Farm Office Live – March 2023

The OSU Extension Farm Office team invites you to attend the March Madness Edition of the “Farm Office Live” Webinar on Friday, March 17 from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. This monthly webinar allows Ohio farmers and agribusiness personnel to learn more about current farm management and agricultural law issues.

In this month’s webinar, the Farm Office Team will present the following topics:

  • Federal & State Legislative Update (Peggy Hall)
  • New Postnuptial Agreement Legislation (Robert Moore)
  • Marital and Non-Marital Assets (Robert Moore)
  • Selling Timber- Call Before You Cut (Dave Apsley)
  • Update on Crop Input Costs and Crop Budget Outlook for 2023 (Barry Ward)
  • Sales Tax Exemption Issues (Jeff Lewis)
  • 2023 Spring Crop Insurance Update (Eric Richer)
  • Emergency Relief Program (David Marrison)

There is no fee to attend this webinar.  However, registration is required at go.osu.edu/farmofficelive

Check out farmoffice.osu.edu for all your farm management and ag & resource law needs.

How Will Your Yield and Efficiency Increase this Season?

Each season brings its own set of weather, yields, markets, prices, and more. However, reviewing what occurred over many previous seasons can represent a glimpse at what may occur going forward.

For example, records of average reported total yields for many major vegetable and other crops spanning up to more than a century give interesting clues, suggestions, and questions about future yields.

The three panels below show that average reported total yields for various crops have risen steadily for decades, but at different rates among crops and locations. Much in vegetable growing, etc has changed in the last 40-100+ years. So, what may have contributed most significantly to yield increases during that time and support additional increases going forward?

Most agree yield increases have resulted from and will continue to hinge on improvements in crop genetics (varieties) and management. For example, today’s sweet corn plants are generally smaller and grown at higher densities and with improved inputs and care than in previous years. The article referenced below mentions further increases in sweet corn yield may result from developing varieties that tolerate even greater densities.

Indeed, most agree that we have not yet achieved the theoretical maximum yield of any crop and that better varieties and improved crop management are both possible and necessary. The overall goal is to constantly push observed yields (total, marketable) higher while maintaining or lowering costs and increasing income.

Take a few moments as the 2023 season gets underway to ask important questions about your historical and anticipated yields. For example, have total and marketable yields of crops you have grown for the most years increased steadily over that time? Why or why not? What yields do your draft balance sheets assume for 2023? Do you expect yields to be higher than in previous years? What new steps do you plan to take to ensure your yields and cost-efficiencies are as high as possible?

Many inputs and steps shape crop yield potential. Therefore, drawing clear, reliable connections between a specific practice or input and its impact on yield in nearly all situations is difficult. However, most agree that using high quality transplants is key to maximizing yield and income potential, regardless of the size, location, and other characteristics of the operation. In fact, some say using high quality seed and transplants is responsible for 20% or more of production potential. Regardless of the actual number for your farm, there are at least three reasons to consider using only high-quality transplants.

1. Biology. Most crop plants must pass through various stages before offering growers a chance to make money. Plants from weak seedlings may not reach the required stage, reach it at different times, or be weak or of low market value when reaching it.

2. Time. There are two types of races. One type tends to get all the attention while the other occurs out of public view on farms from the start of each growing season. The most common race asks how quickly a contestant can run, swim, bike, etc a fixed distance. Over time, contestants have worked to become faster. Crop production is an example of the second type of race. There, growers have fixed amounts of time and are challenged to produce as much as possible as efficiently as possible during it. Low quality seedlings do not obtain or use resources efficiently or maximally and this can contribute to slow, non-uniform growth, possible below-optimal plant populations, wasted money, and less yield. Plants from low quality seedlings are also more susceptible to stress and will be affected by it more severely and recover from it more slowly and/or incompletely.

3. Diseases and Pests. Diseases and pests spread. One diseased or infested seedling can allow many others to be affected and the spread of disease and insect pests may affect other farms. Also, disease incidence and severity often worsen. As more plants become infected, previously infected ones become weaker and weaker and may succumb before providing the grower with a return on their investment in the seedlings.

In 2023, in addition to using high quality transplants, identify a practice that may be preventing you from seeing valuable gains in yield and efficiency and work toward improving it.

Farmers: Share Your Thoughts on Cover Crops in the National Cover Crop Survey!

