CSU-TAPS field day panel touches on using tech & other aspects of successful farm management

Moderator: Kylen Hunt, 3iWater

Panelists: Producers Brian Lengel (Idalia, CO in southern Yuma County) and Zach Thode (Livermore, CO in northern Larimer County)

This panel session recap has been edited for brevity.

Kylen Hunt: Tell us a little about your experience using different technologies on your operations to make decisions, and how that pertains to your participation in TAPS.

Brian Lengel: It can be hard to make investments in different technologies as a small producer. So in TAPS, I like to try them all. Especially since in TAPS I’m testing out using different seeding rates and different corn varieties than I might use at home, I want to use the competition as an experimental platform. When I compete, I’m partially representing my own operation. But I’m also deeply involved with Colorado Master Irrigator in the eastern part of the state, so I’m interested in see what I can bring back to that program, to try be a source of information if I can be, while also helping my own practice at home.

KH: Let's follow up. You have already previously competed in the UNL-TAPS competition up in Nebraska. What are some of the things that you learned from TAPS already? Is there anything you're implementing across your farm? What are you expecting to learn? What would you like to take home?

BL: So far, I’d say I’ve gained appreciation for the different types of sensor data out there, and that I’ve gained trust in using that data. Typically as producers, we operate based on seeing how things look and trusting our experience but when you can start to trust your irrigation systems supported by the feedback you're getting from sensors, that to me that's paramount. And when it comes to making fertilizer decisions, there can be some “bang for the buck” aspects there that are important. For example, if you can start to find impact on late applications of nitrogen versus early applications and determine if maybe leaching has an impact if you're applying early and things like that, that's really beneficial information.

 KH: How about for you, Zach? What are you hoping to take home for your place?

Zach Thode: The learning aspect of TAPS, that’s what’s most important to me.

KH: Okay, from a learning standpoint, what are some things that TAPS is doing that that you guys really appreciate? What could we be doing better?

ZT: I work with a lot of technologies already, and so I’m pretty comfortable with them. Things that I would probably find more helpful would things like modeling scenarios for marketing.

BL: Sometimes it's hard to know what more or what different kinds of options that you might need, so TAPS can help with that. As far as other things that could help, it would be interesting to see more about the wins and losses of previous years, summarizing some UNL data that could point out which strategies and other things in general worked well would be helpful.

KH: We're looking at a lot of things with TAPS, of course, from nitrogen to efficiencies, water savings, and water conservation. When you look at your operation, what do you feel is the most important that you want to be able to learn as you go through this CSU-TAPS competition?

 BL: I joke with seed reps saying “your variety charts show lots of info, but where's your info on bushel yields per pound of nitrogen, or bushels per inch of water applied? Or which varieties might be most impactful if you’re water limited or nitrogen limited?” Especially in TAPS, I'm interested to learn about bushel per inches of water outcomes from different participants’ decisions. The bushel to nitrogen applied ratio is also interesting to me.

 KH: Let's switch this up just a little bit in the last few minutes to see if there’s questions from the audience.

Bob Gills, Sentek: One of you made a comment about trusting the data coming out on the ground. If you’re not out installing the probe, and it’s not installed correctly, you could have a probe and you could say “this is not working”. So is it a fair statement that it’s more than just seeing the data, that it's the care that goes into making sure sensors are implemented properly that leads to trusting sensor data?  

BL: Yes, that’s true, very much so, very much so.

ZT: That’s true, but even if your data is wrong, you can still observe trends and the responses to certain activities with this data. Using the trends you see, you can build correlations in your own mind. And so, data doesn't always have to be exact, it just has to be something you can use.

 Jason French, CropX: Earlier, you mentioned nitrogen efficiency and water use efficiency. Do you two track those on your farms?

BL: You know, as small operation, I usually only have one irrigated plot of corn for example, just a lot of different crops across the farm. So, often I don't have another comparison field. The technology on my operation is fairly low, especially with things like harvest data. So I don't always have that ability, at least currently, to get that feedback. Usually, I'm kind of following the same practice across the field. if I was doing different plots within my field with different practices, I would definitely want that information.

 ZT: On farm, figuring out those correlations can be hard. With so much data in here [in TAPS], it’s set up to share information where you can maybe start building better correlations of inputs to outcomes. On my own operation it’s hard to say the impact of crop per nitrogen applied or crop per water applied. Both of those might be deficient at different times.

JF: So, you're saying there's a lot going on in farming? Well said. [Laughter though the room]

Josh Krautkramer, Agri-Inject: What is your previous experience with fertigation?

ZT: Limited, we’ve done some.

