Farmer-Led Research

This research was funded by Ceres Trust. In a Nutshell: Hannah Breckbill, Emily Fagan and Jon Yagla wanted to see which potting soil produced the best transplants in each of their farms’ production systems, in order to determine …

This project was funded by Ceres: Cluster In a Nutshell In the first year of the trial, Maja and Carmen Black were interested to see if there was a difference in the weight gain of the lambs between …

This project was funded by Ceres Trust. Structured observation of nectar resources (flowers) on one PFI farm reveals patterns of flower abundance and diversity that could influence farm management decisions to benefit pollinators. Background The objective of this …

This research was funded by Walton Family Foundation. In a Nutshell: The appeal of interseeding a cover crop in June is twofold: 1). The seeding operation occurs at a relatively less busy time of year and 2). Seeding …

This research was funded by Walton Family Foundation. In a Nutshell: Dick Sloan hoped to determine which of two clover green manure mixes interseeded to an established winter small grain crop would be more profitable and sustainable in …

This research was funded by Ceres Trust. In a Nutshell: Fruit and vegetable farmers commonly use mulch as both a weed suppressant and as a way to maintain soil moisture. In this experiment, Jill Beebout compared two types …

This research was funded by Ceres Trust. In a Nutshell: Ginger is not normally grown in Iowa, so Cait Caughey, Mark Quee, Molly Schintler and Jon Yagla wanted to learn more by determining if ginger yield or quality …

This research was funded by the Walton Family Foundation. In a Nutshell: Vic Madsen was curious to use a companion-planting approach to organic corn production by planting soybeans instead of corn in every third row. Madsen hypothesized that …

This research was funded by the Walton Family Foundation. In a Nutshell: After soil tests revealed a farm-wide decline in soil sulfur at Jack Boyer’s farm in recent years, he was curious to test whether or not corn …

This research was funded by the Walton Family Foundation. In a Nutshell: Kellie and A.J. Blair are aiming to fine-tune the nitrogen fertilization regime for their food-grade oat enterprise. The objective of this trial was to compare oat …

This project was funded by USDA-NCRS and the Walton Family Foundation. In a Nutshell: This was the third year of on-farm research trials designed to evaluate planting corn in 60-in. row-widths for the purpose of improving the success …

This project was funded by Ceres Trust. Why is this important? Farmers in PFI’s Cooperators’ Program have previously conducted enterprise budgets on cucumbers[1,2] and cherry tomatoes[3], and for this project, turned their attention to another charismatic but labor-intensive …