Extension specialists and educators provide timely resources and information to help Wisconsin crop producers and their agricultural consultants manage crops efficiently and profitably.
Transitioning a farm with the bumps and successes along the way. Darren Eichelkraut farms on a 50 cow organic dairy with his family, including his dad, Junior Eichelkraut, right next to Paoli, Wisconsin. Darren and Junior tell us the story about how Junior transitioned the farm to organic, allowing Darren to come back to and eventually take over the farm.
Are there differences in soil health indicators between higher and lower yielding cranberry beds in Wisconsin? Table of Contents What we did Sampled surface soils (top 6”) from one higher and one lower yielding cranberry bed on four farms in Jackson, Monroe, Sawyer, and Wood Counties, Wisconsin in summer of 2022. Higher and lower yielding […]
Watch: Focus on Alfalfa CompanionsThe first Focus on Forage webinar in the 2025 series, Focus on Alfalfa Companions, features research-based alfalfa establishment resources and new management strategies to keep stands productive over time.
We talk quite a bit about on farm research results on Field Notes, so we thought it was high time to do an episode detailing the ins and outs of doing research on farms in Wisconsin. We dive into the details of asking the right question, trial design and logistics, and analysis with Ben Turzinski and Monica Schauer.
Using datasets from large numbers of farms, Dr. Jeff Hadachek created a model that allows farmers to input their own costs to see how their bottom line would be affected if they implemented specific conservation practices. Read more and access the tool here.
We sit down with Mallika Nocco, assistant professor and extension specialist in agrohydrology from UW-Madison to discuss water conservation: What is it, why does it matter for Wisconsin farmers, and what are practical ways we can implement it on the landscape?
As more farmers have now grown up in the age of computers and software development, we are starting to see an increase in open-source projects related to agriculture. Open-source software (OSS) is a software product for which the code is freely available to the public to use or modify.
If you noticed scarred areas while harvesting, or suspect individual gullies in vulnerable areas have re-appeared, now is the perfect time to inventory those and decide on how you want to proceed on making your fields more resilient to years like this in the future.
Watch: Soil Health Decision ToolIn the October 23, 2024 Badger Crop Connect webinar, Dr. Jeff Hadachek — assistant professor in the UW–Madison department of agricultural and applied economics — discussed his ongoing economic research related to cover cropping and water quality issues. Dr. Hadachek revealed a Soil Health Decision Tool, which allows farmers to simulate and experiment with several variables to determine if agronomic practices, like cover cropping, produce an economic return on investment by improving soil health.
Using SnapPlus to create a nutrient management plan for your farm? Look no further for a helpful guide from the Nutrient and Pest Management Program that walks through developing a nutrient management plan. Full of resources, this guide includes how-to videos, explanations, tips and more to make your nutrient management planning smooth.
The Nutrient and Pest Management (NPM) Program has produced many standalone publications to help learn the basics of what is involved in writing and implementing a nutrient management plan. This new format combines many existing publications with new materials to provide a comprehensive reference guide!
This article considers how cover crops can contribute to the adaptive management of extreme weather events like droughts, floods, extreme precipitation, and extreme soil temperature fluctuations.
