Tuesday we headed up to the Saginaw Valley Research and Extension Center to harvest our first dry beans for the year. The beans we harvested were for our graduate student, Ryan Holmes’ project. He is looking at three different row spacings and three different populations in black ‘Zorro’ and small red ‘Merlot’ beans. Throughout the season he has been looking at canopy closure, Western Bean Cutworm population levels/damage, weed populations, etc. Just before harvest we pulled samples to look at the number of pods per plant and the number of beans per pod to look for correlations with the row spacings and plant populations. This was no easy task given that the sustained wind speed was around 15-18 mph, with gusts of up to 40 mph. Bags scattered about, our truck cover blew around, and even the combine hood got caught up in the breeze, but we were still able to get our samples.

Next week we are planning to start our sugar beet harvests. These are always fun days because the whole crew is out riding on the beet harvester taking weights, getting subsamples for sugar analysis, and singing the occasional round of the Sesame Street sugar beet song.

Last Thursday night I was invited to speak at a Michigan Thumb Organics meeting. This group meets monthly to communicate and foster partnerships among organic growers in Michigan’s thumb. The focus of Thursday’s meeting was on the successes and challenges of their cooperative snap bean effort (green bean). In order to meet the demands of their market, the growers have had to work together with staggered plantings so that beans could be harvested every 4 days throughout the season. They are using a shared harvester and shared grading facility and all in all it has worked out, but since this was the first year of this venture, there are improvements that can be made for next year.

I had the opportunity to talk with the growers about our on-farm trials that will be held next year looking at cover crops preceding dry beans. As a result, two growers from the area will be participating, bringing the total number of on-farm trial sites to nine!

Snap bean harvester

Wednesday we attended one of the Monsanto Technology Tours hosted at their Mason, MI research farm. There were 7 stops covering a wide range of topics that included traditional corn breeding in Michigan, emerging herbicides, dairy silage, insect resistance refuges, and new crop traits and seed treatments. This was a good opportunity for our group to see what products Monsanto is planning to market in the near future so that we can address any questions that may arise at our extension meetings.

Yesterday was the annual field day held at the Saginaw Valley Research and Extension Center in Richville, MI. This was the second year that the field day has been held at the farm’s new location. This year’s tour offered more one-on-one interaction between the attendees and the researchers which received positive feedback. There were researchers there from the many different disciplines that work at the “Bean and Beet Farm”, including pathologists, breeders, entomologists, extension specialists, and of course weed scientists. Christy Sprague and Alicia Spangler were at the sugarbeet stop to talk about the many different weed management trials and Alicia’s M.S. project looking at varying nitrogen fertilizer rates in combination with weed removal timings. Gary Powell and Ryan Holmes were at the dry bean stop to answer weed control and dessication questions as well as to talk about Ryan’s M.S. project looking at row spacing and populations as it relates to canopy closure, weed management, and some insects in black and small red beans. The field day turned out to be a great success and we look forward to doing in again next year.

Here’s a brief update on the cover crops we have planted for our organic dry bean project.

Medium red clover

• Planted July 17
• Came up with a good looking stand
• Mostly died by mid-August due to lack of moisture
• Replanted August 17

Buckwheat

• Planted July 17
• Flowering by August 13
• Mown August 13 and August 20 to about 4-5″ hoping for regrowth
• Where buckwheat was run over with tires it has died
• Some leaves emerging from mown plants, but it may flower again right away

Oilseed radish

• Planted August 17
• Emerging by August 23 (we had some rain after planting)

Last week, we had the opportunity to participate in the Northeastern Weed Science Society Collegiate Weed Contest.  Our graduate-level team consisted of Daniel Tratt (an undergraduate in Crop and Soil Sciences), Alexander Lindsey (a MS student in Weed Science), and Laura Bast (a PhD student in Weed Science and Soil Fertility), coached by Dr. Wesley Everman.  After weeks of diligent preparation, we arrived at the Cornell University Horticulture Farm in Ithaca, New York, ready to test our knowledge of sprayer calibration, herbicide and weed identification, and farmer problems.  The competition highlighted weeds and crops of the northeastern region of the US; however, a record number of approximately 100 students from 12 participating universities spanned west to Illinois and south to Florida.  After the competition ended and the scores were tallied, the teams convened at Cass Park on the south shore of Cayuga Lake for dinner and the awards ceremony.  The team from Michigan State received First Place in the Graduate Team contest.  Dan Tratt received the Second Place Individual Award for Undergraduate Students, and Alex Lindsey received Second Place Individual Award for Graduate Students.

