Conducting On-Farm Research: Enabling Farmers to Implement Sustainable Change in Agriculture

Conducting On-Farm Research: Enabling Farmers to Implement Sustainable Change in Agriculture

Summary

Extension educators assist a diverse clientele to evaluate a broad range of options in their farming or nursery operations. Addressing the diversity of options and the impact of new changes on specific enterprises is often best addressed through on-farm research. Extension educators from Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia participated in a three-day training session in 1999 on conducting on-farm research for field and vegetable
crops and animal operations. Participants from these five states as well as New York, Maine, and Virginia received training on conducting applied research on farms, nurseries and greenhouses in the fall of 2001. Fifty-one people attended and more than twenty-five assisted in training during these hands-on programs. Participants subsequently conducted on-farm research and demonstration trials.

Objectives/Performance Targets

An educational conference was held on July 13-15, 1999, in Salisbury, MD and demonstration sites throughout the Delmarva Peninsula. The objectives of the three-day training were to:

Enhance the ability of extension educators to conduct valid on-farm research and advise and assist growers in conducting on-farm research.

Conduct training on planning, implementing and interpreting on-farm research for extension educators from throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

Demonstrate experimental design, layout and techniques, sources of variability, analysis and interpretation, economic evaluation, drawing valid conclusions and what inferences can be drawn from various studies.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Extension educators now face the challenge of assisting an increasingly diverse clientele to evaluate a broad range of options in their farming operations. Different farms rely on a myriad of information and technology inputs and need to evaluate the impact of new changes to their operations. Addressing the diversity of options and the impacts of changes on a specific agricultural enterprise is often best addressed through on-farm research. The University of Maryland and the University of Delaware through a SARE training grant, provided extension educators with hands-on training to design, lay out, statistically analyze, and evaluate results of on-farm experiments.

Extension educators from Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia participated in a three-day training session in conducting on-farm research. The workshop was held on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in Delaware. The workshop highlighted applied statistical techniques and how they can be used to improve of on-farm research results. A keynote address on basic statistical concepts for on-farm trials was presented by Dr. Germ<n Bollero (Dr. Bollero is an Assistant Professor of Biometry and Cropping Systems at the University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign). Demonstration of these statistical concepts and hands-on application were conducted by faculty from the University of Maryland and the University of Delaware Cooperative Extension Service.

Discussions on variability, level of accuracy needed in sampling and techniques to determine accuracy level were conducted. Implications of choice of experimental design and number of replications on reliability of results were discussed. Modification of experiments to keep the design simple while making resulting conclusions more valid were demonstrated.

Hands-on training in calibration of treatments for small plot application as well as a demonstration of calibration and operation of a yield monitor were conducted, highlighting the importance of calibration.

Participants toured a farmer project funded by SARE in 1999. A small field had strips of rye and bare ground that were planted to watermelon. The strip trial was conducted to compare watermelon grown on bare ground vs. watermelon grown on a killed cover crop. Participants analyzed plant stand data from the trial (as a paired t-test). Commonalties of conducting research on varied farm operations was a topic of discussion during tours of an animal research facility, an animal composting trial and research trials on ornamentals and perennial crops.

Assessing economic implications of research was discussed. Educators clearly saw this aspect as central to conducting on-farm research and evaluating impact of changes to the farm operations. Hands-on problems allowed growers to see how to compare a system. Grant writing, sources of funding and communication of results were discussed.

Group and individual discussions revealed there are diverse interests depending on each extension educator’s programmatic area. Participants expressed a need for opportunities to communicate information from on-farm studies to a wider audience.

Collaborators: