Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons^™

Comparison Of Peat-Based Planting Media To Sustainably Produced Planting Medias: Watering And Other Considerations, Mary Grace Jackson

Scholars Week

Researchers are actively addressing the questions that haunts all agriculturalists: Will we be able to feed the projected population of 9.8 billion people in 2050? Newly developed soil mixes might be the key to solving this daunting question. Research is proving that this sustainable media is a way to add nutrients back into our existing soil.

Soil Responses To Various Farming Systems In Western Kentucky, Samantha Peterson

Scholars Week

The interactions among the farming systems and the soil, water, biota, and atmosphere control the effects of cultivation on soil properties. Land conversion from forest or pasture ecosystems into crop fields altered soil properties due to the loss of soil organic matter (SOM) and the increase of soil compaction. However in Kentucky, the magnitude of the changes varied among the soil properties. Therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate the changes of selected soil properties include SOM, soil pH, and compaction under different crop fields such as corn-soybean-tobacco rotation (Field #1), continuous corn field (Field #2), hemp field …

Evaluating Soil Surface Properties In Two Contrasting Tillage Systems, Riley Mabe, Kaeden Mollett, Marcus Robertson

Scholars Week

Soil properties are affected by tillage practices. Tillage practices that provides an adequate growing environment for crops and maintains good soil structure is crucial. The objective of this study was to compare selected soil properties collected from no-till (NT) and conventional tillage (CT) systems in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. Three undisturbed and three disturbed soil samples were taken from the topsoil at the depth of 0 to 7.5 cm. The samples were analyzed for bulk density (BD), water holding capacity (WHC), field capacity (FC), soil pH, soil organic matter (SOM), and compaction. Bulk density, WHC, and FC of the soil …

Sustainability Of Organic Soil Amendments On Soil Fertility And Earthworms, Mackenzie Hoffman

Scholars Week

One of the growing concerns of farmers is soil fertility which is defined as the ability of soil to grow and support plant life by minerals and nutrients needed for the plants. Healthy soil leads to better yields which lead to more food produced. Traditionally, soil fertility has been maintained with the use of chemical fertilizers. This research looked at an alternative method of increasing soil fertility: the addition of a soil amendment. Chemical fertilizers can lead to an oversupply of nitrogen which can make the plants more susceptible to diseases and pests and can also reduce the colonization of …

Farmer Panel: Baleage – How It Works On My Farm, Todd Clark, Tom Wright, Tom Greathouse

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

No abstract provided.

Evolution Of Mechanization And Transport In My Hay Operation, Ron Tombaugh

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Good morning! My name is Ron Tombaugh. I was born and raised on a dairy farm near Streator, IL. Streator is about 100 miles southwest of Chicago. Our farm was in the northwest corner of Livingston county, one of the largest counties in IL. To give you an idea of the crops grown there, Livingston County along with 4 surrounding counties produce more corn than the neighboring state of Missouri! Dairy farms were not real common in our area then, and are almost non-existent in the area now.

Update On Hay Making Equipment And Technology, Joshua J. Jackson

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Precision agriculture has focused on optimizing efficiency. For crop production, yields can be obtained from the combine and integrated with soil nutrient data to characterize the response to changes in management strategies (spraying, harvesting, nutrient application, irrigation, etc). Currently the highest resolution for yield, for the majority of farms raising alfalfa in Kentucky, is based upon the field level of data. Specifically, most farmers could specify the bales per field. From this and a dry matter (DM) analysis, we can derive the following: bales per acre, tons per acre, total tons of DM, and nutrients removed. Soil characteristics can be …

Economics Of Grazing Cover Crops, Edward N. Ballard

Forage Symposium at the Kentucky Cattlemen’s Convention

Feed costs represent the major cost in most livestock production systems. A completed analysis of 225 Standardized Performance Analysis (SPA) Beef Cow Records on herds in Illinois and Iowa showed that feed cost was the overriding factor determining profitability, explaining over 57 percent of the herd-to-herd variation.

2018 Long-Term Summary Of Kentucky Forage Variety Trials, Gene L. Olson, S. Ray Smith, Jimmy C. Henning, Christopher D. Teutsch

Forage Symposium at the Kentucky Cattlemen’s Convention

Forage crops occupy approximately 7 million acres in Kentucky. Forages provide a majority of the nutrition for beef, dairy, horse, goat, sheep, and wildlife in the state. In addition, forage crops play an environmentally friendly role in soil conservation, water quality, and air quality. There are over 60 forage species adapted to the climate and soil conditions of Kentucky. Only 10 to 12 of these species occupy the majority of the acreage, but within these species there is a tremendous variation in varieties.

This publication was developed to provide a user-friendly guide to choosing the best variety for producers based …