:35.100]So that's something that I take on.
[00:16:38.220]Data collection, results interpretation.
[00:16:40.830]Once we get the stats back and the report completed,
[00:16:44.010]and then presenting that data.
[00:16:45.630]Some producers are happy to get up and talk at meetings,
[00:16:48.480]others are not fans, and that's okay too.
[00:16:52.320]Even our consultants,
[00:16:53.550]it just depends on what they're comfortable with.
[00:16:56.220]But really the success is all about
[00:16:58.440]relationship building, producer innovation,
[00:17:01.680]working with our ag professionals,
[00:17:03.600]and building trust within that clientele base.
[00:17:07.500]So here's just kinda the ebb and flow
[00:17:08.940]of how some of those numbers have looked over the years.
[00:17:12.000]Most of them have been farmer driven.
[00:17:15.690]I have some educators who,
[00:17:17.550]they are really good at getting with these producers
[00:17:21.450]and saying, "Hey, I as the educator would like to try this.
[00:17:24.630]Can I use your land to do it?"
[00:17:26.820]That is wonderful.
[00:17:28.080]I'm so thrilled that there are some producers
[00:17:30.000]that are willing to do that.
[00:17:31.110]For me, I'm not comfortable,
[00:17:32.760]'cause again, this is their livelihood,
[00:17:35.010]and I wanna make sure that we get their questions answered.
[00:17:37.800]But to each their own.
[00:17:39.540]I have had about a dozen or so specialist-driven studies,
[00:17:43.410]where I've had a specialist say, "Hey I need this.
[00:17:46.500]Can you find a producer
[00:17:48.630]that is willing in your area to try it?
[00:17:50.610]Because I need to fulfill a grant,"
[00:17:52.350]or something like that.
[00:17:53.790]So I talk to the folks that I've worked with.
[00:17:55.650]And some of 'em, yes, onboard,
[00:17:57.870]some of 'em, no, they're not really that interested.
[00:18:00.720]So you just keep trying.
[00:18:03.000]Most of these are single-year studies.
[00:18:05.130]But I have had a few that are multi-year studies.
[00:18:09.240]And that's always fun,
[00:18:10.200]'cause you get to work with that producer over time,
[00:18:12.810]you get to come back to the same field strips.
[00:18:15.390]So that's always encouraging. You know where you're going.
[00:18:18.630]But I just kinda wanted to show the breakdown year to year
[00:18:21.120]of what this has looked like,
[00:18:22.830]'cause when you start out something,
[00:18:24.870]you're gonna have bumps.
[00:18:26.520]So that first year we had five studies,
[00:18:29.670]and the next couple of years it remained steady.
[00:18:32.220]Then we hit Covid year.
[00:18:34.350]And if any of you worked at the university during that time,
[00:18:36.780]we were all sent home.
[00:18:38.010]I don't know what they did here,
[00:18:39.480]but even at a county level,
[00:18:41.460]there's seven people in my offices,
[00:18:43.290]we could not all be together.
[00:18:44.940]So I was sent home.
[00:18:45.990]And yeah, it's kinda fun.
[00:18:47.190]The first couple of weeks
[00:18:48.210]you feel like you're playing hooky,
[00:18:50.010]but then the reality sets in.
[00:18:52.830]You're like, what am I gonna do?
[00:18:54.360]I got an annual report to fill out.
[00:18:56.070]I have customers that need to be served.
[00:18:58.380]I've got phone calls.
[00:18:59.310]I mean, how do I handle this?
[00:19:01.800]And so I had the consultant
[00:19:05.700]that I have been working with ever since,
[00:19:07.500]Mark,
[00:19:08.340]he came up to bat and said,
[00:19:09.577]"I've got a producer finally
[00:19:10.770]that wants to do on-farm research,
[00:19:11.970]and he wants to do four studies."
[00:19:13.920]And then Don, the guy I've worked with since 2017,
[00:19:17.100]he went from doing, I think in 2019 he only did one study,
[00:19:21.240]he did like six or seven during 2020.
[00:19:24.870]And so we had these guys come out of the woodworking,
[00:19:27.930]and they just, they had time to sit and think,
[00:19:30.690]'cause they were home, and they were like,
[00:19:32.046]what could I do on my operation to be profitable?
[00:19:32.879]what could I do on my operation to be profitable?
[00:19:36.780]So it was really exciting to see that jump.
[00:19:39.480]It was a lot, but it got me outta the house,
[00:19:41.340]which was beautiful.
[00:19:43.020]And from there, it's kinda remained consistent.
[00:19:46.230]This past year, or this growing season, excuse me,
[00:19:49.500]if they all get harvested,
[00:19:51.300]which you know, sometimes things don't pan out,
[00:19:54.480]if they all get harvested, we should have about 21 studies.
[00:19:57.900]So that's really exciting
[00:19:59.640]to have that representation and that research
[00:20:02.220]going on in our area.
[00:20:04.260]You're probably wondering,
[00:20:05.093]well what kinda studies is she actually working with
[00:20:07.080]on these producers?
[00:20:08.580]So again, this is not something, my area is plant pathology.
[00:20:12.270]I would love to do more of that,
[00:20:14.880]'cause that's what I'm comfortable with.
[00:20:16.380]But that's not what my producers necessarily need.
[00:20:19.500]A lot of it has been microbials.
[00:20:21.270]I do have some organic producers.
[00:20:22.860]So they've looked at weed management,
[00:20:25.350]they've looked at row spacing, population density.
[00:20:29.940]There's a lot of products.
[00:20:31.590]If you've ever worked out there,
[00:20:33.390]you know that our producers are sometimes bombarded
[00:20:37.110]with what products are on the market.
[00:20:38.637]And so they have to strategically sift through
[00:20:41.280]as to what they want to try and what they don't want to try.
[00:20:44.820]And so on-farm research
[00:20:46.080]is a great opportunity for these folks
[00:20:48.390]to try something on a little smaller scale.
[00:20:50.340]Now yes, you know, sometimes they have to buy so much
[00:20:54.150]in order to get a discount,
[00:20:55.860]but it's an opportunity for them
[00:20:57.900]to see a side-by-side comparison,
[00:21:00.210]statistically sound when it's set up,
[00:21:03.420]so that way they can see, do I wanna invest in it next year?
[00:21:09.000]So there's a couple studies here
[00:21:10.440]that I just wanted to highlight,
[00:21:12.600]and both of them were done with the same producer.
[00:21:16.590]It was a multi-year study, both of 'em were.
[00:21:19.470]And it was looking at downforce pressure.
[00:21:21.150]Now again, I'm a pathologist. I am not an engineer.
[00:21:23.970]And so to go out and look at this kinda stuff
[00:21:28.050]was a little tricky for me,
[00:21:30.930]but it was a good learning experience too.
[00:21:34.110]So this was a joint effort between a company, Ag Leader,
[00:21:38.790]and UNL with the On-Farm Research Network.
[00:21:42.420]And these two studies, what they looked at
[00:21:44.370]was amount of downforce pressure,
[00:21:46.950]which I'll show you here through the slides,
[00:21:49.200]and then travel speed with that downforce pressure system.
