Crops Ohio’s Country Journal


From page 1 “This is a very important issue for all


farmers,” said Tom Fontana, OSC direc- tor of new use development. “When de- cisions are being made about agricultural practices, we need to make sure those decisions are made using the most current and accurate on-farm data and information.” The project involves about 600 farm-


ers in the six states of South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio who are reporting every cropping aspect of four fields on their farms over the course of three years. The crop rota- tion for the fields needs to include soy- beans in at least one of the years they are in the program. “We are providing real time,


relevant data from farms that can be used for illustrating how much energy it takes to produce a crop and for on-farm planning as well as by oth- ers during public policy debates,” said Martha Zwonitzer, technical assistance manager for the Iowa Soybean Associa- tion who oversees STAARS. “We need a repository of data to answer the ques- tions that come our way related to what is happening on the farm. It is a soy- bean-based project, but we are inter- ested in the whole cropping system. We are looking at four fields on each farm. The majority of farmers are in a soy- bean-corn rotation. We ask for two fields that are currently in soybeans and two that will be in soybeans in the following year.” Participating farmers get access to


the data to improve the efficiency and ultimately the yields on their farms. The STAARS program is just wrapping


up its second year of data collection with the harvest of 2011. “We couple this data collection with


a farm plan to enhance sustainability on the farm,” she said. “We are not only working with the farmers to collect data and aggregate the data together; we are also working individually with each farmer to write a NRCS 590 Nutrient Management Plan and address any other resource concern they would have on that farm.” The program accounts for every


input to and output from the fields. “We have gathered year one data,


which would be the 2010 cropping year. It is being entered into our management software right now, which is a pretty in- tensive process. We have about 121 cropping attributes starting from the date that they harvested in 2009,” Zwonitzer said. “Anything they did after they pulled the combine out of the field is counted toward the next year’s crop attribute data. We look at every- thing from tillage to hybrids and seed treatments, planting date, nutrients and harvest.” Nutrient source, rate, timing and


placement are some of the more impor- tant aspects of the data collection, par- ticularly for issues involving water quality. Nutrient application, particu- larly application of commercial fertiliz- ers, is the most energy intensive piece of row crop production. “For nutrients, we are capturing N,


P, K and sulfur, and we have places to list any other micronutrients that are applied. We ask farmers questions such as whether they are using manure and, if so, how it is applied. We also want


Agricultural advisor Dan Conrad from Licking County helped find many of the Ohio farmers participating in the Strategies Targeting American Agricultural Resources and Sustainability (STAARS) program.


to know if they have or are required to have a manure management plan,” she said. “We are interested in captur- ing both direct and indirect energy, so we not only look at what energy it takes to run a tractor back and forth across the field, but also how much en- ergy it takes to produce a pound of urea or anhydrous that is being applied on the field.” In each state, it was important to get


a representative sample of all of the types of agriculture. “In Ohio, we have some really large-


scale farmers — farming several thou- sand acres — to smaller-scale farmers farming 10- or 20-acre fields,” Zwonitzer said. “We are capturing a nice picture of what is going on in the state. It has been really interesting to see the differences in production across the state and the resource concerns peo- ple are dealing with. What is holding true for the western part of the state is not true in the southeastern or the northeastern part of the state. Ohio is definitely the state in the study with the most diversity.” One of the keys to getting a broad


cross-section of farmers in Ohio was the participation of agricultural consultant Dan Conrad, a retired Natural Resource Conservation Service professional who now works with farmers in the devel- opment of nutrient management plans. Conrad did not have trouble finding willing participants for the program. “The acceptance rate was incredibly


There are limitless applications for the STAARS of data once it has been collected and compiled, including the preservation of natural resources.


high. When I explained the project to these guys, they got on board pretty quickly because after three years they get specific production recommen-


dations to increase their yields,” Con- rad said. “The development of the Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP) is all the hard work. Once that is done, the farmer has to do very little to participate. I have nothing but good things to say about the program so far. It is good, sound research on looking at what really goes into produc- ing the crops.” Once the farmers were enrolled


and their CNMP was developed, the fields for the program were selected. Then, within those fields, random loca- tions were selected for guided stalk sampling in years when corn is planted. This data is compiled with the informa- tion from the CNMP and the inputs recorded by the farmers throughout the crop year to provide a very detailed picture of what is actually happening in the field. “I just visit with the farmers once or


twice a year to gather the data,” Conrad said. “It is a gigantic database, and it takes three or four days to enter the data for each farm in the program.” Once the massive amount of actual


data from farms throughout the Mid- west has been complied and aggre- gated, the possible applications will be almost limitless. “We are trying to be aware of poten-


tial other uses for this data,” Zwonitzer said. “We will be looking for opportuni- ties that make sense for using the data. However, it really becomes about what the farmer needs first and then how we can help the community, the researchers and the watersheds. It is about farmers recapturing the lead in the discussions pertaining to agriculture.”


Ohio’s Country Journal • ocj.com • January 2012 • Crops 17


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