On-farm demonstrations and trials provide excellent field specific data to farmers and enable them to test new technologies they might be considering within their own production context. However, logistical and financial limitations often restrict what can be compared in these trials and what the farmer is comfortable trying out. Although there is momentum to support the newly implemented University of Maryland On-Farm Trials Program, project PIs are interested in exploring additional ways to provide Maryland farmers with a low-risk opportunity to gain experience with novel management practices to encourage adoption of said practices on their operations. We believe farmers will be more likely to experiment with riskier management practices when they do not have to directly experience the potentially negative impacts of the risky practices, i.e. they do not have to lose money or yield by experimenting directly on their operations.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has developed a new alternative approach to on-farm trials, called the “Testing Ag Performance Solutions” (TAPS) program (https://taps.unl.edu). This farmer competition offers participating farmers the opportunity to make management decisions on their “farm”, which are replicated medium-sized plots at University Research and Education centers. Farmers are provided with a suite of management options, including both agronomic (variety selection, timing and quantity of fertility applications, timing and quantity of irrigation, etc.) and economic (option to purchase crop insurance, option to forward contract grain for better pricing, etc.) decisions. These options are submitted through a time-stamped online portal, agronomic practices are executed as requested, and farmers receive their yield and profitability results at the end of the season. Additionally, financial prizes are awarded to the winners of these three categories: 1) most profitable farm, 2) most efficient input use, and 3) highest yield.

The basic methods from the UNL-TAPS program have been duplicated in both Colorado and Oklahoma and competitions are currently being executed in a number of midwestern crops (i.e. corn, popcorn, sorghum, cotton, etc.). We are looking to utilize the basic methods outlined by UNL and expand upon it in Maryland, with the goal to include Delaware, and begin our program in soybeans. We aim to use 2024 as a pilot year to refine the methods for the planned deployment of the competition in 2025 through piloting the program with county-based University of Maryland Extension faculty. This will also aid in marketing and promotion of the competition in 2025 as we hope to build comfort and excitement for the competition with the participating county Extension faculty.

This proposal is a pilot year of a planned multi-year program that aims to 1) provide farmers a low-risk option to observe results of implementing novel management practices in soybean production through competition-based programming, 2) collect agronomic and economic data as the result of implementing novel management practices, and 3) amplify the impact of current Extension programming through increased engagement with Maryland farmers in this competition-based program.

In 2024, we plan to simultaneously develop our methods and pilot our competition for execution with farmers in 2025. To pilot our program, we will enroll University of Maryland Extension county-based faculty (up to 7 faculty members) as participants and execute the competition as we would with participating farmers (methods described herein) but gather feedback from Extension faculty on how to best deploy the competition. The following section will describe the execution of the competition, then we will discuss the specific methods and budget needs for the 2024 pilot year.

The competition will be executed in soybeans and participating farmers will be recruited throughout the winter season, after soybean harvest and prior to soybean planting. When farmers enroll, they will be given up to five field operations and a suite of options within those operations from which they will select to implement on their experimental “farm”. Their “farm” will be three, replicated medium-sized plots (~20’ wide by 40-50’ long) located at Wye Research and Education Center in Queenstown, MD. Participants will be provided a “menu” of field operations that they can choose, possibly including: soybean variety and maturity group, seeding rate, harvest date, irrigation, row spacing, and slug bait options (no bait, Deadline MPS, or Ferrox). Other operations, such as planting date, fertility, herbicide application, tillage, will be held constant across the entire trial. Additionally, participants will choose crop insurance coverage for their farm and will have the option to forward contract their grain in an attempt to increase the profitability of their “farm”. We will include at least two control “farms” in each year of the competition, one with limited fertility or options that only follow University recommendations and one that, in future years, will be managed by University coordinators to possibly highlight a specific practice of interest.

We specifically limit the potential operation options and scale to improve the feasibility and focus on developing critical infrastructure in the early years establishing the competition. However, we anticipate soliciting feedback during 2024 and 2025 competitions to guide future competitions and the options we select. For example, we could expand to regional competitions at each research farm in Maryland and Delaware. Additional inputs, such as seed treatments, insecticides, fungicides, and biologicals could be included on future “menus”.

In addition to the “menu” of farm operations, insurance, and marketing, we will give participants maps, field history (crop rotation, past yields, cover crops), and soil test results to inform decisions at the start of the competition. In season, we will provide stand counts for replant decisions, estimate yield potential at R6 for marketing, and provide percent moisture for harvest decisions. In future competitions, we anticipate expanding the in-season data we provide to correspond with other menu options. For example, insect and/or pathogen scouting information could be provided to determine whether an insecticide or fungicide application should be made. In the fall prior to harvest, we will host a field day so that participants (and in the future others) can tour the “farms” and discuss the different options that were selected. This can be an educational opportunity too, including presentations on agronomic or economic topics for which participants can receive continuing education credits. This could be an opportunity for farmer participants in future years to learn about Maryland Soybean Board activities. In 2024, we will host the participating county-based faculty at the WyeREC.

After all the “farms” have been harvested we will calculate yield, efficiency (measured compared to unfertilized, untreated controls), and profitability (costs of inputs versus insurance payouts and the price per bushel they would have received), which will be used to determine the winners for each prize category (most profitable farm, most efficient input use, and highest yield) and to develop a competition report that compares all the different choices that each participant made and the end result. A key component of the success of the TAPS program are the prizes that are awarded, which will include an oversized check, a cash prize, and a plaque for each category. Therefore, we request funds to provide these prizes to the participating faculty in 2024 to reward their participation. In addition, we anticipate requesting nutrient management and pesticide recertification credits for participants, further encouraging engagement with the program.

The long-term goal is to secure federal funding to support additional years of the project. We feel the success of this program will depend on dedicated staff to ensure adequate marketing and enrollment of participants, website management, timely communication and management of the competition, planning of events, development of annual competition report, and assist with collecting program impact data. To execute these tasks, we plan to hire a Program Coordinator who will be employed within University of Maryland Extension. A crucial role for the Program Coordinator will be to gauge the impact of the competition as it relates to management changes on Maryland farms. The Coordinator will aid in development of survey instruments to determine if short-, medium-, and long-term management changes result from farmer participation in the competition. We are not requesting funds to support this new position in 2024, but plan to seek funding support for the position in future years once the program is functional. Project PIs will manage the competition in 2024.

Updated August 19, 2024:
The pilot year of the UMD-TAPS project is off to a great start. The project team recruited five UM Extension faculty to participate in 2024. We created a Google Form to collect their decisions on a variety of pre-season and in-season options, including soybean variety, irrigation or dryland, crop insurance coverage, seeding rate, slug bait application, grain contracting, and optional early harvest. Plots were established at Wye Research and Education Center according to the pre-season decisions of the participants, but all plots were 20’ x 30’, and regardless of the selection of irrigation by participants, the entire study was duplicated in the field, with one half receiving irrigation and the other half being managed as dryland. The project team also included three “checks”, which are plots that are managed according to project team. No participants chose to apply slug bait based on scouting reports from co-PI Kelly Hamby. Participants are currently making grain contracting decisions based on daily grain pricing.