HOT DR. PEPPER
By Justin Petrosino
Sales, sales, sales! You want to try a new product but have some concerns about putting a whole field in a new hybrid or chemical. I came in the other night from a cold evening in the field. I could have used a nice cup of coffee, but alas there wasn’t any to be found in my apartment. Not a tea bag in sight or even chocolate to make hot chocolate with. All I could find was Dr. Pepper, and I had often heard of hot Dr. Pepper. A small amount went in my cup, into the microwave for 20 seconds, not hot enough, another 30, and it was about right. Was it good? It was alright, not the best I’ve had but it did the job. What does this have to do with agriculture? More than you’d think.
Often on the farm we get a new idea, hear of a new product, or learn about something new from a great Ohio State University Extension event. So how do we try out this new practice or product? If you are like me you start small. I wasn’t about to go for a whole glass of Dr. Pepper, let alone a whole bottle. This is what we call minimizing risk. If I had a small amount of Dr. Pepper go bad, I could easily cut my losses and put the mostly full bottle back in the fridge. Need an agricultural example?
I’ve been traveling all the way down to Brown County for a grazing school put on by OSU Extension. One of the speakers has been Bob Hendershot, NRCS Grasslands Management Systems Specialist. Anyone who has met or "herd" (pun intended) Bob speak knows that he is one of our greatest resources when it comes to grazing. He spoke, at this particular event, about trying new forages in your pasture. His advice, which I took when it came to making my hot Dr. Pepper, was to start small. Producers who utilize intensive grazing management often have small paddocks sectioned off within their pastures. In one of these paddocks they can seed new species and evaluate how well they do. Here we have an acre of new seed costing $30-$50 established to try out. Compare this to seeding a 40 acre pasture at the same price per acre without knowing the results. Which one would you rather start out with?
Now you could seed two or three acres and try to work out grazing methods on those or even seed different forage mixtures in one acre blocks. This is what we call on-farm research and when done right it will provide you with valuable production information while minimizing your risk. This obviously doesn’t just apply to grazing. Ever wanted to evaluate a few different corn hybrids? Applying manure and want to try out cover crops (a very good and timely project!), or do you have another idea? With corn and soybean prices going up, the push for sales of fungicides and insecticides is going to increase too, but do you want to know if you will actually come out ahead with the extra cost? On-farm research is a great way to evaluate these practices.
Here in the Extension Office I have three bookshelves of resources to start gathering background information. I also have access through The Ohio State University to scholarly journals like Crop Science, Weed Science, and many others. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for you, I sat through three statistics courses in college. If you want to try a new product or practice on the farm call and make an appointment, I can help you research your topic, design a research project, and even evaluate the results to show what kind of gains you can expect. I can even find grant opportunities that could pay for some of this on farm research. Call the Extension Office at 548-5215 and ask for Justin Petrosino. I’ll help you get started, and I can even give you the recipe for hot Dr. Pepper.
Often on the farm we get a new idea, hear of a new product, or learn about something new from a great Ohio State University Extension event. So how do we try out this new practice or product? If you are like me you start small. I wasn’t about to go for a whole glass of Dr. Pepper, let alone a whole bottle. This is what we call minimizing risk. If I had a small amount of Dr. Pepper go bad, I could easily cut my losses and put the mostly full bottle back in the fridge. Need an agricultural example?
I’ve been traveling all the way down to Brown County for a grazing school put on by OSU Extension. One of the speakers has been Bob Hendershot, NRCS Grasslands Management Systems Specialist. Anyone who has met or "herd" (pun intended) Bob speak knows that he is one of our greatest resources when it comes to grazing. He spoke, at this particular event, about trying new forages in your pasture. His advice, which I took when it came to making my hot Dr. Pepper, was to start small. Producers who utilize intensive grazing management often have small paddocks sectioned off within their pastures. In one of these paddocks they can seed new species and evaluate how well they do. Here we have an acre of new seed costing $30-$50 established to try out. Compare this to seeding a 40 acre pasture at the same price per acre without knowing the results. Which one would you rather start out with?
Now you could seed two or three acres and try to work out grazing methods on those or even seed different forage mixtures in one acre blocks. This is what we call on-farm research and when done right it will provide you with valuable production information while minimizing your risk. This obviously doesn’t just apply to grazing. Ever wanted to evaluate a few different corn hybrids? Applying manure and want to try out cover crops (a very good and timely project!), or do you have another idea? With corn and soybean prices going up, the push for sales of fungicides and insecticides is going to increase too, but do you want to know if you will actually come out ahead with the extra cost? On-farm research is a great way to evaluate these practices.
Here in the Extension Office I have three bookshelves of resources to start gathering background information. I also have access through The Ohio State University to scholarly journals like Crop Science, Weed Science, and many others. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for you, I sat through three statistics courses in college. If you want to try a new product or practice on the farm call and make an appointment, I can help you research your topic, design a research project, and even evaluate the results to show what kind of gains you can expect. I can even find grant opportunities that could pay for some of this on farm research. Call the Extension Office at 548-5215 and ask for Justin Petrosino. I’ll help you get started, and I can even give you the recipe for hot Dr. Pepper.
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