PRST STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID OMAHA, NE PERMIT NO. 36
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Volume IX, Issue 3
March 2015
Managing risks and inputs Data from ISU farm trials can help level the odds by Gordon Wolf Producers who attended the annual meeting of the Western Iowa Experimental Farm Association on February 27 in Mapleton were reminded how Iowa State University farm trials can help them manage risk. Thirteen Iowa State University (ISU) research farm are located in Iowa. Eight are owned or leased by local, nonprofit associations of farmers and business people, the state owns five, and ISU affiliate organizations own land for research in central Iowa, according to the ISU Research and Demonstration Farms website, www.ag.iastate. edu/farms/. ISU Extension field agronomist Joel DeJong, who serves northwest Iowa, pointed out that the power of the farm trials lies in experiments conducted in multiple locations in multiple years.
“That’s when that repeatability is better and when the power of information is better,” he said when addressing the annual meeting of the Western Iowa Experimental Farm Association. The nonprofit organization owns the Western Research and Demonstration Farm located near Castana. DeJong pointed out that the job of an Extension field agronomist is “kind of like the odds maker in Las Vegas. I’m trying to take research-based information, which is the replicated trials, and I’m trying to share that information with producers so they can make management decisions on their farms. “What research is to me is the odds creation. What are the odds that this is going to happen?” DeJong added, however, that plants are biological systems, so farm trials never happen the same. The more data, the better the odds are. Among the on-farm trials discussed were sulfur fertilization of corn and soybeans, corn fertilizer, corn and soybean management, soybean seed treatment, soybeans fungicide, corn rootworm and corn population. When talking about the latter on-farm trial, DeJong mentioned that producers have very narrow margins now. INPUTS, Page 2A
Iowa State University Extension Field Agronomist Joel DeJong spoke about using data from on-farm trials conducted through the ISU research farms to manage risk during an event in Mapleton. Photo by Gordon Wolf