[00:21:54.600]So when you're looking at this,
[00:21:57.420]sometimes you can have manual adjustments,
[00:21:59.400]and sometimes it has active uplift,
[00:22:01.530]and that is what they were looking at.
[00:22:02.850]So that way you get the proper depth,
[00:22:05.310]that way you get the proper spacing,
[00:22:07.590]singulation with their SureDrive technology, et cetera.
[00:22:11.340]So we have SureForce,
[00:22:12.570]which looked at the hydraulic downforce pressure
[00:22:15.270]with uplift,
[00:22:16.470]so we get proper depth,
[00:22:18.360]and then their SureDrive system with Ag Leader,
[00:22:22.200]it's looking at, you know, singulation, that kinda stuff,
[00:22:25.200]how fast you can plant and be efficient.
[00:22:28.740]So this was done in 2020 and 2021.
[00:22:33.450]This is a picture of the field.
[00:22:35.190]So this is our downforce pressure system study
[00:22:38.700]on the left-hand side.
[00:22:39.810]This was an SDI, subsurface drip irrigated field.
[00:22:43.260]And you can see
[00:22:44.093]we've got good randomization and replication in there.
[00:22:46.860]But when we went through,
[00:22:49.440]they decided they wanted three treatments.
[00:22:51.570]And this is what the producer decided.
[00:22:54.000]He wanted a manual.
[00:22:55.260]And that was his,
[00:22:56.130]that was his check of what he ordinarily woulda done.
[00:22:58.950]And the hard part about this too,
[00:23:01.200]is that for a lot of these guys,
[00:23:02.580]you know, especially if we're talking about products,
[00:23:04.687]"Well, we can invest in this product this year,
[00:23:07.020]and then, you know, if it doesn't work out,
[00:23:08.679]I don't have to buy it again."
[00:23:09.990]Don had to retrofit his planter.
[00:23:11.940]So this was an investment right out of the gates.
[00:23:14.130]And if it didn't work, that would be a hardship.
[00:23:17.880]So he had to pony up some money right away.
[00:23:21.180]So his manual was 100 pounds of downforce,
[00:23:24.390]his medium had the actual uplift on it.
[00:23:28.740]So this is one of our treatments here,
[00:23:30.660]100 pounds of downforce at the gauge wheel
[00:23:32.400]with the active uplift.
[00:23:33.990]And then the heavy downforce pressure
[00:23:35.790]was 150 pounds at the gauge wheel,
[00:23:38.160]again with active uplift.
[00:23:39.900]Don is used to planting at about 5 1/2 to 6 miles per hour.
[00:23:43.650]And so we selected 6 miles per hour for this.
[00:23:46.440]That's what he was comfortable in testing this.
[00:23:48.930]So 2020 and 2021 data, or in field information, excuse me,
[00:23:54.330]you can see on this slide here,
[00:23:56.970]pretty similar across the board.
[00:23:58.620]Planted and harvested around the same time.
[00:24:00.780]Population's 34,000, 30-inch row spacing.
[00:24:04.260]Yes, the hybrids are a little different.
[00:24:06.600]However, if you've ever done multi-year studies,
[00:24:09.240]sometimes you can't get a hybrid or a number,
[00:24:11.370]they take it off the market.
[00:24:12.600]So I had that happen in grad school.
[00:24:15.660]Replications are six for this particular study.
[00:24:18.210]Previous crop was corn,
[00:24:19.920]SDI for irrigation, strip-till,
[00:24:23.790]and some data that we were able to take off of it.
[00:24:28.680]I collected emergence counts.
[00:24:30.780]If you've ever done that before,
[00:24:33.030]you go out to the same plot spaces
[00:24:35.250]for about 7, 10, 14 days, somewhere in there.
[00:24:40.020]It depends on how much rainfall you get.
[00:24:42.210]So for this one I think I went about 10 to 14 days.
[00:24:45.870]Early season stand counts around V4 to V6.
[00:24:48.810]Harvest stand counts in the same exact spots,
[00:24:51.360]so these were flagged for consistency,
[00:24:53.610]'cause sometimes you get green snap throughout the year,
[00:24:55.770]and you have to adjust for that.
[00:24:57.630]Moisture, yield, and marginal net return.
[00:24:59.610]Now Ag Leader, what they did on these two studies was,
[00:25:03.510]we ground-truthed what they were doing with the drone.
[00:25:06.240]So they flew the drone over about every two weeks or so,
[00:25:10.950]just to get their numbers and see how it compared to ours,
[00:25:14.640]boots on the ground.
[00:25:16.620]If you've ever done emergence counts before,
[00:25:19.770]each color-coated Popsicle stick here
[00:25:22.740]represents a different day.
[00:25:24.930]Now I've seen studies
[00:25:26.730]where they have all these pretty flags.
[00:25:29.130]And it looks so nice, I'm not gonna lie.
[00:25:31.350]However, it's expensive.
[00:25:32.640]Go to Menards and look at price of flags.
[00:25:35.460]Plus I gotta take 'em out.
[00:25:36.630]So Popsicle sticks from Walmart were 10 bucks,
[00:25:39.960]for, like, 1,000 of them.
[00:25:42.170]It was a beautiful thing,
[00:25:43.260]and I had leftover spray paint.
[00:25:44.730]And I could leave 'em in the fields, they would degrade.
[00:25:47.220]So it worked out really slick for me.
[00:25:49.800]And then of course some stand counts there a little later.
[00:25:53.550]So here's just the results here of our emergence data.
[00:25:58.560]In 2020, everything for the downforce pressure system,
[00:26:02.070]really not a whole lot of difference.
[00:26:04.020]Yes, you see a little bit of spread in that data,
[00:26:06.120]but things really do come together
[00:26:08.430]towards the end of that emergence period.
[00:26:11.490]'21, we had a little bit more difference there.
[00:26:16.020]That green one is the manual,
[00:26:17.940]which is what our check would've been,
[00:26:19.560]what the farmer would be using
[00:26:21.150]if he didn't have the Ag Leader technology on there.
[00:26:24.360]That lagged behind a little bit,
[00:26:26.010]but again it lined up a little closer
[00:26:28.260]towards the end of that emergence period.
[00:26:31.530]Statistically speaking,
[00:26:32.850]again we took early-in-harvest stand counts,
[00:26:35.280]no differences there.
[00:26:37.590]Statistically in the data we must have had in the stats
[00:26:41.010]a little bit of difference between,
[00:26:42.810]you look at the numbers, they're the same,
[00:26:45.420]but there must have been something back there.
[00:26:47.730]That was the only thing that really popped up for 2020.
[00:26:50.340]No difference in yield or on marginal net return,
[00:26:53.250]statistically speaking,
[00:26:54.330]between those three treatments.
[00:26:57.210]And then in '21,
[00:26:59.160]across the board everything is really pretty similar.
[00:27:02.790]The only differences that came out
[00:27:05.100]were for yield and marginal net return here,
[00:27:09.330]where the heavy downforce pressure
[00:27:11.790]actually worked out really pretty well.
[00:27:16.920]So just to summarize that for this particular study,
[00:27:19.680]and then we'll talk about the travel speed one.
[00:27:21.690]In 2020, no significant differences
[00:27:23.970]in emergence, stands, yield, or net return.
[00:27:26.820]Slight difference in moisture,
[00:27:28.200]not enough to impact anything for their overall goals.
