Pioneer Field Day Friday

Here is what the local paper had to say about the Pioneer Plot I attended Friday. There are two good plots in the area, this one 7 miles north of me and the CPS variety plot 5 miles west of me. Both are excellent learning plots to help understand how different genetics took the unusual growing conditions in southwest Ohio this year.

I will invite my clients, neighbors and friends to view both plots. There is much we can talk about in figuring out what went right this year and what we might do next year to get a good crop and improve profits. I apologize for the column format I copy and pasted from the Wilmington News Journal online edition:

Freshman agriculture students
at Wilmington College
can expect a cornfield to be
their classroom when the fall
semester starts Monday, Aug.
23.

More than 300 farmers and
others in agribusiness converged
at the College Farm
on Friday, Aug. 20, for
an agronomy field day hosted
at Wilmington College by
Pioneer with a focus
on research and advances
in growing corn and soybeans.
Pioneer and the College’s
Agriculture Department each
planted research plots on site
in which new varieties were
introduced, as well as findings
on such related areas as nitrogen
rates, plants per acre and
proximity of plants and rows.

“We’re in the business of
education and we saw this
(partnership with Pioneer) as a
great teaching tool,” said
Monte Anderson, professor of
agriculture. “It’s going to be a
great freshman lab next week.”

Pioneer agronomist Jonah
Johnson, a 2004 WC graduate,
said advances are being made
that can increase the yield and
quality of corn and soybeans
— and this event was designed
to get the word out by actually
showing farmers how the
plants are affected under a
variety of conditions.

Information sessions on
various topics were held both
in the fields and under several
tents located throughout the plots.