May 22, 2019
The South Dakota Mesonet has installed a new weather station at the West River Research Farm near Sturgis with the support of the South Dakota Wheat Commission.
During 2018 the main driver for South Dakota's economic growth continued to be agriculture. It is still the number one industry, with almost $20 billion in impact yearly. In today’s uncertain economic environment, two things can help farmers succeed: information and knowledge.
As the spray season starts, it is always good to be aware of resources and testing facilities where you can send in possible herbicide-affected plant samples. SDSU Extension offers suggestions on how to handle possible herbicide damage situations as well as recommended labs that receive plant matter samples to test for herbicide residues.
SDSU Extension publishes the South Dakota Pest & Crop Newsletter to provide growers, producers, crop consultants, and others involved in crop production with timely news pertinent to management of pests, diseases, and weeds in South Dakota.
SDSU Extension will host West River Field School on June 20, 2019 starting at 8:15 AM MDT at the SDSU West River Research Farm (13304 Alkali Rd., Sturgis, SD 57785).
The tight production margins currently present in agriculture have increased interest in growing organic oats.
With technology surrounding today’s culture, data and marketing information has become a key part of life. The best way to determine if a product or practice is effective is to ask for the data and research backing a company’s claims. However, before a producer makes a decision, understanding the data and statistics is key.
Utilizing sound research results to help make decisions on the farm is a wise business practice. It can be confusing, however, when you see two numbers that are clearly not the same labeled as “not significantly different.”
Increasingly, farmers are generating on-farm research data that encompasses a wide-range of practical topics. However, setting up those experiments so that the data is statistically valid is not necessarily common knowledge.
How should a basic study be set up or laid out in the field? One very common approach is to divide a field in half and compare the halves or possibly compare two fields in close proximity and see which variety or practice yields highest. This approach can end with very misleading results because of the variability that exists across a field or fields due to many factors.