From the Field to the Lab: August

Traditionally research gets published when the data have been collected, the analysis has been done, some overall summaries have been made and the project is at an end. And for good reason. But as our field days have shown us over the years, there is so much that happens along the way that is of interest for other researchers and for farmers. While overarching conclusions can't necessarily be made based upon mid-stream findings, there are often unexpected outcomes along the way that can inform real-world practices. So we're opening up our doors each month and inviting you all for a virtual "field day" of our research projects. Look for "From the Field to the Lab" to see what our research team has been up to.

Old Fashioned Threshing

Seasonal Research Technicians Sandra Wayman and Jen Tillman thresh IOP oats the old fashioned way. While Sandra removes the seed head from the stalk using a rubber mat and block, Jen separates the chaff from the grain using a home-made winnowing machine.  Lovingly known as “The Lotto Machine,” our winnowing device uses a large fan attached to a PVC pipe to blow the light chaff up the pipe into a separate compartment while the grain remains at the bottom, too heavy to be blown by the fan. These hand-cut biomass samples are being analyzed for yield in order to develop ratios between hand harvest and machine harvested oats. These ratios will be used to estimate oat yields from our collaborating IOP farm in Grantville, where we didn’t have a research combine to measure the yields directly.

Biomass Cuts 

Soybean and weed biomass cuts were taken in the FST in mid-August. A 0.5-meter square quadrat was placed on the ground, and then all the beans and weeds within that area were cut, sorted from each other, and put in muslin bags. The soybeans were put directly into our dryer building to dry, while the weeds were sorted by species into separate bags, and then dried. Once dried, the beans and weeds were weighed to assess their biomass.

 Tons of Tomatoes

Tomato harvesting has begun in our SARE-funded veggie trials that are comparing black plastic with rolled or mowed vetch and/or rye cover crops. The tomatoes are picked and weighed for yield then used by Rodale Inc or Lehigh Valley Hospital in their kitchens, to make Rodale Institute’s salsa, or are donated. This truckload of tomatoes (about 400 pounds) was donated to the Berks County Food Shelf.

Sorting Weeds

Our Research Technicians have spent a lot of time this year identifying and sorting weeds from all of our research trials. It is time-consuming work and can be very tedious, but all have gained tremendous skills in identifying weeds, and the work provides a nice excuse to spend time in the air conditioned lab later in the afternoon after working outside all day in the heat!

Weed-free soybeans

In June, in our no-till soybean management experiment, we made two passes through the rolled rye cover crop mat with our high-residue cultivator in 3 different treatments: 4 & 5, 5 & 6, and 7 & 8 weeks after planting. Now, at the end of August, the beans are looking fantastic and almost completely free of weeds.

Soil Carbon Mapping

The Research Team is making great progress in integrating the various pieces of electronic equipment that comprises the mobile soil carbon testing laboratory. Elaine Viglione and Christi Gabriel have spent weeks streamlining communication between the spectrometers, GPS, bar code reader, field computers, and GIS in order to improve the generation of real-time maps of soil carbon in the field. At the end of the month, they successfully field tested the current set-up and validated equipment protocols.

Cover-crop Preparations

In preparation for cover crop planting after oat harvest in the IOP field, Jeff Moyer and the Research team used the high-residue cultivator to kill the weeds with minimal soil disturbance in the no-till plots, by cutting the weed roots just below the soil surface. The first cultivator pass was made on Friday the 27, and by Monday the 30, most of the weeds were dead, or near to it. Another cultivator pass will be made before Labor Day to ensure that the weeds are dead, and to help prepare the soil for vetch and rye planting with the no-till drill.