[00:27:31.620]In '21, the active downforce had quicker emergence,
[00:27:34.590]but it normalized by May 17th.
[00:27:37.200]No difference in stands, delayed counts, or moisture.
[00:27:40.230]We did have differences of course in yield and net return,
[00:27:42.780]as you saw on that table.
[00:27:44.760]Greater for heavy downforce pressure,
[00:27:46.740]and again that was 150 pounds with the active uplift.
[00:27:50.430]The manual rate of 100 pounds
[00:27:51.930]that did not have the active uplift
[00:27:54.090]did not have different yield or profit,
[00:27:55.800]compared to either active downforce treatments.
[00:27:58.200]So what was the farmer able to glean
[00:28:00.420]from these two years of that study?
[00:28:03.060]Heavy downforce pressure
[00:28:04.830]was better than the medium downforce,
[00:28:06.420]but not different compared to the manual rate.
[00:28:08.730]So at that point he kinda has to make a decision.
[00:28:10.890]You've already retrofitted your planter,
[00:28:12.990]so what do you wanna do?
[00:28:15.390]And I haven't followed up with him
[00:28:17.880]in the last couple of years.
[00:28:19.110]I think that he was more interested
[00:28:20.820]in the travel speed side of it.
[00:28:22.860]But I'm pretty sure
[00:28:23.790]that he is still implementing that technology,
[00:28:25.740]and my guess is he's probably using 150 pounds,
[00:28:28.680]'cause that's what worked out well for him here.
[00:28:32.160]So this is on the eastern side of that field, then.
[00:28:35.220]This is the travel speed study.
[00:28:36.630]So that worked out really nice for me,
[00:28:38.370]'cause he utilized that whole SDI field there,
[00:28:42.420]and I just had to walk straight through.
[00:28:44.310]So it was really nice
[00:28:45.990]to have side-by-side comparison on that.
[00:28:49.830]So for his travel speed,
[00:28:52.770]you are implementing
[00:28:54.000]that SureForce downforce pressure on there.
[00:28:57.480]But we're really looking at the singulation,
[00:29:00.660]how fast they can drive.
[00:29:02.280]So that first year what they were doing
[00:29:05.100]was 5, 7, and 10 miles per hour.
[00:29:08.700]Again, he was used to planting
[00:29:10.020]at about 5 1/2 to 7, 6,
[00:29:14.670]somewhere in there,
[00:29:15.503]miles per hour.
[00:29:16.650]So we chose 5 as his check.
[00:29:19.110]7 miles per hour and 10 miles per hour.
[00:29:22.560]If you've ever driven 10 miles per hour over a field,
[00:29:25.470]it gets sporty.
[00:29:27.360]And Don actually said he got nervous enough
[00:29:30.990]he had to take it off of auto steer.
[00:29:33.240]So next year,
[00:29:35.910]and to be fair,
[00:29:37.410]we knew that there could be some complications there,
[00:29:41.010]the next year in 2021, for safety purposes,
[00:29:44.910]to make the producer feel a little bit more comfortable
[00:29:47.160]or else he was not going to do the study,
[00:29:49.530]they backed it down to 9 miles per hour.
[00:29:52.080]So all planted
[00:29:53.400]with 100 pounds of downforce at the gauge wheel,
[00:29:55.920]again, with active uplift.
[00:29:58.440]This would've been the medium application
[00:30:00.180]in that first study that we just looked at.
[00:30:02.250]Data collected,
[00:30:03.150]same exact stuff that we just talked through.
[00:30:06.150]Field information,
[00:30:06.983]again planted and harvested around the same time.
[00:30:10.020]I believe they used the same hybrids
[00:30:12.120]in the other study as well.
[00:30:14.760]Five replications in this one though.
[00:30:16.770]That was the major difference there.
[00:30:19.740]So again,
[00:30:20.580]went out and took emergence counts and stand counts on that,
[00:30:25.320]for early and late.
[00:30:27.600]And we can see here for our emergence data,
[00:30:30.360]quite the spread in 2020.
[00:30:34.140]That first year you can see our 5 miles per hour,
[00:30:36.750]which is typically what the farmer would be planting around,
[00:30:40.530]lot better singulation, lot better spacing.
[00:30:43.980]He actually told me,
[00:30:45.030]'cause he sprays at an angle across that field,
[00:30:48.210]he could tell when he was in the 10-mile-per-hour plots,
[00:30:51.750]the green ones,
[00:30:53.010]because you had huge gaps, or you had doubles.
[00:30:57.990]I found seed on the top of the soil surface,
[00:31:00.690]or some things that were just way too deep.
[00:31:03.360]'Cause you know, you're going along, it's bumpy.
[00:31:05.910]Totally makes sense.
[00:31:07.680]'21 though,
[00:31:08.550]so we backed that off to 5, 7, and 9 miles per hour.
[00:31:12.450]You can see a lot more uniformity, a lot more consistency.
[00:31:15.990]And Ag Leader,
[00:31:16.823]the folks there actually said
[00:31:18.780]they wanted to try 10 miles per hour,
[00:31:21.360]because they wanted to push the system
[00:31:23.520]to see what it would do.
[00:31:25.200]And they found out pretty fast, it didn't work out so well.
[00:31:29.010]So the 9 definitely fit a little bit better
[00:31:32.700]with the needs for that study.
[00:31:35.100]So some things that we collected here,
[00:31:37.470]again, stands,
[00:31:39.300]we do see in that first year,
[00:31:41.850]that emergence pattern
[00:31:43.620]carried through the entire growing season.
[00:31:46.470]Definitely had problems with our stands.
[00:31:48.510]Again, Don could tell driving across,
[00:31:50.970]that's a 10-mile-per-hour plot
[00:31:52.350]'cause there's hardly any plants in there.
[00:31:55.230]If we look at our yield and marginal net return,
[00:31:58.140]the 7-mile-per-hour actually shined through.
[00:32:01.320]We're not 100% positive why, but it did.
[00:32:06.090]And statistically speaking, I mean, it looks pretty good,
[00:32:09.150]paid off for him in the end.
[00:32:11.070]So in '21 then to see if we could replicate that,
[00:32:15.030]again, we backed that
[00:32:16.290]from 10 miles per hour to 9 miles per hour.
[00:32:19.620]Didn't see any differences across the board
[00:32:21.360]in any of the data that we collected.
[00:32:23.850]So to summarize that, in 2020 for our emergence data,
[00:32:28.800]7 and 10 initially were slower than the 5,
[00:32:31.500]the 7 caught up to the 5,
[00:32:32.333]the 10 always lagged behind.
[00:32:35.130]And stand counts: 10, not so good,
[00:32:39.360]followed through
[00:32:40.193]towards the end of the growing season as well.
[00:32:42.120]5 and 7 were pretty similar.
[00:32:44.190]For our yield and net return it was higher.
[00:32:46.710]We're not sure why.
[00:32:48.570]No differences between the 5 and the 10 though.
[00:32:50.568]So in '21 across the board,
[00:32:52.740]no differences, statistically speaking.
[00:32:54.720]So asking him, you know, "What do you wanna do?"
[00:32:59.130]I do know that he did increase his planting speed
[00:33:03.090]after that first growing season.
