CROP YIELD STUDIES
Monsanto Water Utilization Learning Center at Gothenburg, Nebraska
Helping farmers improve crop production with less water
Aerial view of the research farm By Cheryl Ann Martin, MS
The Monsanto Water Utilization Learning Center at Gothenburg, Nebraska, is helping to improve crop production in an era where water shortages often present the biggest challenge to farmers. Research at the Learning Center is primarily focused around cultural practices, new genetics and technologies to improve corn, soybean and wheat yields in dryland and limited water environments. Every year the Learning Center conducts over 90 research and demonstration trials evaluating crops’ responses to different planting populations and row spacing, irrigation regimes, tillage and residue management, weed management, and stress management including drought, insects and diseases common to the High Plains. Visitors are welcomed and encouraged to tour the facilities and research plots, take educational courses and interact with the Learning Center team and other farmers.
The facility
Located in west central Nebraska with an average annual rainfall of only 23 inches, the 324-acre research farm is ideal for studying drought stress in crops and strategies for improving water-use efficiency in agriculture. The Learning Center includes 159 acres under lateral move irrigation, with 86 of those acres equipped with variable rate technology
20 Irrigation TODAY | October 2017
and 22 acres with subsurface drip irrigation. The location also has a 1/3-acre rainout shelter. The rainout shelter is a movable building that can be moved over a crop during a rain event and then retracted again. This capability allows the Learning Center to design studies that limit rainfall at specific growth stages and/or to control the total amount of water the crop receives in a growing season in order to test how different levels of water stress and different timings of water stress affect yield in natural field conditions.
Research focus
Helping farmers achieve their yield and productivity goals — while improving water utilization — is fundamental to the Learning Center’s research program. As water allocations and limited well capacity become more and more commonplace in the Great Plains, farmers need more options to remain profitable. Many of the research trials focus on getting the most out of water in limited water situations. For example, by testing a crop’s response to water stress at different growth stages, researchers can determine when water stress has the greatest impact on yield. This allows them to determine when irrigation applications can be withheld without sacrificing yield and when water is critical for yield.
The use of drought-tolerant genetics is an integral part of all water management strategies. A large part of the research at the Learning Center is devoted to testing seed products to help better place them in farmers’ fields according to their irrigation capacity and management practices. Each season, numerous commercial and pre-commercial corn, soybean and wheat products with different conventional genetics and biotech traits are tested for their responses to water stress and other management practices. For example, annual trials evaluate the optimal plant
Rainout shelter
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