Farmers are invited to share their thoughts on cover crops in an online survey at bit.ly/CoverCrop23. Why do you plant cover crops…or why don’t you? What do you want to know? Your insight will help guide research, communications, seed development, and more.

This National Cover Crop Survey is the seventh since 2012 conducted by the USDA-NIFA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) and the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), with the help of Informa/Farm Progress.

“Since 2012, the National Cover Crop Survey has been extremely valuable in helping guide research priorities, direct communications and education efforts, provide data to researchers, and illustrate the effects of policy on cover crop use and adoption,” says Dr. Rob Myers, regional director of extension programs for North Central SARE and director of the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture. “Data from previous surveys have been used in scientific papers, business planning, extension efforts, media coverage of cover crops, and even included in testimony to Congress.”

Please take a few minutes to contribute your voice at bit.ly/CoverCrop23. After completing the questionnaire, you may enter a drawing for one of three $100 Visa gift cards.

The 2023 Small Farm Conference Registration Deadline is Quickly Approaching

The deadline to register for the 2023 Small Farm Conference is quickly approaching.  If you haven’t registered for this great event yet, you still have time, as registration is open until March 3rd.

Follow this link for session descriptions, conference details and registration http://go.osu.edu/2023osusmallfarmconf

We hope to see you there.

 

Efficient and Effective Management of High Tunnel Environments, 2: Ventilation Status

Growers use high tunnels (HTs) specifically to create environments near their crops that would be unavailable otherwise. Those environments can be very beneficial but difficult to achieve and maintain during many cropping periods. This article summarizes key observations about the challenges and opportunities presented to growers when setting the ventilation status of their HT(s).

HTs are essentially square or rectangular boxes with sides, ends, and, occasionally, tops that can be closed or partially to fully opened. The combined relative positions of a HT’s sidewall curtains, end wall doors, and end wall and/or ridge vents (if present) comprise its ventilation status. Farming inside this box, HT growers must use its ventilation status to manage key conditions inside it (e.g., temperature, relative humidity, air movement/exchange). This process is the HT grower’s opportunity and challenge. Setting the ventilation status is an opportunity because it allows the grower to respond to changing external conditions in their attempt to maintain target conditions inside the HT. Setting the ventilation status is difficult because it can demand large amounts of time, energy, and other resources and create questions and stress.

For example, while many vents operate automatically on temperature-sensitive pistons or controls, they generally do not take wind, rain, or other factors that may influence the grower’s interests into account. Also, very important, opening and closing end wall doors and sidewall curtains is typically done manually. Dynamic weather conditions and specific crop needs may then require repeated trips to the HT(s) to change ventilation status, robbing time and energy from other activities and costing fuel, etc. Further, once at the HT(s), there is the question as to what the ventilation status should be. Answering that question can be very difficult. Consider that the relative positions of two sidewall curtains and two sets of end wall doors represents eighty-one combinations at 0%, 50%, and 100% open for each (3x3x3x3=81) and a more realistic use of these four options at five positions each represents 625 combinations. Adding two end wall vents at three positions each to this list brings the total number of possible ventilation status positions to 5,625 (625x3x3). When growers consider tunnel compass orientation, outdoor temperature, wind speed and direction, sunlight and cloud cover levels, crop needs, that relatively small differences in ventilation status can have large effects on conditions inside the HT (e.g., https://u.osu.edu/vegnetnews/2023/02/11/efficient-and-effective-management-of-high-tunnel-environments-1-the-need-and-challenge/), and other factors, selecting the most sensible ventilation status understandably becomes important and potentially difficult.

Some growers simplify by setting a “compromise” status at some point each day or night and moving on, unable or unwilling to change the ventilation status more frequently and, thereby, possibly exposing crops to non-optimal conditions as outside conditions change. Stress created by that scenario has been clear to me in conversations with growers and it appears to be increasing as weather patterns become more dynamic and extreme.

We partner with growers, the research-extension community, and members of industry to improve growers’ success and efficiency at managing conditions inside their HTs, especially through setting their ventilation status. Participation in the Ohio Controlled Environment Agricultural Center and local to international professional working groups and recent support from the USDA-Ohio Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant Competition (“Advancing High Tunnel Production: Research-based Support and Technologies to Speed and Enhance Grower Success”) assist in that process. Please contact Matt Kleinhenz (kleinhenz.1@osu.edu; 330.263.3810) for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Efficient and Effective Management of High Tunnel Environments, 1: The Need and Challenge

Growers use high tunnels (HTs) specifically to create environments near their crops that would be unavailable otherwise. Those environments can be very beneficial but difficult to achieve and maintain during many cropping periods. This article summarizes three key observations about monitoring and managing HT environments gleaned from farmers, researchers, and year-round experience with multiple high tunnels at the research station in Wooster, OH since 2003.