[00:33:05.400]He planted I think,
[00:33:06.420]everything besides this trial of course,
[00:33:09.690]everything else on his operation,
[00:33:11.100]I think he bumped clear up to 7 miles per hour,
[00:33:13.710]just because he knew that the system could take it,
[00:33:15.720]and he was comfortable planting that.
[00:33:19.080]But he could go higher, as high as 9 miles per hour,
[00:33:22.470]if he wanted to, if he feels comfortable enough.
[00:33:26.940]So that's just some data that I wanted to share with you.
[00:33:30.930]Obviously I've done many other studies.
[00:33:33.870]One that I wanted to just kinda hit the highlights on,
[00:33:36.750]because if you've ever worked in the university setting,
[00:33:39.630]either in extension or not,
[00:33:41.340]they always wanna see your impact.
[00:33:43.170]They wanna see, what have you accomplished,
[00:33:45.630]what have you achieved?
[00:33:46.890]And so it takes not only data,
[00:33:50.640]but also getting those personal perspectives
[00:33:53.100]from your clientele that you work with.
[00:33:55.860]And so I had a producer come to me one year,
[00:34:00.120]he's a grower for Frito-Lay.
[00:34:01.590]We have a facility out in the Gothenburg,
[00:34:04.470]so very western edge of my territory.
[00:34:07.950]And he called up and said, you know,
[00:34:10.800]growing for Frito, which is white corn,
[00:34:13.740]there's all these rules and regulations and hoops
[00:34:16.080]that they have to jump through already.
[00:34:18.480]And he said that they had a product that they wanted to test
[00:34:23.910]to help with their sustainability initiative,
[00:34:26.640]and Andy just really wasn't sure about it.
[00:34:29.070]So he said, "Is there any way
[00:34:30.480]we can do an on-farm research trial,
[00:34:32.190]to kinda ground-truth and see if it's gonna work?
[00:34:34.410]Otherwise this is one more thing
[00:34:36.000]that we and the growers in our area have to do."
[00:34:39.660]So we met with the company,
[00:34:42.090]we got together, we designed a trial,
[00:34:44.370]he and his brother,
[00:34:46.410]and specifically,
[00:34:47.430]we gave the protocol to others of course
[00:34:50.220]that were sitting there,
[00:34:51.510]but this is the field
[00:34:52.740]that I went and worked in in particular.
[00:34:55.770]But that one trial,
[00:34:57.420]it showed that the product that they were working with,
[00:35:01.050]or hoping that the producers
[00:35:02.550]would use for their sustainability initiative,
[00:35:04.560]really wasn't going to help achieve
[00:35:06.810]what they wanted to see.
[00:35:08.910]And so the impact of that one trial
[00:35:11.610]impacted 80 white corn growers in the region
[00:35:13.770]representing 11 million bushels, 49,000 acres,
[00:35:17.130]with a total cost savings of just over $1 million
[00:35:20.130]by not having to apply that product.
[00:35:22.590]So that was huge for them,
[00:35:24.090]and they were very appreciative of the time that we took,
[00:35:27.240]and that was not a fun field to walk through,
[00:35:29.130]I will tell you.
[00:35:31.470]But how do you find out this information?
[00:35:35.460]Where do you go to learn about
[00:35:37.080]these studies that these producers are interested in?
[00:35:40.110]'Cause again, you know, we worked in the university,
[00:35:42.300]sometimes we think we know what people need,
[00:35:44.880]and this is really what they're asking for.
[00:35:47.220]And so to have them actively involved is wonderful.
[00:35:51.540]You can find different studies
[00:35:53.250]over many, many different years.
[00:35:55.140]There's an online database or research base
[00:35:58.440]that you can go through,
[00:35:59.940]or you can get it in print,
[00:36:02.370]or there's a PDF of course, you can see right there.
[00:36:05.580]But I've been involved
[00:36:06.480]in about seven or eight different publications
[00:36:08.880]at this point.
[00:36:10.470]'Course CropWatch, also share some of those.
[00:36:13.890]Local presentations, professional presentations,
[00:36:16.680]like I said,
[00:36:17.513]I presented a lot of this stuff out in Des Moines.
[00:36:20.100]I've gone to various different places,
[00:36:22.020]poster presentations, et cetera, talking about this.
[00:36:25.560]Social media, that was one of those things during Covid,
[00:36:28.200]I'm not a social media guru at all,
[00:36:31.140]but we didn't really have a choice during Covid.
[00:36:34.380]So we learned how to videotape things.
[00:36:36.360]We learned how to do short little clips
[00:36:38.220]and interview our producers and get them behind on this,
[00:36:41.610]so that way, or you know, get them actively involved in it
[00:36:44.970]and behind that, that part of it.
[00:36:47.100]And hearing the producer perspective at our update meeting.
[00:36:52.080]So this is Mark.
[00:36:53.610]He's one of my consultants here
[00:36:55.200]that is speaking to our group.
[00:36:57.540]I've got two other consultants sitting right there
[00:36:59.760]to the left-hand side,
[00:37:01.050]and one of my producers to the right.
[00:37:04.320]And so yes, we host these meetings,
[00:37:07.020]but the best thing is to get them on the microphone,
[00:37:10.380]'cause they are the ones that are sharing.
[00:37:12.300]That is the peer-to-peer learning component.
[00:37:15.210]You know, I can get up there and talk,
[00:37:16.410]but it's interesting
[00:37:17.850]to see the discussions that are generated as a result.
[00:37:21.780]It's also allowed
[00:37:23.340]a lot of professional development opportunities for me.
[00:37:26.010]My background's plant pathology.
[00:37:27.810]I never thought I would go do root digs to go look at,
[00:37:31.740]you know, spatial awareness and stuff like that.
[00:37:35.940]I've also had to do things
[00:37:37.320]like run a caliper in order to see a stem diameter,
[00:37:40.500]and look at apps to look at,
[00:37:43.620]you know, canopy estimations and weed population densities.
[00:37:47.850]I never dreamed I would have to do any of that,
[00:37:49.740]but this is what our producers are asking for,
[00:37:51.870]so how can I help with that?
[00:37:54.300]And I'm happy to do the best that I can,
[00:37:56.850]so long as I also know my limitations.
[00:37:59.520]If there's things that I don't know,
[00:38:01.080]I'm gonna pass that to a coworker who does.
[00:38:05.100]It's also led for some leadership opportunities.
[00:38:07.860]I have been a co-PI for the network since 2021,
[00:38:12.240]helping and securing funding, writing grants.
[00:38:15.150]Laura does most of that, and Taylor who's on her team,
[00:38:19.260]but we are there to help recruit producers,
[00:38:21.540]do the on-farm research,
[00:38:22.890]coordinate meetings, as you can see here.
[00:38:25.950]These are a couple of my producers
[00:38:27.770]in the flannel and in that kinda maroon-colored shirt,
[00:38:30.750]and one sitting behind 'em.
[00:38:33.060]This is the peer-to-peer learning.
[00:38:34.230]This is what they're talking about,
[00:38:35.790]is "What are you gonna try?
[00:38:37.710]What are you interested in doing next year?"
[00:38:39.510]And I know that these two gentlemen here,
[00:38:42.720]they've got at least five studies between the two of 'em
[00:38:45.960]planned for next year.
