Experimenting is risky business, so experimenting with crops is a gamble farmers don’t want to take.

This is where the University of Wyoming’s Powell Research and Extension Center comes into play.

“We are able to try things a producer is hesitant to try,” said Powell Research and Extension Center Farm Manager Camby Reynolds.

The center was popping with activity as farmers and researchers across the region checked out the research that’s underway just a mile outside of Powell during the annual Field Day July 16.

“These events aren’t just about the projects and plots; it is about people and relationships,” said Frank Galey, Dean of the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“This is fantastic; I see a lot of faces from here, and a lot of faces not necessarily from this valley,” added UW Agricultural Experiment Station Director Bret Hess. “This program is an attempt to show you that what we can do when we work together is much greater than if we are doing things individually.”

The center is part of the Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station housed within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming.

“The growers and farm managers are embarrassed to show the weeds, but the center is here so we can try things and determine if they will be useful before someone tries them on their farm, because if they try and it fails, they could be in a huge cut in profit,” Hess said. “It is better for us to make that determination.”

Research includes herbicide trials, pollinator food plots and insect pressures, cropping systems — cover and companion crops, Elite malt barley nursery, grape rootstock, and Simplot mapping/precision agriculture.

“It is a fabulous opportunity for the academic community to interface with the producers and share problems and solutions,” said Stacia Berry, deputy director for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture. “I was excited to see the large number of people who came and was interested in the information — and the large number of studies being done, because there is a great amount of information being provided to the producers today.”

In addition to having researchers from other states at the Field Day, some came from as far away as Kyrgyzstan, a central Asian country between China and Kazakhstan.

Fulbright scholar program grantee Baktybek Asanakunov checked out the research by University of Wyoming doctoral student Kristen Gunther on new approaches to presenting science to rangeland stakeholders.

“It is pretty interesting — it is like a social survey,” Asanakunov said.

Gunther’s research looked into how scientific information is communicated between producers and researchers, with the goal of figuring out more effective ways of sharing information across groups.

Just like with anything that is read, the reader brings a set of personal bias to the table — and this can impact how scientific agricultural findings are perceived.

Gunther presented some technical information on an ecosystem uncertainty, then varied the information with positive words such as “opportunity,” “openness” and “profit,” or negative words like “risks” and “threat.”

The audience’s experience and background also impacted the outcome of how the information was received.

She said she plans to expand her research on a national scale for a larger pool of data.

 “In the last few years, we have been more proactive in geting information,” John Tanaka said. Tanaka is the new associate director for the Wyoming Agriculture Experiment Station and director for the Powell station as well.

“It is fantastic to see every piece of the property has some type of project going,” Hess added. “We have a great team of researchers and excellent crew; the staff is wonderful and researchers from the campus are highly engaged as well.”

Anyone can contact the University of Wyoming or the Department of Agriculture to get the information presented during Field Day if they were unable to attend.

“We are always available to answer questions, and love to have the public come see what we do and to get involved in what they would like to see done as far as research on crops,” Reynolds said.

Some of the projects underway include the following:

Herbicide carryover

Researchers are looking at what is called herbicide carryover under limited irrigation, said Gustavo Sbatella, assistant professor of irrigated crop and weed management through the University of Wyoming.

Researchers are looking at possible future scenarios where less water is available for farming.

“Depending on who you ask, some say global warming,” Sbatella said. “For us, one scenario that is for sure is an increase in populations and demand for water, which means less water for farming.” 

This research is important, because if herbicides carryover into the next planting season, it could have an impact on the next harvest.

Herbicide labels say there is carryover, but it doesn’t say how much, depending on how much water is put on the field.

Researchers are applying 100, 80 and 75 percent of the water a crop would normally get to determine how herbicides breakdown over time, based on watering practices.

“If we have less water, those herbicides will stay in the soil longer than they are supposed to, and that might affect the crop you want to plant next year,” Sbatella said. “You might have crop injury or yield loss, and it all depends on how much is left in the ground.”

Evolution of herbicide resistance

Just as antibacterial soap is less effective now than it used to be, because bacteria is evolving to be resistant to it, the same is true for weeds and herbicides. If they are 99 percent effective, that surviving 1 percent remains and multiplies with offspring also resistant to treatment.

“So far, we know that you have a population of weeds you spray and have a good idea how long it takes for them to become resistant to a herbicide,” Sbatella said. “But, we don’t know what other management practices we do will affect the evolution.”

For instance, researchers are trying to find out if tilling the soil will speed up, slow down or have no impact on how quickly weeds become resistant to herbicides.

“Herbicide resistance is a problem in the long term, and we aren’t going to solve it,” Sbatella said. “Right now, we don’t have a precise idea of the impact of our management practices in the evolution of herbicide resistance.”

A new bean

The formation of the dry bean commission in Wyoming, and having the University of Wyoming team up with Idaho and Colorado to begin developing a type of dry bean for this region’s climate, is one of the biggest advancements in promoting local agriculture.

“It takes some of the risk out of it for the farmers if we develop a shorter growing-season crop to avoid freezing in the spring or fall,” Reynolds said.

If all goes well, researchers could develop a bean equivalent to the newly developed “cowboy wheat” that fits the region’s shorter growing season.

Beans that can grow during short growing seasons will “dramatically improve the industry,” Hess said.

“Any time we can find a way to make plants to optimally survive in a local environment and give producers an opportunity to grow them, we provide the state and nation and general populous a more efficient food supply,” Berry said.