Irrigation and Crop Management Combination Influences on Silage Corn Production
Location
Logan, UT
Start Date
3-29-2022 4:15 PM
End Date
3-29-2022 7:00 PM
Description
Unsteady global markets, erratic weather patterns, rising input costs, and depleting natural resources require agriculturalists to find innovative solutions to counter the changes. The natural resource of most concern in the Intermountain West is water. Urban sprawl, limiting winter snowpack, watershed depletions, and drought persistence pressure the need to optimize and conserve water in agriculture. Water is becoming the limiting factor for growers, making water use optimization of water use a necessity. Numerous management practices have water-saving capabilities or allow for water to be used during more efficient times of the growing season. These include advanced pivot technologies, drought-tolerant crop genetics, tillage practices, and cover crop usage. Various studies show these individual practices can help optimize water use, yet few, if any, studies have evaluated how these various combinations might combine or "stack" to optimize water use or their effects on yield and quality. Field studies were established in 2019 near Logan, Utah, and repeated in 2020, Vernal, Utah in 2020 and 2021, and Cedar City, Utah in 2021. These sites tested how four pivot sprinkler technologies, four irrigation rates, crop genetics, and soil management influence silage corn (Zea mays) production. Data results from the five site years will be presented. Preliminary results show that no single combination is perfect across all the sites.
Irrigation and Crop Management Combination Influences on Silage Corn Production
Logan, UT
Unsteady global markets, erratic weather patterns, rising input costs, and depleting natural resources require agriculturalists to find innovative solutions to counter the changes. The natural resource of most concern in the Intermountain West is water. Urban sprawl, limiting winter snowpack, watershed depletions, and drought persistence pressure the need to optimize and conserve water in agriculture. Water is becoming the limiting factor for growers, making water use optimization of water use a necessity. Numerous management practices have water-saving capabilities or allow for water to be used during more efficient times of the growing season. These include advanced pivot technologies, drought-tolerant crop genetics, tillage practices, and cover crop usage. Various studies show these individual practices can help optimize water use, yet few, if any, studies have evaluated how these various combinations might combine or "stack" to optimize water use or their effects on yield and quality. Field studies were established in 2019 near Logan, Utah, and repeated in 2020, Vernal, Utah in 2020 and 2021, and Cedar City, Utah in 2021. These sites tested how four pivot sprinkler technologies, four irrigation rates, crop genetics, and soil management influence silage corn (Zea mays) production. Data results from the five site years will be presented. Preliminary results show that no single combination is perfect across all the sites.