 BL: Our area is pretty popular for fertigation. On our operation, we are fertigating more lately, appreciating later nitrogen over earlier nitrogen, for example. And, the simplicity especially.

JK: How interested are you in TAPS offering three later season fertilizer applications? How interested are you in seeing the differences in the results and what people do with fertigation in terms of more versus less and timing of those applications?

ZT: I'm really interested in it. And I think there's some other things that drive these decisions that are important to recognize. For example, if we can get to a point where we have over 10% interest rates, just from a cash flow perspective, with later fertilizer you’re closer to [harvest] and to your money coming back. So that can factor in to this whole conversation, adding another dimension of pros and cons to consider in thinking about applying N earlier or later in the season.

BL: Yeah, I agree. I for one chose to use three fertigations and zero early side-dress to see if it could pay back in the way that I expected it to.

 ZT: Yeah, I did not do that. [Laughter through the room]

Kendall DeJonge, USDA-ARS: What role does evapotranspiration (ET)-based scheduling play in your decision making for irrigation? Do you use CoAgMet for example, do you use other tools?

ZT: I use CoAgMet a lot on my operation. The WISE Irrigation scheduler is also a fantastic tool, but the upfront calibration can be tricky, in terms of getting the right soil moisture at the right time to then put into the scheduler to make sure it’s not wrong, and having time to recalibrate if needed.

BL: I'm pretty accustomed to running three-day pivot circles, so irrigation scheduling with TAPS is pretty similar to what a lot I’m used to doing at home, with irrigating twice a week as the scheduling plan. And I'm pretty sensitive, more based on intuition, to later crop growth and water use versus early crop growth and water needs. But there's no doubt when you get into hot and windy streaks that, where we are farming, you are keeping the pivots running water pretty much all the time, in a constant revolution.

ZT: And hoping nothing breaks down.

 BL: Yeah, in those periods, for sure.

Jon Altenhofen, Northern Water: In those periods, do you know exactly how much water you’re putting on from the nozzle?

BL: Yes, absolutely.

JA: With a lot of flood irrigation in this part of the world, flood-irrigated farmers get the concept of ET, there's lots of resources available, but that’s different from knowing but how much you are actually applying with your irrigation, and therefore whether are you over-irrigating or under-irrigating. For more precise management that information is still lacking.  

ZT: Or, actually how much are you actually applying to your field, what’s actually soaking into the soil versus running off the end of the field.

KH: Kendall, I wanted to follow up on your question. You asked a question about ET, what was motivating your question?

 KdJ: I'm a research scientist for USDA’s Ag Research Service’s Limited Irrigation Research Farm just north of Greeley, CO where we focus on irrigation management under limited water resources. So we are working on studying questions such as, if you have less water, how do you allocate that water? What tools can we use to trigger irrigations? How do we optimize yield under water stress? That sort of thing. And so we have a lot of models, we're collecting a ton of data, very similar to what's going on here with CSU-TAPS. And recalibrating models, that's something that we struggle with as well even with tons of neutron probe data and lots of water balance data, it's a big challenge. But yeah, that's kind of the world that we work in. So I'm just curious how it applies in this context for TAPS participants.

KH: So that leads me to ask you guys probably two more questions. ET is something that's talked about a lot in the industry. We talked about it a lot with water and in all sorts of conservation efforts. Have you guys noticed that ET has it remained fairly steady and accurate through all the new seed technologies that we're producing? Seed companies have invested a lot of money in drought tolerant type hybrids. Are you starting to see that ET may possibly change in some of these hybrids moving forward, or is that something that’s on your radar?

ZT: My answer on that would be maybe. It’s hard to tell, because you have things going in different directions. You have weed management going more successfully in the more recent past, where you are wasting less water on weeds, while at the same time your crop is taking up more water. So I’d say the shift is somewhere in the margins.  

BL: Yeah, I think there's some pretty amazing stuff with dryland corn varieties. I rarely if ever grow any dryland corn, but in eastern Colorado, I see a lot of dryland corn around where I farm get stressed and recover repeatedly and basically make more bushels per inch than irrigated fields. So you know, there's a lot with ET that maybe is overstated, because we know we can make corn with a lot less water. What that balance point is and how can you do it most efficiently, that's a pretty tough question to answer, but the potential is there.

KH: It’s certainly always a challenging question with irrigation. And important to keep an open mind. Okay, here's my final question. Which one of you guys is winning this thing?

ZT: Between the two of us? Me, because I’m a winner! [Laughter through the room]

BL: I’ll put more of my chips on winning the efficiency per bushel category. I can't be the expert on profitability, I’d have to say that’s a crapshoot.