Recently I attended WSU's soil health tour at the Cook Agronomy Farm. It was a long day from 7:30am -4:30pm. It was interesting, but depressing. So many questions with so few answers. I had a number of pic's of charts I was interested in logging and talking about, but sadly they aren't available.
There was a REACCH presentation related to the climate. The climate models haven't changed much from a presentation I attended back in ≈2002 in predicting climate as we approach year 2100. This study was not related to the UW and USGS presentation of ≈2002. The short version: We'll need to adopt "adaptive crop management" to stay nimble during periods of wet years followed by droughty years. On average, we may get a little more moisture. It will come in the winter .We'll likely have hotter summers with less moisture. They are predicting less residue, less SOM, more erosion. There will probably be a crop shift capability, for crops that use more GDU's.
Explanation given on use of the "Flux Towers" located around the region. Basically weather stations that have a special sensor array that senses water and carbon movement going in and out of the soil. Sensor operates 10 times a second. Useful for studying land use activity and it's impact on carbon and moisture.
A new critter: look for the "Cereal grass aphid". It appears at pre-boot stage in wheat. Not yet known if it will have an economic impact.
In 2010 the Cook Farm moved from planting DNS to SWW. This reduced N application substantially. All growers in the Palouse need to be aware of the potential, but a train wreak is coming along ID/WA border area where very low pH levels exist. N applications are driving pH down. N calculators indicate that actual N used by crop is significantly less than that generally applied, resulting is excess N being lost to the environment and driving pH down faster than necessary. A better management tool would be to use a "%predictability chart/calculation". This chart, which an operator would need to build from their own records, is a tool to be used for nutrient application based on yield goals and the percentage of time they actually attained that yield. This could save a grower a lot of money without dropping yield, and it would slow the drop in pH.
pH tests for lime applications need to be studied for, both, "Correlation" and "Calibration". Current testing procedure does not work well for our soils.
Researchers are finding areas where the pH is very low deep in the soil profile making it virtually impossible to correct. Normally the pH problem is confined to the top 4" of the soil profile. Continuous over application of N is the cause.
During the ice cream social following the tour, Huggins was soliciting ideas for the direction of future research at the Cook Farm.
There was a REACCH presentation related to the climate. The climate models haven't changed much from a presentation I attended back in ≈2002 in predicting climate as we approach year 2100. This study was not related to the UW and USGS presentation of ≈2002. The short version: We'll need to adopt "adaptive crop management" to stay nimble during periods of wet years followed by droughty years. On average, we may get a little more moisture. It will come in the winter .We'll likely have hotter summers with less moisture. They are predicting less residue, less SOM, more erosion. There will probably be a crop shift capability, for crops that use more GDU's.
Explanation given on use of the "Flux Towers" located around the region. Basically weather stations that have a special sensor array that senses water and carbon movement going in and out of the soil. Sensor operates 10 times a second. Useful for studying land use activity and it's impact on carbon and moisture.
A new critter: look for the "Cereal grass aphid". It appears at pre-boot stage in wheat. Not yet known if it will have an economic impact.
In 2010 the Cook Farm moved from planting DNS to SWW. This reduced N application substantially. All growers in the Palouse need to be aware of the potential, but a train wreak is coming along ID/WA border area where very low pH levels exist. N applications are driving pH down. N calculators indicate that actual N used by crop is significantly less than that generally applied, resulting is excess N being lost to the environment and driving pH down faster than necessary. A better management tool would be to use a "%predictability chart/calculation". This chart, which an operator would need to build from their own records, is a tool to be used for nutrient application based on yield goals and the percentage of time they actually attained that yield. This could save a grower a lot of money without dropping yield, and it would slow the drop in pH.
pH tests for lime applications need to be studied for, both, "Correlation" and "Calibration". Current testing procedure does not work well for our soils.
Researchers are finding areas where the pH is very low deep in the soil profile making it virtually impossible to correct. Normally the pH problem is confined to the top 4" of the soil profile. Continuous over application of N is the cause.
During the ice cream social following the tour, Huggins was soliciting ideas for the direction of future research at the Cook Farm.
No comments:
Post a Comment