2025 CSU-TAPS Sprinkler Corn Competition Begins!
A celebration kickoff launched the third CSU-TAPS farm management competition with a full slate of teams.
The kickoff featured lunch and a 2025 CSU-TAPS competition overview, and a chance to meet other teams, ag industry partners, and CSU staff. Tim Martin, IIC executive director, opened the kickoff presentation.
On March 28, the Colorado State University’s Testing Ag Performance Solutions (CSU-TAPS) 2025 Farm Management Competition began!
More than 55 people came for lunch, camaraderie, and an overview of this year’s sprinkler corn competition hosted at CSU’s Agricultural Research, Development, and Education Center (ARDEC) in Fort Collins, Colorado. (Scroll down for photos.)
CSU-TAPS has 25 teams competing this year, with participants from across the state and involving diverse ag industry and agency representatives. The kickoff prepares teams to compete, with CSU-TAPS staff going over the contest rules and sharing information pertinent to the decisions competitors will make in coming weeks and through the growing season.
They will choose a soil moisture sensor option (from AquaSpy, Arable, CropX, GroGuru, and Sentek); a seed hybrid (Beck’s, Channel, Pioneer, and DEKALB); and a crop insurance option from AgRisk Advisors. Several ag industry tech, seed, and data partners were on hand at the kickoff to meet with participants in person.
Karl Whitman, manager of the plant science unit at ARDEC, welcomed participants to the host facility. And Bryan Irey, senior merchandiser of Crossroads Cooperative, offered corn market insights for 2025, encouraging teams to be active with the marketing aspects of TAPS.
Highlights for 2025 include:
Students! An all-CSU undergraduate student team is competing, made up of CSU Agronomy Club members, with advising from CSU’s Agricultural Water Quality Program. They join a returning team from Fort Morgan Community College in Sterling.
A team of Colorado Master Irrigator program graduates will compete again, led by 2023 and 2024 CSU-TAPS winner and producer Brian Lengel of Burlington, Colorado.
CSU-TAPS is offering a limited irrigation track again this year for competitors interested in the challenge of managing efficiently while “earning” revenue through a simulated water leasing scenario.
The fun and accessible TAPS format brings together the entire ag industry in pursuit of precision farm management strategies that increase efficiency while maintaining producer profitability.
The growing season long competition requires teams to make six management decisions—seed hybrid, seeding rate, crop insurance, nitrogen, irrigation, and marketing—in pursuit of post-harvest honors: most profitable, highest yield, and most input use efficient.
Available for anyone with Internet access, teams’ farming decisions are logged into the online TAPS portal that CSU staff implement in the field.
Subscribe to the CSU-TAPS monthly newsletter to keep up with what happens this season. And please let us know if you are interested in partnering with CSU-TAPS in future!
Let the learning—and competition—begin!
CSU-TAPS is part of a multistate network of TAPS programs across the U.S. and beyond. The multistate network is co-led by CSU’s Irrigation Innovation Consortium and KSU, with major support from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). State-based matching support includes funding from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Colorado Corn Council, and Northern Water.
Article by Christine Hamilton, photos by Christine Hamilton, Omer Izrael, Amy Kremen
