Farmer-Led Research

For vegetable producers, there are few insects more frustrating than the cucumber beetle. Not only do the striped and the spotted the cucumber beetles gnaw on tender squash and cucumber plants, the spotted cucumber beetle transmits the disease …

PFI producers have been researching alternative methods of parasite management for at least five years, much of that time with the aid of a grant from the Organic Farming Research Foundation. The interest in alternative parasite management has …

Oats has long been an important ration ingredient for small pigs, where the fiber helps prevent diarrhea. However, the high fiber in oats reduces the energy density to about 80 percent that of corn. But oat prices are …

PFI cooperators are evaluating open-pollinated corn varieties and varietal hybrids in cooperation with Walter Goldstein of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute and with USDA and ISU corn breeders. Why go to all this trouble when hybrid corn is …

What is field history worth for fertility? Field history was important to several trials in 2002. The Dordt College Agricultural Stewardship Center raised corn on ground that in 2001 had grown either oats alone or oats with a …

Field crops aren’t the only things we grow in Iowa. More and more field crop producers are edging into the local farmers’ market with vegetables and fruits, and new farmers are entering agriculture through veggies as well. Many …

In 2002 cooperators evaluated naturally-derived treatments for parasites in sheep and in pigs. Frances ZacharakisJutz carried out sheep trials on the Solon farm where she lives with her parents Jeff and Susan. Frances also worked with Walt Ebert, …

Successful weed management is usually the result of strategic thinking: “If hoeing doesn’t work this year, I’ll…” “If the spring turns dry, we’ll…” Paul and Karen Mugge, Sutherland, must have set aside some time to think about strategy, …

Livestock husbandry has always been an art. Today many producers are moving into sustainable-type production systems designed to reduce animal stress and benefit the environment. At the same time, their markets and/or their philosophy may exclude antibiotics and …

One of the strengths of PFI on-farm research is that the program has enabled cooperators to pursue their own questions. Of course this means that trials are often one-ofa-kind, and PFI trial designs allow each experiment to stand …

Sometimes it’s not what you fertilize with but how you fertilize that’s important. With funding from the USDA SARE program, PFI has been comparing two competing philosophies, or paradigms, of fertility. One approach is to look at a …

Varieties and hybrids were mentioned earlier as part of trials by Angela Tedesco and Gary Guthrie, but the so-called field crops were also part of variety comparisons in 2001. Ron and LaDonna Brunk and Steve and Tara Beck-Brunk, …