[00:38:47.670]So it's really exciting to see.
[00:38:51.000]Designing protocols, coordinating meetings,
[00:38:53.400]reviewing the data, working on those publications,
[00:38:55.920]and of course getting the information out.
[00:38:57.900]That's all about extension, is that outreach component.
[00:39:01.350]But if you've also ever done, you know,
[00:39:06.360]your work in extension or at the university,
[00:39:09.330]looking at that impact again,
[00:39:11.340]they also wanna see what you contribute, right?
[00:39:13.987]"What do you bring to the table?
[00:39:16.410]What do your clientele think of you?
[00:39:18.510]What do they think of your programming?" Et cetera.
[00:39:21.210]And so during 2020 while I was quote, "stuck at home,"
[00:39:26.070]I threw in my promotion file.
[00:39:27.960]So I got that packet ready early,
[00:39:30.330]and I started making phone calls, sending out surveys.
[00:39:34.507]"What do you guys think of the On-Farm Research Network?
[00:39:36.600]How has this helped you?
[00:39:38.700]How have I helped you?" Et cetera.
[00:39:40.290]So just a few things I wanted to point out.
[00:39:43.740]One of my producers,
[00:39:45.090]they've tried a lot of stuff on their operation.
[00:39:47.190]Some of it worked, some of it did not.
[00:39:49.020]So they either made that investment long-term,
[00:39:51.840]or they decided nope, that's not for us.
[00:39:54.330]We're not gonna waste our time.
[00:39:56.430]So it's nice to try it on a small scale.
[00:39:58.710]With so many claims and studies out there,
[00:40:00.270]it's important that we have university extension
[00:40:02.340]as a tool in our pocket
[00:40:03.600]to help guide on-farm research trials
[00:40:05.400]and discern what works and what does not for us.
[00:40:08.970]And then of course if you've ever gone up for promotion,
[00:40:11.640]you have to know what people think of yourself,
[00:40:13.770]which was hard for me.
[00:40:14.970]I tend to be more humble. I don't like to toot my own horn.
[00:40:18.750]But if you've gone up for promotion, you know you have to.
[00:40:21.720]So I asked them, "How have I helped you?"
[00:40:25.747]"Good sounding board,
[00:40:27.870]appreciation of what it takes
[00:40:29.010]for an on-farm trial to have valid information."
[00:40:31.717]"Good at getting trials set up,
[00:40:33.810]right there in the field."
[00:40:35.100]I've been in tractors, I've been in combines,
[00:40:37.710]I've been out there flagging things,
[00:40:39.810]collecting that data, getting super muddy, exhausted.
[00:40:43.380]That's what needs to be done, so that's what we do.
[00:40:47.257]"Has been able to help producers
[00:40:49.530]work at a highly efficient level."
[00:40:51.330]Like I said, a lot of these guys,
[00:40:52.560]they farm a lot of acres, and they just don't have time.
[00:40:55.020]They're very curious, they're very interested.
[00:40:58.320]But you have to put in that legwork.
[00:41:00.660]You gotta meet 'em part way
[00:41:03.060]in order to make this successful.
[00:41:06.300]So future efforts on this. Where are we going?
[00:41:09.060]Like I said, I've got producers already saying,
[00:41:11.077]"Yep, I've got studies in mind for next year.
[00:41:13.440]We're ready to go."
[00:41:15.900]I've got one multi-year trial.
[00:41:17.550]This is actually a specialist-driven study.
[00:41:19.710]It's interesting.
[00:41:20.550]They're looking at cover crops
[00:41:22.170]and nematodes that they put out there through the pivot.
[00:41:26.520]And this will be the third year of that study.
[00:41:29.340]I've got three producers in Dawson County
[00:41:31.140]that are doing that.
[00:41:32.970]So we'll be curious to see how that turns out
[00:41:34.860]at the end of next year.
[00:41:37.560]We've got some funding coming up.
[00:41:40.020]They just recently got a SARE grant here
[00:41:43.020]for some cover crop water saving studies.
[00:41:45.270]So I'm gonna be actively recruiting producers
[00:41:47.460]for that multi-year study.
[00:41:49.350]And then they've got
[00:41:50.220]some data-driven fertigation management studies
[00:41:52.650]that they just submitted a grant for as well.
[00:41:57.330]So to kinda wrap this up here,
[00:42:00.240]obviously I've jabbered a lot,
[00:42:02.010]but some of the lessons that I've learned,
[00:42:03.570]because this is something I jumped into,
[00:42:06.840]I was interested in doing,
[00:42:08.610]and I've had educators across the state
[00:42:11.640]and especially in the surrounding counties
[00:42:13.320]ask me,
[00:42:14.153]"How have you been successful?
[00:42:15.060]We've tried to do this
[00:42:16.920]and it's like pulling teeth
[00:42:18.870]to get producers to want to do on-farm research."
[00:42:21.300]I'm not saying it's always been easy.
[00:42:24.210]And once you get into it, sometimes things don't pan out.
[00:42:27.360]I've had situations
[00:42:28.650]where producers had every intention of getting a study done,
[00:42:32.400]and I get a text message
[00:42:34.470]with a picture of something that broke on the planter.
[00:42:36.577]"Well, we're not doing this this year."
[00:42:38.550]Okay, that'll be fine.
[00:42:41.790]Most important, you gotta get their buy-in.
[00:42:44.820]You have to know
[00:42:45.960]what their goals and objectives are for these studies,
[00:42:48.210]and what their objectives are
[00:42:49.560]for their operation as a whole.
[00:42:51.720]And you wanna seek clarity on there.
[00:42:54.420]You've gotta be on the same page.
[00:42:56.670]Producer input and buy-in is so important.
[00:42:59.160]They have to be at least aware of it every step of the way.
[00:43:03.210]If they don't,
[00:43:04.800]they're not gonna feel valued in that study process.
[00:43:09.630]And you know, sometimes you do see that.
[00:43:12.240]I know that when I was in grad school,
[00:43:14.100]I didn't fully grasp that.
[00:43:16.310]You know, I had access to fields,
[00:43:18.390]but it really would've been nice
[00:43:19.620]to go out and talk with those producers one-on-one.
[00:43:22.350]Because again, it's their livelihood,
[00:43:24.450]and we wanna make sure
[00:43:25.440]that we take and respect that land and their fields
[00:43:27.840]that we are utilizing to get good data.
[00:43:31.200]Each producer is unique.
[00:43:33.030]Some of my producers,
[00:43:34.470]they want to be in that field
[00:43:36.990]when you are out there collecting data.
[00:43:38.580]So I'll send 'em a quick text,
[00:43:39.757]"Hey, I'm headed out there this morning if you have time."
[00:43:42.330]And most of the time they do stop by.
[00:43:43.800]It might only be for a couple minutes.
[00:43:45.300]But they want that interaction with you
[00:43:47.130]to see that their research is getting done.
[00:43:51.030]And some, they just,
[00:43:53.287]"Hey, send me a file when you're done with it."
[00:43:55.920]Okay, that's fine.
[00:43:58.650]I am the one who does the data collection.
[00:44:01.140]That first year I didn't know all of this,
[00:44:05.850]and we had a lot of stand counts in those five studies
[00:44:08.790]that did not get done appropriately.