In addition to participating in the weed contest, we were able to visit Penn State University on the way to New York.  Dr. William Curran and Dwight Lingenfelter, the Weed Team coach at Penn State, graciously allowed us to tour their weed garden and herbicide screen plots.  Afterwards, we were treated to an excellent tour of their campus, including a stop the Penn State Creamery.  After completion of the contest, we toured Cornell University, visited the wineries along Cayuga Lake, and viewed Niagara Falls on our way to Canada to visit a University of Guelph satellite campus in Ridgetown, Ontario.  At the Ridgetown campus, Dr. Peter Sikkema and his collegue, Dr. Darren Robinson, gave us a tour of their research farm.

Overall the trip was educational, fun, and informative.  Many new crops were observed and novel production techniques were discussed.  The people we met were all very nice, open, and helpful.  Next year the WSSA Weed Olympiad is scheduled to occur in Tennessee, and the Weeds Team looks forward to competing.

The MSU Weed Team that competed this week at the Northeast Weed Science Society contest at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY on July 27th. This year there were 95 students representing 10 universities competing in the contest. The MSU team of Laura Bast, Alexander Lindsey, and Daniel Tratt took 1st place in the Graduate Team competition, Alex Lindsey placed 2nd in the Graduate Individual competition, and Dan Tratt placed 2nd in the Undergraduate Individual competition. The students did an excellent job representing MSU!

MSU team- Laura Bast, Alex Lindsey, and Dan Tratt

2010 NEWSS 1st place Graduate Team

This is the final year of a two year study conducted at the Kellogg Biological Station looking at using flaming and rotary hoeing in combination for early season weed control in dry beans. The ‘Jaguar’ black beans were put in late this year due to rain. Weed control treatments were as follows.

*Timings were based on the size of the dry beans. This video shows a quick walk-thru of the plots from Tuesday right before their first cultivation.

As part of our organic dry bean project we planted medium red clover and buckwheat this past monday at the HRTC-Student Organic Farm. With a little help from the heat wave we’ve been having at the 8/10ths” of rain we’ve had so far this week the cover crops emerged in four days!! Hopefully with this quick emergence we will maximize their weed suppressing capabilities.

Medium red clover 4 days after planting

Buckwheat 4 days after planting

This summer we received news that our grant submitted to the USDA NIFA Organic Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) programs was recommended for funding. This grant is a collaboration among Karen Renner (weed science), Jim Kelly (dry bean breeding), Christy Sprague (weed science), Dale Mutch (MSU Extension, KBS), Dan Rossman (MSU Extension, Gratiot County), Chris DiFonzo (entomology), and me. Our project has the following 6 objectives:

1. Identify dry bean varieties that are best suited for organic production, including nitrogen fixation through nodulation, the ability to tolerate prolonged mechanical weed management, and dry bean production and seed yield in cover crop systems.
2. Measure soil nitrogen availability in dry beans planted in rotation following cover crops.
3. Determine if cover crops prior to dry beans influence weed emergence and growth and mechanical weed management.
4. Evaluate key insect pests in organic dry bean production s influence by variety and cover crops prior to planting.
5. Expand dry bean breeding activites to select for traits that are best suited to organic production.
6. Educate growers and the agricultural community on organic dry bean production through extension efforts.

To address objectives 1, 2, 3, and 4 we will be conducting studies looking at organic dry bean production following medium red clover, oilseed radish, rye, and a no cover treatment at the the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) at the Horticultural Teaching and Research Center- Student Organic Farm (HTRC-SOF), and in 6 on-farm sites (one cover studied at each site). This first year will be a little unique because we did not know if the grant was funded in time to frost seed the clover treatments. Therefore we will be working at KBS in an organic field that was in wheat and was entirely frost seeded to clover. Now that the wheat is off we will plow the clover in the areas where we want to plant our other cover crop treatments. At the HTRC-SOF we are working in a field that is in transition to organic. There was no crop currently growing there so we have worked the ground and on Monday we planted our clover treatments. We also planted buckwheat in the portions of the field that will be used for years 2-3 of the experiment. We will be planting the oilseed radish and rye treatments sometime in August and September at both of these MSU sites.

At the grower sites we will let the growers choose which of the cover crop they are the most interested in studying.

We will plant the dry beans for all of these sites in June 2011. In the spring of 2011 we will precondition the year 2 sites (covers in 2011, beans in 2012) at the MSU locations by planting oats in all treatments and frost seeding clover with the oats in the clover treatments.

For objectives 1 and 5, Jim Kelly and Jim Heilig (PhD student) have begun working on advancing dry bean generations and seed increases of the varieties and lines of interest. Their work is taking place in Tuscola county on a grower’s farm. In 2011-2013 they will be working again with this grower and also at KBS, with some additional work in Puerto Rico during the winter months.

We intend to regularly update the progress of this project on this blog, through the New Ag Network, and also through eOrganic (a community within eXtension).