Farmer-Led Research

Three cooperators and a Sustainable Projects recipient compared no-till to some other tillage system in 1994. Ted and Donna Bauer, Audubon, achieved 19-inch soybean rows by offsetting the 38-inch row planter and making two passes across the field. …

Three other trials were devoted specifically to weed management. Ted and Donna Bauer, Audubon, compared banding to broadcasting herbicide in soybeans. They did not take weed counts, but yields were the same in both treatments (Table 6). They …

Steve Hopkins and Sarah Andreasen milked a small herd of Jerseys near Decorah the last several years. In October, they moved their cows to a farm near Newton, but not before wrapping up a project documenting their pasture-based …

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 …