June 7, 2010

The UNL High Plains Ag Lab near Sidney will celebrate its 40th anniversary during the annual June field day, scheduled for the afternoon and evening of June 17.

The High Plains Ag Lab, more than 2,400 acres devoted to dryland crop and pasture research, allows critical plot and field size research in a region where the altitude is high, the climate semiarid, and the weather conditions frequently extreme.

The ag lab is situated on land northwest of Sidney formerly used by the U.S. Army for an ordnance depot, and obtained through the efforts of local leaders who still advise the university about research needs.

The June 17 open house begins at 2:30 p.m. with registration. Following remarks by Don Cruise, Chair of the High Plains Ag Lab Advisory Board, and Linda Boeckner, Director of the UNL Panhandle Research and Extension Center, a research plot tour will begin at 3 p.m.

Tour Stops

Afternoon speakers include include:

• 40 Years of Commitment and Progress in Wheat Varieties, P. Stephen Baenziger, UNL wheat breeding specialist
• Fenugreek & Camelina, Dipak Santra, UNL alternative crop breeding specialist
• Bugs With Altitude, Jeff Bradshaw, UNL entomologist
• No-Till Dryland Sugarbeets, John Smith, UNL machinery systems engineer
• Using Field Peas as a Complement to Dried Distillers Grains in Range Cubes, Karla Jenkins, UNL cow/calf and range specialist
• Flexible Summer Fallow, Drew Lyon, UNL dryland cropping systems specialist
• Proso Breeding, Dipak Santra
• Cover/Forage Crops for Summer Fallow Replacement, Drew Lyon and Karla Jenkins

The tour will conclude by 6 p.m. and return to the shop for a steer and pig roast sponsored by the Nebraska Wheat Board. The meal is free for plot tour participants and $3 per person for those not on the tour.

Evening Program

The evening program, beginning at 6:30 p.m., will include a talk by John Oades, vice president of U.S. Wheat Associates, about world wheat export standards. There will be equipment demonstrations of no-till drills, sprayers and more from 21st Century John Deere, Horizons West Case IH, and Sandberg Implement (Great Plains equipment). Kathy Buttle of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service will demonstrate her rainfall simulator and the Nebraska Wheat Growers Association will show its mobile baking lab. The program will conclude by 8:30 p.m.

Ag Lab History

The High Plains Ag Lab began in 1967, when the U.S. government made available to UNL 2,410 acres of land for agricultural research and education. It had been part of the Sioux Army Ordnance Depot.

The need for the field laboratory had been underscored in 1964, when there was a severe outbreak of black stem rust, wheat streak mosaic, and crown and root rot of wheat in the Panhandle.

The work of the Cheyenne County Rural Area Development (RAD) Committee, largely through its crops committee, was instrumental in getting the laboratory established. In August 1970, after extended negotiations, the government issued an interim use permit for UNL to initiate operations. When the RAD Committee was terminated in 1971, Director John L. Weihing of the Panhandle Station prevailed upon the members to become the advisory group for the HPAL. The advisory board continues to provide input and support.

Once the ag lab was operating, UNL initiated a research program under the guidance of Charles Fenster, emphasizing efficient use of soil and water and optimizing crop yields under the semiarid conditions of the High Plains. This has remained the focus of the dryland cropping systems effort. The research program has grown in extent and depth since its inception, and today is recognized internationally.

Fenster was known internationally for his work with stubble-mulch and no-till conservation tillage systems. He and Dr. Gary Peterson, soil scientist in Lincoln, established the Long-Term Tillage plots in 1969 at the HPAL.
These plots compare various tillage regimes (moldboard plow, stubble-mulch, and chemical) during the fallow portion of a winter wheat-fallow rotation on winter wheat production and soil quality.

These plots continue to result in new knowledge about the effects of fallow tillage on soil quality. Fenster also worked with colleagues in weed science on some of the first chemical fallow work. He retired in 1982.

In 1990, Dr. Drew Lyon was hired to lead the dryland cropping systems program. Lyon emphasized cropping system intensification and diversification to reduce the frequency of summer fallow, increase precipitation use efficiency, reduce the risk of soil erosion, and break weed, disease, and insect pest cycles of winter wheat.

Lyon worked closely with Dr. David Baltensperger (through 2006, when Baltensperger left for Texas A&M University), and subsequently Dr. Dipak Santra, both of whom served in the role of alternative crops breeding specialist, to identify promising crops that could be profitably incorporated into dryland crop rotations. Proso millet, sunflower, and corn are now grown as an integral part of the crop rotation on a significant number of dryland acres that previously produced only wheat in a winter wheat-fallow rotation.
 

David Ostdiek
Communications Specialist, Panhandle REC, Scottsbluff