[00:44:11.160]And so I took it upon myself,
[00:44:12.780]I'm gonna do every stand count in that field.
[00:44:15.600]And it's definitely paid off.
[00:44:17.940]And as a result,
[00:44:18.810]I've had some producers who get on their hands and knees
[00:44:21.510]and they count soybeans with me,
[00:44:22.890]'cause they know that I'm dedicated,
[00:44:24.720]that we've built that trust in that relationship.
[00:44:27.150]So they wanna help me with that.
[00:44:29.910]I also have to know my limitations.
[00:44:31.800]Again, my background and expertise,
[00:44:34.290]there's some things I know,
[00:44:35.790]but there's a lot of people, a lot of educator specialists,
[00:44:38.610]the producers themselves, the crop consultants,
[00:44:41.250]they have that expertise.
[00:44:43.410]So if I don't know something, I'm gonna ask them,
[00:44:45.277]"What do you think about this?"
[00:44:46.740]You know, I'm gonna lean on them.
[00:44:48.060]Or you know, I'm expecting,
[00:44:51.000]and so I can't go crawl around in fields like I used to.
[00:44:55.260]And so the other thing is being around spray.
[00:44:59.190]I actually had a situation
[00:45:00.720]where I had texted the dad that morning,
[00:45:03.967]"Hey, I'm headed out there. Anything been sprayed?"
[00:45:06.217]"Nope, you should be good."
[00:45:07.500]Got to the field, just about ready to step in,
[00:45:10.590]sprayer pulls up, the son dashes out.
[00:45:13.290]He's like, "You didn't step in there did you?"
[00:45:15.097]"Nope."
[00:45:16.177]"Good. I sprayed it this morning."
[00:45:18.030]Okay.
[00:45:19.230]So they understood that,
[00:45:20.910]and I appreciate the honesty and the communication there,
[00:45:24.390]once we got caught up.
[00:45:26.640]But if you need help, to ask for it.
[00:45:29.610]And ask for their feedback.
[00:45:31.207]"Do you wanna do this again?
[00:45:32.820]Do you not?
[00:45:33.780]Do you wanna try something different?
[00:45:35.160]How did this go for you?"
[00:45:36.600]And most importantly, showing gratitude.
[00:45:39.570]I know that when I was in grad school,
[00:45:42.180]you know, I would send an email to the producer,
[00:45:44.340]but I'm not sure
[00:45:45.360]that it was as heartfelt as it should have been.
[00:45:49.740]And so every single year, even with Don,
[00:45:52.500]I've done studies with him since 2017,
[00:45:54.780]I write a handwritten thank-you note saying,
[00:45:57.607]"Thank you so much for your willingness to cooperate,
[00:46:00.450]to try something on your operation,
[00:46:02.160]and for allowing to partner with the university and myself."
[00:46:06.630]And I typically include a business card,
[00:46:08.340]just in case they wanna pass it on to somebody.
[00:46:12.810]Whoops.
[00:46:14.160]So here's an extensive list.
[00:46:16.260]I hopefully got everybody on there,
[00:46:19.290]between consultants, producers,
[00:46:21.360]and folks that have helped me along the way.
[00:46:24.510]Hopefully I didn't miss too many people.
[00:46:27.300]I try to keep a good running list over the years.
[00:46:30.060]But again, some of these I've worked with just once,
[00:46:32.910]and I appreciate every second of their time.
[00:46:36.030]And with that,
[00:46:37.740]if I have any questions, I'm happy to entertain them.
[00:46:40.950]Again, I know this presentation
[00:46:42.240]was probably a little different
[00:46:43.590]than maybe what you were expecting.
[00:46:45.240]Not as data-driven,
[00:46:47.280]but this is just what I have learned
[00:46:49.350]in my six to seven years being in extension.
[00:46:51.540]And this particular field,
[00:46:52.950]that was that study over in Gothenburg.
[00:46:55.620]I was covered in mud from the waist down,
[00:46:57.930]and I still managed to smile at the end of it.
[00:47:01.260]So, you do what you gotta do for your producers.
[00:47:05.670]Okay, thank you, Sarah, for your presentation.
[00:47:07.770]We open the floor for questions, so.
[00:47:11.220]Yes.
[00:47:13.740]I have three or four questions, but-
[00:47:15.720]Oh boy.
[00:47:16.553]What was the previous crop in these studies?
[00:47:18.930]It depends. Every single one is different.
[00:47:20.850]In our area of the state,
[00:47:22.170]we do have a lot of cow-calf operations.
[00:47:24.330]So most of the time there might be corn, corn, soybeans,
[00:47:27.930]some are corn on corn throughout,
[00:47:32.100]or corn-soy rotation.
[00:47:33.690]There's not a ton of wheat that gets thrown into the mix.
[00:47:36.300]Depending on where you go though, either south or north,
[00:47:39.480]you start to get wheat into that rotation.
[00:47:41.790]So for the studies you presented today,
[00:47:44.640]was the previous crop corn
[00:47:46.740]like it shows here in the picture?
[00:47:48.810]Yep, yeah. Okay.
[00:47:49.793]What is SDI irrigation?
[00:47:52.290]Subsurface drip irrigation.
[00:47:54.210]Okay, I thought so. Is that acronym.
[00:47:55.590]So basically,
[00:47:57.150]typically what you're gonna see in my area of the state
[00:47:59.580]are center-pivot irrigation,
[00:48:01.230]gated pipe,
[00:48:02.100]or polypipe, it's kind of a flexible one now,
[00:48:05.040]so the seed corn folks can drive over it.
[00:48:07.380]But for SDI,
[00:48:08.460]basically they dig down about 6 to 8, sometimes 10 inches,
[00:48:13.560]it just depends on your field,
[00:48:15.300]and they lay down drip tape.
[00:48:17.460]And so there is irrigation,
[00:48:19.830]but the point is to not have as much evaporation,
[00:48:22.500]as much losses,
[00:48:23.400]as what you might find in, like, gravity
[00:48:25.410]or you know, something along those lines.
[00:48:28.650]So it's just another form of irrigation.
[00:48:30.480]How frequently are the tubes in the ground?
[00:48:33.870]They stay there.
[00:48:34.703]Once they're put in, that's where they stay.
[00:48:36.900]30 inches apart, or five feet, or?
[00:48:40.260]Typically I think they're about on 30s or so,
[00:48:44.160]and they try to go between.
[00:48:46.110]So you don't wanna dig too deep.
[00:48:48.090]This guy that had this field, he strip-tilled,
[00:48:51.390]so that's minimum amount of tillage.
[00:48:53.490]So that way you don't rip into those accidentally.
[00:48:55.860]And sometimes you do get one,
[00:48:57.060]and you gotta go out and fix it.
[00:48:59.490]Did Ag Leader learn anything
[00:49:00.872]from their imagery?
[00:49:03.180]I think that what they found,
[00:49:05.580]they were able to kinda see those trouble spots
[00:49:07.680]in the emergence patterns as well
[00:49:09.240]on that 10-miles-per-hour.
[00:49:11.370]But they did find that their stands
[00:49:15.000]were pretty consistent with what we had found.
