2020
Research and Extension Efforts at the Soil Health & Agriculture Research Extension (SHARE) Farm
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Contributor/Checkoff:
North Dakota Soybean Council
Category:
Sustainable Production
Keywords:
Field management Soil healthTillage
Parent Project:
This is the first year of this project.
Lead Principal Investigator:
Abbey Wick, North Dakota State University
Co-Principal Investigators:
Project Code:
QSSB
Contributing Organization (Checkoff):
North Dakota Soybean Council
$82,075
Institution Funded:
North Dakota State University
$82,075
Brief Project Summary:

The Soil Health and Agriculture Research Extension (SHARE) Farm provides a framework for state-wide soil health Extension programming. Located in Mooreton, the SHARE Farm was established in 2013. Since then, extensive sampling has been completed for soil characteristics, 80 acres of tile drainage was installed, and a North Dakota Ag Weather Network (NDAWN) station was placed on the farm. Full-scale, replicated tillage plots were established and soil temperature and moisture under the different practices are being monitored. Researchers will continue the field trials, answering questions about managing no-till systems on high clay soils with and without tile drainage and cover crops in rotation.

Key Benefactors:
farmers, extension specialists, agronomists

Information And Results
Project Deliverables

1) Field scale evaluation and demonstration of farming practices for salinity management and building soil health to improve soybean production
2) Information is getting in the hands of farmers using creative Extension programming consisting of field days, bus tours, workshops and Café Talks as well as digital methods of Twitter, webpage and videos
3) All aspects of the SHARE Farm research and Extension is driven by farmer input — this is truly the "farmer's project"

Final Project Results

Update:

View uploaded report Word file

The SHARE Farm project in Southeastern ND compares soil health practices, like reducing tillage and inclusion of cover crops, in side-by-side replicated strips. There is also a tile-drained versus non-tile drained comparison with this project. This location in Mooreton was planted to soybean in 2020, with an oat cover crop flown on at leaf drop. This site will be planted to wheat in 2021 (for the final year of the project). 2019 into 2020 certainly brought challenges for this project. Field conditions were wet in the fall of 2019 and the southern half (non-tiled part) of the field could not be harvested until spring 2020. This created one disadvantage to the 2020 soybean crop planted across the field. Next, there was a fire in the field across the road that jumped over to the southern part of the SHARE Farm field. The southern half of the field was dried out using vertical tillage and the entire field was planted to soybean on the same day. This is how large-scale field research goes - we did the best we could and seemed guidance from the cooperating farmer.

2020 soybean yields were similar for no-till/vertical till and full tillage treatments, however, yields on the northern half (which is tile drained) were higher than the souther half of the field (which is not tile drained). Soil health indices, like earthworms are showing recovery with migration of worms further into the field each year.

Despite COVID Extension programming continued, with the hosting of two large virtual workshops in 2019 and 2020 (DIRT Workshop), 24 Cafe Talks, 12 podcast episodes (Field Check) and 9 videos produced.

The United Soybean Research Retention policy will display final reports with the project once completed but working files will be purged after three years. And financial information after seven years. All pertinent information is in the final report or if you want more information, please contact the project lead at your state soybean organization or principal investigator listed on the project.