Two regional crops educators with UW-Madison Extension in Wisconsin combining our skills, knowledge, and experience to help farmers and agronomists develop research-based solutions to issues facing agriculture in Wisconsin.
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Two regional crops educators with UW-Madison Extension in Wisconsin combining our skills, knowledge, and experience to help farmers and agronomists develop research-based solutions to issues facing agriculture in Wisconsin.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Before dairy, wheat was king in Wisconsin. Between 1840 and 1880, the state was largest wheat producer in United States, providing a full sixth of the nation's supply. Today, wheat is 5% of total grain crop (corn, soy, wheat) acres in the state. While there are benefits to having wheat in the rotation and a healthy local market for straw, a higher potential for dockages due to quality standards than corn or soy can be a deterrent for farmers. We talk with Charlie Hammer a farmer near Beaver Dam and independent crop consultant Bill Stangel of Soil Solutions Consulting about how they manage their significant wheat acreage in Dodge County to keep DON levels low and test weight high to meet grade and push yields.
Photo taken by Richard Hurd and under creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
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Excess water, drought, and water quality are frequent topics in Wisconsin’s agricultural community. We sit down with Mallika Nocco, assistant professor and extension specialist in agrohydrology from UW-Madison to discuss water conservation: What is it, why does it matter for Wisconsin farmers, and what are practical ways we can implement it on the landscape? Listen in now to hear all about it.
Photo: University of Wisconsin Discovery Farms
Follow Up Resources
UW-Madison Extension Ag Water Quality: https://agwater.extension.wisc.edu/
UW-Madison Extension Crop Irrigation:
https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/cropirrigation/
Find Your Local NRCS Service Center:
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/conservation-basics/conservation-by-state/wisconsin
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Much time has been spent on the environmental benefits of conservation agriculture. But, do practices like reduced tillage and cover crops pencil out for farmers, and how do we figure that out? In the second episode of this two-fer on the economics of conservation, we talk with Jake Kaderly, who works as a crop consultant under the name Kaderly Ag and farms 330 acres in Green County, for the farmer's take on how he pencils out conservation practices.
Jake's farm was profiled in an American Farmland Trust Soil Health Case Study that runs some of these numbers and is referred to in the episode. You can find the report here.
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Much time has been spent on the environmental benefits of conservation agriculture. But, do practices like reduced tillage and cover crops pencil out for farmers, and how do we figure that out? In the first episode of this two-fer on the economics of conservation, we talk with Jeff Hadachek, Extension Specialist and Assistant Professor of Ag Economics at UW-Madison, to get the economist's take on why economics is a useful tool when talking about conservation practices and adoption.
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Heard about the Haney test and want to learn more about how it might be used in Wisconsin? Listen in while we chat with leading UW researchers and outreach specialists Chris Bandura, John Jones, and Andrew Stammer on this topic. We dive in deep discussing how the Haney test can be used practically on-farm, how it calculates fertility recommendations differently than other soil tests, and what that means for Wisconsin cropping systems.
Photo by Chris Clark
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Wisconsin infrastructure for grain markets and the ability to drop off grains at the nearest elevator incentivizes corn and soybean (and wheat to a lesser extent) rotations. Breaking outside that box and finding alternative grain markets can yield dividends in price premiums and extended crop rotations enhancing farm resilience to drops in commodity prices and other external shocks. We talk with Willie Hughes, an organic and conventional grain farmer in Rock County, and Alyssa Hartman of the Artisan Grain Collaborative about how they navigate finding, complying with and knitting together these differentiated markets.
Photo taken by Willie Hughes
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Surrounded by the peak autumn colors of Wisconsin, we thought we'd take a turn to talking about trees, specifically about integrating trees and crops in a system called agroforestry. We call up Jacob Grace of the Savanna Institute, a Wisconsin non-profit focused on promoting, educating, and breeding trees for agroforestry and Eric Wolske of Canopy Farm Management, which specializing in agroforestry installation, maintenance, and management, to chat about the many benefits of trees in cropland and some of the challenges.
Photo taken by Eric Wolske
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There is a lot of solar being sited in Wisconsin with some projects reaching a pretty massive scale. The traditional narrative has been hello solar, goodbye agriculture, however a new crop of farmers, researchers, and solar companies are thinking differently: how can we continue to farm this land between, under, and around solar panels? Steffen Mirsky from Extension's Cutting Edge Podcast joins us as we talk with Sarah Moser, director of agrivoltaics with Savion, a utility-scale solar developer, and Eric Romich, Extension Field Specialist in Energy Development with the Ohio State University about their current and future projects investigating how to grow and mechanically harvest hay under solar in Ohio.
Photo taken by Tobi Kellner and used under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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Drought affects pasture as well as crops. During these dry times, what are the considerations that graziers need to keep in mind to optimize forage, and what are the advantages that a rotationally grazed system gives us when we're short on water? We talk with Mary C Anderson, Wisconsin DNR Grazing Specialist, retired dairy farmer, and current grass-fed/finished beef farmer and Kevin Mahalko from the Gilman, WI area, a grass-fed dairy farmer and president of Grassworks.
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No digg-it-y. No doubt? On this episode of Field Notes we dig into the question: to till, or not to till, or somewhere in between? Strip tillage is not as common in Wisconsin as full width tillage or no till, but it presents an opportunity to reduce soil disturbance and improve soil aggregation, while also gaining some of the benefits of full width tillage like early season soil warming and fertilizer incorporation. To explore some of the benefits and logistics of the system, we talk with Dr. Francisco Arriaga, an Associate Professor and Soil Science Extension Specialist at UW Madison, who specializes in soil physics and soil management and Sam Johnson, a strip-tilling farmer near River Falls, Wisconsin.
Photo taken by Alan Manson and used under creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
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