Daran Rudnick will be partnering with Matt Stockton (Ag Economics), Chuck Burr (NE Extension), and Rodrigo Werle (Cropping Systems) for a new extension program.
An article in Nebraska Farmer, "New competition promotes efficiency, profitability in crop production" featured their efforts. The article is at http://www.nebraskafarmer.com/farm-operations/new-competition-promotes-efficiency-profitability-crop-production and the program website is TAPS.unl.edu
Daran writes: "A group of us here at WCREC, including Matt Stockton, Chuck Burr, Rodrigo Werle, and myself, developed a new extension program in partnership with Nebraska Water Balance Alliance to enhance our ability to engage with producers at a very high level. The program name is UNL Testing Ag Performance Solutions (UNL-TAPS) and can be found at http://www.taps.unl.edu. The program is launching its first annual farm management competition, where producers will compete against each other as well as UNL scientists for 1) most profitable farm, 2) highest input (water and nitrogen) use efficiency, and 3) greatest grain yield. The goal of the farm management competition is to promote efficiency and profitability while giving a chance to learn from those who grow corn profitably. The competition is being held at WCREC. The producers are responsible for six management decisions, including irrigation scheduling, nitrogen fertilizer (fertigation), hybrid selection, seeding rate, insurance selection, and marketing of their grain, which will be implemented on 3 randomized plots under a variable rate irrigation system. The producers submit their management decisions through a web form that we developed on our webpage. The competition started with a kick-off meeting on March 20th and will commence with an award banquet on January 15th, 2018. Also, we have scheduled two in-season workshops/field tours, first one on June 27th and the second during our water and crops field day on August 24th.
We have received strong support for this new program, including NE Extension, Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District, several natural resource districts (Twin Platte, Upper Republican, Middle Republican, Lower Republican, and Tri Basin), Simplot Grower Solutions, LI-COR Biosciences, Airscout by Ag Valley COOP, Divirod, Aquamart, Nature Conservancy, Agri-Inject, AquaSpy, Climate Corp, Farmers Edge, Nebraska/Iowa Equipment Dealers Association, Martin Industries, Plains Equipment Group, Precision Planting- Cedar Lane Seeds Inc., Servi-Tech, and SureFire Ag Systems."