Farmer-Led Research

Matt and Diana Stewart, Oelwein, are PFI members who attended the talk by grazier Joel Salatin that PFI hosted last January. It was an important experience for them, and they began to plan changes for their own farm. …

The Dordt College Agricultural Stewardship Center has long had a strong dairy program. In 1994 they took their first steps in management intensive grazing. With support from PFI Sustainable Projects, the Stewardship Center carried out a comparison of …

Dan Wilson, Paullina, sends this description of the trial he and brother Colin carried out: “This test was conducted on a group of crossbred gilts raised on pasture. The main goal was to see if barley is an …

In 1993, two cooperators continued manure trials begun in previous years (Table 2). Vic and Cindy Madsen, Audubon, want to demonstrate that livestock manure is an asset to the farm operation, not a liability. Their manured field strips …

PFI cooperators make their own decisions on what trials are to be done, so it’s not surprising that there are some “one of a kind” trials. The Dordt College Agricultural Stewardship Center, for example, is located near Sioux …

Nitrogen rate trials, always the mainstay of PFI on-farm research, were more severely affected by the rainy weather of 1993 than any other kind of experiment. In both 1991 and 1992, cooperators carried out nine replicated trials of …

Two cooperators evaluated unconventional fertilizer materials in 1993, and a third PFI member carried out two trials under the Sustainable Projects program. Jeff and Gayle Olson, Winfield, looked for a residual effect from the pell lime they banded …

In 1993, cooperators carried out trials to test whether starter fertilizers would work and where they would be most effectively placed. Three “with-and-without” trials were conducted by Jeff and Gayle Olson, Ray and Marj Stonecypher, and Dick and …

The weather is certainly a factor in the performance of any system of tillage. In 1993, three replicated trials compared ridge tillage and no-till (Table 6). The tillage treatments in Jeff and Gayle Olson’s field trial differed only …

Weed management in 1993 was often a case of “damage control,” as the effectiveness of both chemical and mechanical controls was hurt by the continual rains. Despite the problems, a number of PFI cooperators conducted weed management trials. …

PFI cooperators are working with support from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture to document the economics of management-intensive-grazing, using the Beef Cow Business Record. Those results will become available later in the project. The Leopold Center and …

Two PFI members have carried out trials of soil amendments in the general category of “biologicals” (Table 4.). They don’t happen to be research cooperators, but it hasn’t held them back. John and Rosie Wurpts, Ogden, submitted a …