Purdue on the Farm is a program that connects farmers with Purdue Extension educators and researchers. It’s also the topic of the latest episode of the HAT Soil Health Podcast, brought to you by the Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative (CCSI).
Dan Quinn is the Purdue Extension Corn Specialist and one of the guests on the episode. He says the program started because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We didn’t have the face-to-face talks as we used to, we just didn’t have that interaction as much as we used to. We wanted to use this program to really drive Purdue Extension to have more involvement with the farmers around the state.”
That involvement includes crop scouting, surveys, demonstrations, and research. Quinn says it’s helpful for farmers to conduct research on their own fields.
“You know, there’s so many different products. There’s so many different management practices out there. One of our biggest pieces of advice for farmers is to evaluate those, not just to buy it and apply it over every acre. Do you really know if it’s worthwhile? Is it economical, or is it proving that yield?”
Bryan Overstreet is the new Northern Conservation Agronomist for CCSI. He explains that Purdue can help farmers set up trials.
“Last year, I worked with a farmer. He had two different products he was wanting to try out. And so we got it set up so he could actually use some of that data instead of just having a strip and not really learn much from it. So we worked with him and got them so they were actually usable data when they got done.”
CCSI’s Hans Schmitz also joins the podcast. He says that Purdue on the Farm can help farmers from all types of operations.
“Although these field scouting and some of the research is a lot of corn and soybean work, Purdue Extension will help find answers for any type of farmer. We want to talk livestock, we’ve got people in animal science and local county educators that are well versed in that. If we want to talk urban ag or horticulture, we also have county educators versed in that.”
Click below to hear the full conversation on the HAT Soil Health Podcast brought to you by the Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative.