[00:49:17.100]So that was encouraging,
[00:49:18.030]'cause obviously from a bird's eye view
[00:49:20.100]it's nice to see that that technology is working for them.
[00:49:23.460]And finally,
[00:49:24.293]you said you worked with five students.
[00:49:26.940]In what capacity? Or how did that work?
[00:49:28.860]Yeah. What was-
[00:49:30.090]So there were different student groups, actually.
[00:49:34.380]I've had grad students come out if they-
[00:49:38.340]So this year in particular,
[00:49:40.170]like, for example, being pregnant,
[00:49:41.790]I can't go out and do ratings on stuff.
[00:49:44.340]And so, it's just too hot and cumbersome.
[00:49:47.010]And so they've come out to help with some of that rating
[00:49:49.890]here in the Plant Pathology department.
[00:49:52.410]There was a manure study that was done.
[00:49:55.950]It was 2020 actually, because we took a video of it,
[00:49:58.860]had to learn how to do that.
[00:50:01.170]We had classrooms, actually, we were partnering with them.
[00:50:05.640]We had a grad student who now I believe is up at Cornell.
[00:50:10.950]He was doing a manure study,
[00:50:13.320]and he wanted to get into the classrooms,
[00:50:15.840]and so we were able to work
[00:50:17.340]with the schools, the producer, and UNL
[00:50:19.620]in order to make that relationship.
[00:50:21.810]And so yeah, he, like I said, he's moved on now.
[00:50:25.560]And then this spring
[00:50:26.490]I also had a couple of postdocs come out
[00:50:28.770]and help collect stand counts on some fields.
[00:50:31.770]'Cause again, it would be a little cumbersome, but yeah.
[00:50:35.790]Thank you for the questions.
[00:50:38.160]Any other questions?
[00:50:41.190]Yes.
[00:50:42.480]Thank you for the presentation.
[00:50:43.517]It was really good and I really enjoyed it.
[00:50:46.290]I got, I guess, two questions.
[00:50:49.260]The first one, I've also had the opportunity in the past
[00:50:53.910]to do some on-farm research a couple states north of here.
[00:50:57.990]And one of the things that was interesting
[00:51:02.400]with those producers up there
[00:51:03.840]was with their on-farm research,
[00:51:07.500]a lot of 'em seemed surprised
[00:51:09.060]what they felt early season visual differences
[00:51:12.600]actually in the end
[00:51:13.440]didn't result in any production difference for them.
[00:51:17.190]So I was wondering
[00:51:18.330]if through your producers that you've worked with,
[00:51:20.550]if they've seen some similar things,
[00:51:22.650]or expressed similar surprises,
[00:51:24.780]or if there's other examples, something like that,
[00:51:27.300]to where they're like,
[00:51:28.537]"I was overpredicting, or underpredicting,
[00:51:31.550]or surprised how resilient my crops really are."
[00:51:35.040]Just kinda curious.
[00:51:36.330]Yeah, good question.
[00:51:37.650]So in the experiences that I've had with my producers,
[00:51:42.390]most of the time when a farmer comes to me,
[00:51:45.690]they're interested in yield,
[00:51:47.160]and they're interested in net return.
[00:51:48.870]Like, everything else, I'm the one who's like,
[00:51:51.457]"We need to do stands on this
[00:51:52.740]so your yield and your net return make sense."
[00:51:55.980]Or you know, there's been some things, it's like,
[00:51:58.950]we should probably do root digs on that.
[00:52:00.510]Not that I enjoyed it,
[00:52:01.470]but we should probably do root digs on that
[00:52:03.150]to kinda ground-truth it.
[00:52:06.000]So there's things that I add to that treatment,
[00:52:08.760]which yes, is more work,
[00:52:09.780]but it will at least help strengthen
[00:52:12.630]what they find at the end of the growing season.
[00:52:14.700]Like I said, they're more curious about that side of it.
[00:52:18.810]I did have a producer,
[00:52:20.850]couple years ago, two or three years ago,
[00:52:25.320]he, well it's Don actually,
[00:52:27.060]very, very curious,
[00:52:28.560]and he was looking at biomass of cover crops,
[00:52:32.550]because the guy who sold him the seed
[00:52:35.070]originally grew up in southwest Kansas,
[00:52:37.380]and so he wanted to use wheat as a cover crop.
[00:52:41.070]Well everybody in my territory for the most part uses rye.
[00:52:44.070]And so he's like, "Which is gonna produce more biomass?"
[00:52:47.070]And so at the beginning
[00:52:48.150]everything looked really pretty rough.
[00:52:49.950]It was pretty dry that winter.
[00:52:52.200]And then by the time that we went to do biomass clippings,
[00:52:54.780]he's like, "Wow, that rye just outshone everything."
[00:52:59.130]So that's probably the one
[00:53:00.600]that I would say was like the main aha.
[00:53:03.360]But you know, I've been to many meetings in the past,
[00:53:06.540]and it was probably before I started doing on-farm research,
[00:53:10.530]one of the guys got up, was working with another educator,
[00:53:14.280]says, "You know, I've been doing this study here
[00:53:16.800]for the last two, three years.
[00:53:19.380]They're not finding anything.
[00:53:20.910]So I just, maybe I should stop doing it."
[00:53:22.650]And the educator stood up and said,
[00:53:24.817]"Just because you're not getting
[00:53:26.010]the results that you would like to see
[00:53:28.110]does not mean that they are not good results.
[00:53:31.050]You want to see the yield differences,
[00:53:32.850]you want to see, you know, the high impact, net return,
[00:53:37.740]but this means
[00:53:39.420]that you don't have to invest that money in that."
[00:53:42.120]So that'd probably be where a lot of that has gone.
[00:53:44.880]A lot of the studies I've done, they're like,
[00:53:46.657]"Oh, well that didn't work, so we're not gonna do that."
[00:53:50.610]Very cool.
[00:53:51.443]And my last question,
[00:53:52.710]it has to do with your thoughts
[00:53:54.990]on some of the data observations you saw on the speed one.
[00:53:57.990]I'm very interested in, like,
[00:53:58.920]the year-to-year variability and things.
[00:54:01.140]So in the first year
[00:54:01.973]there's a lot of spread early in the season
[00:54:04.530]on the germination counts,
[00:54:06.060]but in the second one they're much tighter.
[00:54:07.650]They're right together.
[00:54:09.240]And so I was curious if, you know, if I remember right,
[00:54:13.890]there's a different hybrid for each of the years.
[00:54:16.260]Do you think if that played any role?
[00:54:18.990]Or is that more of weather conditions?
[00:54:21.030]Or something else?
[00:54:22.020]That is a great question.
[00:54:23.970]And we had an extension educator who,
[00:54:26.760]he did something similar.
[00:54:28.260]And he has an engineering background,
[00:54:30.180]so he took it one step further.
[00:54:34.107]Had I known him ahead of time,
[00:54:35.730]and we coulda worked with this together,
[00:54:38.070]that would've been awesome.
[00:54:39.510]So yes, two different hybrids there.
[00:54:43.560]The first year I think, it was cold,
[00:54:47.430]there was some differences in weather patterns there.
[00:54:50.400]One of the years it was really cold and really wet,
[00:54:54.030]so it was a lot of sloppy mess
[00:54:56.310]to get out there and to take those.
