Posts Tagged: conservation tillage
KARE works with 300 Tulare County Fourth Graders at 2017 AgVentures Day!
KARE outreach and education leader, Laura Van Der Staay, along with UCD Cooperative Extension Cropping Systems Specialist, Jeff Mitchell, had their hands full with over 300 enthusiastic Tulare County 4th graders as part of the 2017 half-day AgVentures extravaganza that was held at the International Ag Center on May 12. This is the third time the two of them have taken part in this activity that is always a big hit with the kids, teachers and parents. Students learned about soil science and research that is underway at the KARE Center related to soil function and management and also had a chance to see up close and personal how soils can change if they are managed using conservation agriculture practices. While the day is always grueling, both Van Der Staay and Mitchell departed after a hearty hamburger lunch that was provided by the event organizers with the satisfaction of having hopefully expanded horizons and inspired a new generation of science-loving students.
UC ANR will participate in the 2017 World Ag Expo in Tulare, CA.
UC ANR is participating in the World Ag Expo, held February 14, 15, and 16, 2017. Statewide programs, UC Cooperative Extension, and the Research and Extension Center System will have booths and personnel available for the entire show. We have booths 1411, 1412, 1512 and 1513. Wilcox Agri Products donated some space for an UC ANR conservation tillage tent in the M48-53 area. UC ANR will also have people participating in the newsmakers conference as well as providing seminars.
Sano Farms will host a California farm demonstration network visit on June 24, 2016.
This Friday starting at 10:00 AM and going till about 11:45 AM, Alan Sano and Jesse Sanchez of Sano Farms will host visitors at 44935-B W. Shields Avenue. They will discuss and show what they've done to achieve their soil management goals in their processing tomato fields using reduced disturbance tillage, precision drip irrigation and cover crops. Visitors will also have an opportunity to learn more about the growing farm demonstration network and its work. The visit will start at 10 o'clock and wrap up at about 11:45 AM. Further information can be acquired by calling Jeff Mitchell, ANR Cooperative Extension Cropping Systems Specialist at Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, by calling his cell (559) 303-9689 or emailing him at jpmitchell@ucdavis.edu
From Fresno:
Take Hwy 180 west out of Fresno through Kerman, CA and to Mendota. In Mendota, take Belmont Avenue west out of town. At Fairfax Avenue, go north (right) about a mile. Turn left (west) onto Shields Avenue and continue about two miles to the farm on the left side of the road.
From I-5 north or south:
Take Shields Avenue exit. Go east on Shields. Continue about 5 miles to Sano Farms on right side of road. Follow signs to meeting place.
Jesse Sanchez, the farm manager at Sano Farms out west of the small town of Firebaugh, was honored as a White House Champion of Change.
This past Monday, October 26th, Jesse Sanchez, the farm manager at Sano Farms out west of the small town of Firebaugh, was honored in Washington, D.C. as a White House Champion of Change. Working closely with Alan Sano, the farm's owner, over the past ten years, Jesse has developed highly efficient production practices for the roughly 1500 acres of processing and fresh market tomatoes that employ the use of off-season cover crops to add carbon to the soil to improve tilth as well as water storage and movement in the soil, and also, the use of a form of reduced tillage that is called strip-tillage. Read more on the Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (CASI) website.
Jesse Sanchez.
2014 Conservation Tillage Farmer Innovator Award goes to Darrell and Trevor Cordova
Jeff Mitchell, UC Cooperative Extension specialist and CASI chair, presented the award to the father-son team at a field day on their Denair farm Nov. 24.
“Darrell and his son Trevor are tenacious, committed and skilled farmers,” Mitchell said. “They have demonstrated innovation and leadership in development, refinement and use of conservation tillage systems that more than meet the criteria for this award.”
In July 2003, the Cordovas summoned a group of UC Cooperative Extension researchers to their farm, including Ron Vargas, emeritus agronomy and weed advisor in Madera and Merced counties; Anil Shrestha, then UC Integrated Pest Management weed ecologist; and Mitchell. They were farming an usual mixture of crops – including corn, wheat, triticale and other winter forage species, along with almonds – on a farm with rolling hills on the eastern edge of the San Joaquin Valley floor.
“They wanted to begin a dialogue about their interest in trying conservation tillage in an edible dry bean-wheat rotation,” Mitchell said. “Darrell and Trevor were inquisitive and eager to make reduced tillage work at their farm. They jumped into these early investigations with both feet.”
Darrell Cordova also consulted with Ralph Sesena, Sr., president of Cesena Distributing of Stockton, Calif., and recipient of CASI's 2013 Privater Sector Innovator Award. Sesena suggested the Cordovas try no-till bean seeding using a Buffalo slot seeder. He worked with them as they successfully planted no-till winter small grains following their summer beans.
During the early years, weed management was a serious challenge. Because of weed pressure in their beans and wheat, they developed a minimum-tillage approach that involved a shallow disking operation before crop changes.
Things changed again in 2007. The Cordovas invested in a 165-acre corner arm center pivot irrigation system and a dairy farm was established adjacent to their property, prompting them to grow dairy silage.
“With this new rotation scheme, Darrell and Trevor once again became interested in no-till production,” Mitchell said. “They developed no-till capabilities for both their summer silage corn and their winter forage mixes.”
When they saw their corn grow taller and greener under the new no-till management, the duo purchased a new eight-row planter and a 20-food no-till drill in 2014.
“Darrell and Trevor have made major strides in their ability to use conservation tillage practices at their farm and are now truly two of CASI's most outspoken champions for these innovative conservation agriculture systems,” Mitchell said. “They continue to serve as important advisors to our ongoing conservation agriculture and center pivot irrigation work.”
Following the award ceremony for the Cordovas, Dennis Chessman, state agronomist with the USDA NRCS; Margaret Smither-Kopperl, director of the NRCS Plant Materials Center; and Mitchell led a discussion and demonstration of some of the improvements in soil health that have been seen in fields where reduced disturbance techniques are used and where residues are maintained.
Mitchell noted the importance of these conservation agriculture practices that the Cordovas are using for increasing the water use efficiency of cropping systems by reducing soil evaporation and cooling surface soil temperatures. He told the gathered field day participants that longterm work in Five Points, Calif., has demonstrated that soil water evaporation losses can be reduced by as much as five inches during a routine summer crop season using these practices.
At the field day honoring the Cordovas for their progress with conservation agriculture practices coupled with precision overhead pivot irrigation, Mitchell said the team has implemented “quite significant strategies for producing more with less.”
“Not only have Darrell and Trevor Cordova been successful at significantly cutting their overall production costs, but they've also increased the water use efficiency of their production systems," Mitchell said.