1. Change is constant. As many experienced HT users know and new users discover quickly, HT environments can fluctuate a lot over short (minutes-hours) and longer (days-weeks) periods of time, especially during spring and fall. These fluctuations arise from natural conditions outside the HT and the HT user’s management of the structure. Regardless, severe or repeated fluctuations may disrupt crop development and/or lower crop yield and/or quality.

2. Multiple steps and tactics are needed to achieve desired outcomes. Positioning sidewalls, doors, and vents based on external conditions, crop needs, and other factors is the most common approach to managing these fluctuations and maintaining target air temperature, relative humidity, and other conditions in the HT. Actively heating the air and/or soil, shading the HT, circulating air inside the HT with fans, and other steps are also sometimes used. While some HT growers heat air in the HT, especially early in tomato production, fewer appear to monitor HT soil temperature, which also influences crop development and yield potential. Temperatures shown in the graph below are from unheated HTs and they make us wonder about the impact of heating air in a HT on soil temperature. Note that soil temperatures reached optimal levels long after planting.

More research is needed to determine the effect of heating air in HTs on soil temperature, given that most HTs are surrounded by cold soil, experience short, sometimes cloudy days, and are irrigated with cold water in late winter/early spring. Some of these dynamics are depicted in the drawing below.

 

3. HT environments respond to management, but in incompletely understood ways. Most commercial HTs, especially single bay ones, are rectangles (longer than wide) while multi-bay HTs may approach being square in shape. Regardless, inside, crops differ in height, timing, density, environmental requirements, and position relative to an end- or sidewall. This increases the importance of managing temperature and other conditions in the HT using specific combinations of door and sidewall position, perhaps especially for single bay HTs.

We work to help HT growers be more efficient and effective at managing their HT environments. Our approach involves interlocking steps. For example, we continuously record environmental conditions inside and outside of many HTs along with the positions of their endwalls, sidewalls, and vents. Next, we examine relationships among the: a) external conditions, b) sidewall, endwall, and vent positions, and c) internal conditions. Then, we analyze the status of those three factors alongside cropping outcomes (yield and quality). The overall approach is depicted in the graphic below. In time, we are optimistic this approach will help HT users predict and manage HT environments and crops more effectively.

 

Finally, weather in Wooster, OH on February 11, 2023, was clear, cold, and calm — ideal for illustrating messages outlined above. Note below how temperatures inside five high tunnels tracked sunlight, outside temperature, and endwall position. Even small differences in the amount one endwall was open influenced internal temperatures. Two important lessons can be taken from the numbers. First, similarly small changes in the position of another end- or sidewall are likely to have much larger effects on internal conditions. Second, effects of small differences in internal conditions created by small changes in ventilation status are likely to be cumulative. That is, relatively small differences in temperature like shown below on any given day are less important than those same differences repeated day after day and season after season. Since those cumulative differences are mostly set by growers’ approaches and management options, enhancing those approaches and options is key. Future articles in this series will focus on those topics. Contact Matt Kleinhenz (kleinhenz.1@osu.edu; 330.263.3810) for more information.

Environmental Conditions In and Immediately Outside Five High Tunnels in Wooster, OH on 2/11/23.

 