[00:54:58.500]But he said that definitely plays a part into it.
[00:55:01.470]But he's like, "Sarah,"
[00:55:02.790]to make this a stronger case for the producer,
[00:55:05.280]what he did for his guy is he did emergence counts,
[00:55:09.660]and he followed it throughout the entire growing season.
[00:55:12.450]And then he went and hand-harvested
[00:55:15.000]the ones that were blue on this day
[00:55:16.710]and the ones that were red on this day,
[00:55:18.330]et cetera.
[00:55:19.560]And he said it was amazing,
[00:55:21.090]even 48-hour difference in emergence.
[00:55:24.240]He had ears that were shorter or longer,
[00:55:27.300]you know, depending on when they came up.
[00:55:29.130]And he kept track of the weather a lot closer than I did,
[00:55:32.970]and he really had a phenomenal poster and presentation
[00:55:36.390]by the end of it.
[00:55:37.320]So I do think that yes,
[00:55:38.580]there's probably some hybrid genetic variability in there
[00:55:42.510]and those differences.
[00:55:45.030]I also think that the weather played a huge role in that.
[00:55:49.560]Good question.
[00:55:50.393]Thank you.
[00:55:52.500]We have a question from the online audience.
[00:55:54.840]They were asking, how do you deal with producers
[00:55:58.113]that they don't get engaged in these on-farm experiments,
[00:56:03.390]or the positive question would be,
[00:56:04.950]how do you get them engaged?
[00:56:06.720]No, that's a good question.
[00:56:07.890]So in the beginning I struggled with that.
[00:56:09.870]Like I said, I had two producers that first year.
[00:56:14.850]I'm pretty sure then I had,
[00:56:16.260]you know, a couple more that second year.
[00:56:18.540]And it just, you gotta give it time.
[00:56:22.710]You gotta build those relationships,
[00:56:24.810]and you gotta get used to having people say no.
[00:56:28.740]And that's a tough one, of course.
[00:56:31.650]As a new educator, you wanna be successful,
[00:56:34.050]you wanna get out there and leave your mark.
[00:56:35.910]And for any of you that are professors,
[00:56:38.160]you know, you have a certain amount of time
[00:56:39.840]to get tenure and work on that.
[00:56:42.720]So it's tough.
[00:56:45.330]That is one thing I was also told though,
[00:56:47.700]when I started in extension,
[00:56:49.170]nobody truly knows that you're in the office
[00:56:51.870]for like three to five years.
[00:56:54.330]So after that time, then things really start to pick up.
[00:56:58.590]So you just be consistent,
[00:57:03.330]follow up,
[00:57:04.380]do what you say you're going to do,
[00:57:06.810]and people start to take notice.
[00:57:08.850]And having that peer-to-peer learning,
[00:57:10.950]having Don or Lon, or you know, Mark get up there
[00:57:14.310]during these on-farm research meetings
[00:57:15.990]and share their experiences
[00:57:17.880]is so much more valuable than having me talk about it.
[00:57:22.080]'Cause the farmers wanna hear,
[00:57:24.240]I mean, you ever go to a coffee shop in the morning?
[00:57:26.190]All the farmers are sitting there,
[00:57:28.980]'cause they wanna hear,
[00:57:30.180]what's the daily scuttlebutt, what's the news?
[00:57:32.730]So just being consistent, being patient,
[00:57:36.450]and sometimes it's not right for them,
[00:57:38.730]and you're just, you're okay with that.
[00:57:44.370]Any other questions?
[00:57:49.260]I have one. Maybe we can close with this one.
[00:57:51.660]But so you mentioned that in 2012
[00:57:54.540]this on-farm research program went statewide.
[00:57:58.200]So if I ask you what are the steps
[00:58:02.250]to take the actual on-farm research to a next level,
[00:58:05.550]you know, to keep them growing,
[00:58:08.280]what is the bottleneck, or what things are needed?
[00:58:12.120]I mean it's-
[00:58:13.920]I'm sure that's something
[00:58:14.753]Laura has probably questioned a lot
[00:58:17.940]to keep that program going.
[00:58:19.590]Honestly, you know,
[00:58:22.620]in the farm community we have had such a transition
[00:58:25.680]even in the time that I've been here,
[00:58:27.840]from producers that are starting to retire
[00:58:30.030]and pass on to that next generation,
[00:58:33.420]whatever that looks like,
[00:58:34.770]be it a relative of theirs or not.
[00:58:36.750]But you know,
[00:58:37.980]some of these younger farmers, they got great ideas.
[00:58:41.100]You know, the farmers that I work with have great ideas.
[00:58:43.530]And they've been farming,
[00:58:44.460]I've got one guy,
[00:58:45.600]he's gonna retire in a couple years here,
[00:58:47.370]and I'm gonna be really sad when that day comes,
[00:58:50.220]'cause he's got such phenomenal ideas.
[00:58:52.560]But I know that his daughter
[00:58:53.790]is gonna take over that operation.
[00:58:55.800]And so I already have asked Julie,
[00:58:58.567]"You think you wanna do on-farm research?"
[00:59:00.577]"Oh, I'm willing to do whatever you wanna try."
[00:59:02.940]And so building that relationship over time
[00:59:06.570]is definitely critical.
[00:59:07.860]But keeping up with the technology, you know,
[00:59:11.700]I like a Word document.
[00:59:13.290]I like something that I can physically scratch on.
[00:59:17.130]And so that's something I always give my producers,
[00:59:20.040]and they're happy to see that.
[00:59:22.320]But then I've got guys who,
[00:59:24.180]they're very interested in nitrogen modeling.
[00:59:26.820]We've got, like, 10 or 11 studies in my area.
[00:59:29.400]We are working with the Sentinel Fertigation folks this year
[00:59:33.720]to do the nitrogen modeling studies,
[00:59:36.090]and flying over drones,
[00:59:37.380]and doing all this stuff.
[00:59:38.400]And so they're very interested in that technology.
[00:59:40.800]They're very cutting edge in that.
[00:59:43.080]And so I think being able to find that happy medium
[00:59:46.920]of what producers,
[00:59:48.720]you know, can do with the technology limitations,
[00:59:51.600]and then also giving an opportunity to try something,
[00:59:55.920]I'm not gonna say risk-free,
[00:59:57.570]but you know,
[00:59:58.440]something on a smaller scale that may not be as risky.
[01:00:01.950]So hopefully that'll encourage more producer participation.
[01:00:05.340]And having the multi-year studies also really helps,
[01:00:09.240]because that first year,
[01:00:10.740]even with Don on the travel speed study,
[01:00:14.550]he did not wanna do that one again.
[01:00:16.620]And we said, "What if we go from 10 to 9?"
[01:00:19.770]He's like, "I could maybe do that,
[01:00:21.690]but I don't wanna do it a third year."
[01:00:23.790]He was adamant, so.
[01:00:25.342]Sounds good. Well thank you again, and-
[01:00:27.651](audio warbles)
[01:00:29.143]Thank you.
[01:00:32.725]I'll see you next week at 3:30 for the next seminar.
[01:00:36.210]Thank you.

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Experiences and Lessons in Growing an Impactful, Local On-Farm Research Program in South Central Nebraska

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