Title Year Category
Description

Summary Flame cultivation can be effective in killing weeds, including those growing in the crop row. Any positive effect on crop yields is through reduction of weed competition only. The cost per acre of flame cultivation is two-to-three …


Publish Date
February 11, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Dennis and Eve Abbas
Margaret Smith and Doug Alert
Ron and Dottie Dunphy
Joe and Ane Fitzgerald
Paul and Karen Mugge
Description

In a way, weed management trials and cover crop trials belong together. A cover crop growing in a row crop field travels a fine line between failure and becoming a weed itself. On the other end of the …


Publish Date
February 10, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Doug Alert and Margaret Smith
Ron and Dotte Dunphy
Richard and Sharon Thompson
Description

PFI has completed three years of research on flax as an alternative crop. The research has been led by ISU’s Mary Wiedenhoeft and Margaret Smith along with graduate student Sarah Carlson. Over the course of the project, farmer …


Publish Date
February 9, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Doug Alert and Margaret Smith
Art and Rose Behrens
Ken Choquette
Paul and Karen Mugge
Dan and Joleen Parizek
Ron and Maria Rosmann
John Veith
David and Norma Williams
Description

Crown rust of oats is a plague that has been around as long as oats have been raised in the Midwest. It’s often invisible, but crown rust sometimes devastates the crop, as in 1996 in northeast Iowa. PFI …


Publish Date
February 8, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Seed Treatments 2000-2009
Description

Doug Alert and Margaret Smith (Hampton) grow soybeans once in their five-year rotation. They wondered whether under those conditions there is a significant benefit to inoculating soybean seed with a fresh dose of the Rhizobia bacteria that fix …


Publish Date
February 7, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Doug Alert and Margaret Smith
Description

By Richard and Sharon Thompson “We started farming together in 1958 with the high inputs of purchased fertilizer, herbicides and insecticides that were required with the continuous corn program. In 1968 we changed back to a rotation of …


Publish Date
February 7, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Description

Sweetcorn is one of the most popular treats from the garden and an easy crop to grow for farmers accustomed to raising field corn. Unfortunately, sweetcorn isn’t easy to grow well because of the worms that often infest …


Publish Date
February 5, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Gary and Nancy Guthrie
Description

In 2007 Paul and Karen Mugge (Sutherland) carried on a line of questioning researched earlier by Kathleen Delate, ISU Organics Specialist. Paul wanted to know where to put flax in the crop rotation and how to prepare the …


Publish Date
February 4, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Paul and Karen Mugge
Description

Project Summary Six certified organic farmers and one conventional farmer tested three weed management strategies for flax at nine sites in 2005 and 2006. Drilled flax with no underseeding was compared to flax grown with alfalfa and with …


Publish Date
February 3, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Doug Alert
Paul Mugge
Ron Rosmann
John Veith
Art Behrens
Ken Choquette
Dan Parizek
Collaborators
Margaret Smith, ISU Value Added Agriculture Extension
Sarah Carlson, ISU graduate student in Agronomy and Sustainable Agriculture
Mary Wiedenhoeft, ISU Associate Professor of Agronomy
Description

If there is anything we know for sure it is that tillage destroys weeds. Yes, but phrase it differently, and the truth shifts. Tillage can stimulate weeds. Repeated, light spring tillage is used to “wake up” – and …


Publish Date
February 2, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Ron and Maria Rosmann
Description

The PFI research summary for 2001 reported on the composting project that PFI cooperators were carrying out with ISU scientists Tom Richard and Matt Liebman and graduate student Terry Loecke. The research had to do with the bedding-manure …


Publish Date
February 1, 2008

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Tom and Irene Frantzen
Wayne and Ruth Fredericks
Vic and Cindy Madsen
Paul and Karen Mugge
Dan and Lorna Wilson
Colin and Carla Wilson
Collaborators
Tom Richard, Iowa State University
Matt Liebman, Iowa State University
Terry Loecke, Iowa State Univeristy
Description

Sustainable farmers are often more concerned about corn’s nutritional quality for their livestock or their consumers than in, say, the crop’s characteristics as a feedstock for ethanol fermentation or how many transgenic traits are stacked into its DNA. …


Publish Date
February 3, 2007

PFI Staff
Practical Farmers of Iowa
Cooperators
Don Adams and Nan Bonfils
Francis Blake
Ron and Ladonna Brunk
Steve and Tara Beck-Brunk
Linda and Ron Grice
Earl, Ronda, and Jeff Hafner
Laura Krouse
Gary Laydon and Pat Menenga
Mike Natvig
Bob Burcham
Dan Specht