Growers gathered at the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center in Alliance on Feb. 27 for the annual Nebraska 2025 On-Farm Research Network results event to learn how research projects on their farms and others were faring.
“I focus quite a bit on dry beans, and so we had the Pod Ceal study, which is a harvest aid to help reduce harvest loss in direct harvesting beans,” said John Thomas, Nebraska Extension Cropping Systems Educator. Thomas said they hadn’t seen any real benefit for two years, except after a hail storm, and they will be trying it for one more year. This is the benefit of On-Farm Research. Sometimes, a product doesn’t work as well as others, but it’s all good information for growers. “You need to kind of see how a product works, over and over in various scenarios.”
Another research project used an inoculant with one product over two years, where there was no yield advantage, followed by a different inoculant the grower wanted to try the following two years. “We actually saw a significant yield increase and a financial benefit of using the second inoculant product,” he said.
The inoculants help the beans fix nitrogen from the atmosphere rather than adding it as fertilizer. This reduces the use of excess nitrogen and saves money. Thomas said most growers test their farms' soil for natural nitrogen levels before adding more to help them get a good yield.
A grower-initiated project used compost tea, a product created by taking a compost mix, immersing it in water, and letting it steep like tea with some oxygenation. The steeping creates various microbes, some nutrients, and all kinds of things from the compost into a solution, which is then sprayed on the crop. The compost tea is also said to help control insects, diseases, nutrients, and soil health.
“For our On-Farm research, we will do some projects that the growers initiate. This year, the compost tea was used on corn. We didn't see any yield increase or economic value. Actually, it was a negative economic value because it cost $42 per acre to do this, and without getting a yield gain, it had a negative economic impact on the grower's operation,” Thomas said. It was only one year, and the grower will continue the study for at least another year.
At the meeting, Thomas said he and Nevin Lawrence, Nebraska Extension Weed Management Specialist, are looking for individuals interested in a Palmer amaranth study that would involve plowing the ground to bury the weed seed to control the aggressive weed.
The growers also heard about carbon credits, soil fertility studies, irrigation studies, and black-eyed peas.
