Blog Archives

6/29/2017

Wheat Harvest

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Wow, it has been a busy few weeks! Manhart, Thompson, and Sayles finished grazing this week, and wheat harvest is in full swing. We are getting ready for the post wheat planting of the cover crop and preparing experimental designs for the fields.

It's been a while since we made a post, so I've accumulated a lot of great photos and videos. We've also gotten a lot of great photos/videos from producers. Keep them coming! We really enjoy getting to see what things look like when we're not able to be there. My personal favorite is the video from Feikert showing the monitor during wheat harvest. It's so exciting!!!

This was at Manhart's about two weeks (middle of June) ago during our midpoint sampling.

This was also at Manhart's and was taken right around midpoint sampling. I think the pollinators are happy with the rapeseed.

This is Zip. He runs a data management business, and specializes in ‘fuzzy’ numbers.

This was from Sayles's field at the start of the experiment a couple weeks ago. He had a good amount of biomass, but the weather has been dry. He was only able to graze for a week before moving the cattle.

Here is an overview of the quadrat that we use to collect data on the transects and for biomass sampling. This is 0.5 square meters of cover crop. The residue cover is outstanding.

Thanks to this awesome group, we got the last set of forage samples done at Thompson's and Manhart's. They also took wheat samples from last years spring cover crop fields at Thompson's, Manhart's, and Neff's. Way to go team!!!!

Future agronomists in the making!

What do you mean I cant lay in the quadrat? That's where your hands are and hands are for petting.

Field season would not be complete without cute critters. This little guy was in Manhart's field.

The flax was in full bloom at Thompson's field. It was a beautiful day to stand still for a few moments.

Guss hopping through the forage!

Thompson's field has a small corner that has some volunteer rye. I had to go sit in the middle and take a picture. It's not often that one gets to sit in a field of rye (well, a corner of a field anyways).

Behind the scene at Feikert's...............

These sneaky ladies came to eat right out of my quadrat during our first set of forage samples at Feikert's. I think one of them is giving me the sly eye in this picture.

Feikert harvested the wheat from last year's spring planted field (2016). It's so exciting watching the yield monitor!

I had to include this because it's such a neat photo.

Farnik's field when the cattle went on a couple weeks ago. Look at the beautiful sunflowers!!!

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6/12/2017

That's a funny looking weed...

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We hit the road again this week for Kansas. On the docket this week was another set of weed transects, forage sampling, and cattle weights. While cattle were getting their measurements taken, our crew hit the field to count some weeds. Why count the weeds? Besides forcing undergraduates to learn weed identification, knowing the weed population at the start of the season will help us evaluate the weed suppressive abilities of both the cover crop and grazing. It will also help us understand the weed populations over the seasons and years. We’re planning on doing these transects when the cattle go on the field and after the cattle come off. Transects will be repeated in the following wheat crop to evaluate the weed control resulting from our efforts. That’s the management goal: control weeds now so there are less next year.
Speaking of weeds, once we clip forage samples in the field, we bring them all back to the lab at CSU and sort each by plant species. This part is just to make another undergraduate learn their plant id (there’s a scientific reason too, I promise).
Look forward to us to (and our fuzzy helpers) counting away in the field all summer!

We found some very odd weeds

Purple top turnip after the foliage has been clipped off.

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6/2/2017

It's time to collect Data!

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The weather is warm and the cover crop is growing fast. The spring mix contains a nice mix of oats, barley, triticale, peas, flax, safflower, sunflower, rapeseed, and purple top. We are currently weighing cattle as they go onto the field, taking forage samples, and investigating the weed community using transects. The forage samples will be taken back to the lab, sorted by species, and an oven-dried weight will be taken on all the different species represented in each sample.

The cool season forage species are dominant in Manhart's field. They've had a lot of rain this spring and would have preferred to start grazing last week. The cool temperatures have helped slow things down, but now that the warm weather has kicked in things are growing fast.