time 1 2 3 4 5 outside wind (mph/dir.) light (W/m2)
——— air temperature in deg F ———–
midnight 27.0 26.6 25.5 27.2 27.0 29.4 11.5/NW 0
7:35 AM* 17.4 18.1 17.8 18.9 19.9 22.5 5.7/NNW 8
8:35 AM 23.0 30.5 44.0 37.1 40.1 26.7 5.7/NNW 156
9:35 AM 39.8 50.6 64.0 50.7 60.0 33.6 5.7/N 314
vent note A B C D
10:35 AM 63.0 62.6 79.7 67.4 63.0 35.2 4.6/N 466
11:35 AM 78.2 72.3 83.3 74.3 68.2 36.2 4.6/N 546
12:35 PM 86.6 80.3 92.2 79.7 69.4 39.4 3.4/W 583
vent note E F
1:35 PM 86.7 80.8 85.7 77.4 76.5 38.4 5.7/SE 562
2:35 PM 84.3 83.9 83.5 75.2 74.3 39.1 5.7/W 488
3:35 PM 83.1 79.9 84.9 77.4 68.9 43.0 5.7/WSW 369
4:35 PM 56.9 54.5 53.7 52.5 50.3 39.9 3.4/SW 147
5:35 PM** 45.2 43.6 39.8 42.3 41.2 37.6 4.7/SW 28
9:35 PM 28.9 28.9 26.4 29.1 29.0 32.7 3.4/SW 1

*, ** sunrise and sunset in Wooster, OH on Feb 11, 2023 occurred at 7:37 AM and 5:57 PM, respectively.

Note 1.
All high tunnels are single-layer, gothic-shaped, unheated, and located at https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7739922,-81.9150824,574m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en. HTs 1 and 2 are 30 ft w x 80 ft long and oriented with their long axis east-west. HTs 3, 4, and 5 are 21 ft w x 48 ft long and oriented with their long axis north-south. All HTs have 2 sliding doors measuring 4 ft w x 8 ft h. When both doors are fully open, the opening created is 8 ft w x 8 ft h.
Note 2. During the time period above, all HTs (doors, sidewalls, vents) are closed unless indicated by a “vent note” below.
A. Sidewalls, doors, and vents closed until 9:51 AM. At 9:51 AM, east end doors open 2 ft (of 8).
B. Sidewalls, doors, and vents closed until 9:51 AM. At 9:55 AM, east end doors open 4ft (of 8).
C. Sidewalls and doors closed. At 10:14 AM, 16-ft2 opening in sidewall at SE corner at endwall-sidewall junction closed (small section of plastic had been released at top of sidewall by camlock failure during recent windstorm).
D. Sidewalls and doors closed until 10:02 AM. At 10:02 AM, north end doors open 4ft (of 8).
E. Sidewalls and doors closed until 12:42 PM. At 12:45 PM, north end doors open 4ft (of 8).
F. Sidewall and door positions unchanged 10:02 AM – 12:45 PM. At 12:45 PM, north end doors reduced to open 2 ft (of 8).

USDA Announces Grants for Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production

USDA is making available up to $7.5 million for grants through its Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production (OUAIP). The competitive grants will support the development of urban agriculture and innovative production projects through two categories, Planning Projects and Implementation Projects.

USDA Announces Signup for 2023 Assistance for On-Farm Food Safety Expenses for Specialty Crop Growers

01/20/2023 02:00 PM EST

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2023— The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reminds specialty crop producers of available assistance to help cover certain costs of complying with regulatory and market-driven food safety certification requirements ….Read More

2023 Small Farm Conference Registration is Open!

 

Greetings the OSU Extension – Small Farm Team is excited to announce that the registration for the 2023 Small Farm Conference is open.  We hope to see you all there.

Ohio State Extension announced plans to host a Small Farm Conference in Mansfield Ohio on March 11, 2023.  The theme for this year’s Mid-Ohio Small Farm Conference is “Sowing Seeds for Success.”

Conference session topics are geared to beginning and small farm owners as well as to farms looking to diversify their operation.  There will be five different conference tracks including: Farm Office, Horticulture and Produce Production, Livestock, Agritourism/ Marketing, Natural Resources.

Some conference topic highlights include: How to purchase our family farm, food animal processing, bee keeping, sweet corn, blueberry and pumpkin production, small ruminant nutrition, agritourism laws, fruit tree pruning and cut flower diseases.

Anyone interested in developing, growing or diversifying their small farm is invited to attend including market gardeners, farmers market vendors, and anyone interested in small farm living.

Attendees will have the opportunity to browse a trade show featuring the newest and most innovative ideas and services for their farming operation. The conference provides an opportunity to talk with the vendors and network with others.

The Conference will take place from 8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. at the Mansfield OSU Campus in Ovalwood Hall, just minutes from I-71 and US Rt 30.

For conference and registration call OSU Extension Morrow County 419-947-1070, or OSU Extension Knox County 740-397-0401.

Please follow this link for conference details and to register: https://go.osu.edu/2023osusmallfarmconf