How ISA’s new On-Farm Trial Network will redefine the future of soybean production

After graduating college, Abigail Peterson didn’t return home to the farm. Her father and uncle didn’t have room in the operation for another team member.

So Peterson, now the Director of Agronomy at Illinois Soybean Association (ISA), spent time serving other farmers as an agronomist. Along the way, she learned from their conservation wins and mistakes. And she picked up lessons about cover crops and other stewardship practices she could take back to her family’s farm.

“I always looked at systems out in the fields [and asked], ‘Would this be something I would want to talk to my dad and uncle about’?” Peterson shared during a presentation at the 2024 Better Bean Summit. “Because if I came to them to the table and said, ‘Hey, you should try cover crops,’ I’d better have a good first season.”

That same determination to speed up the rate of success with conservation practices across Illinois soybean farms informs the new On-Farm Trial Network. Organized by ISA, the effort will span three types of on-farm research studies designed to minimize risk, maximize resilience and optimize profit with conservation and other agronomic practices.

“We are the number one soybean-producing state in the U.S., so shouldn’t we be a leader in the research that we’re doing in the Midwest and even in the world?” noted Stacy Zuber, ISA Research Data Scientist, during the Better Bean Summit presentation. “That’s our goal.”

Accelerating The Adoption Curve

Research is nothing new to Illinois farmers and ISA, which has 16 research studies underway as of this writing. What’s novel about the On-Farm Trial Network launching this fall is the opportunity to address a series of unprecedented marketplace demands while making conservation more accessible faster.

For example, the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy calls for farmers to reduce total nitrogen and phosphorus loss by 45 percent of the total nitrogen and phosphorus leaving the state and entering waterways. What’s more, in 2017 alone, 101.5 million tons of soil left Illinois fields, meaning there’s plenty of room for improved soil retention and water-holding capacity, among other conservation benefits.

“There’s a pressure for you to adopt practices that reduce losses using no-till, using reduced tillage, using cover crops. As a soil health person, I would love to say every single one of you should put that in your fields right now,” Zuber says. “But realistically, that’s not going to happen. If we can find the answers to the questions of, ‘How can we make this work better for you? How can we minimize those risks? How can we make sure that this works? How can we speed up? How quickly does it work?’ Those are some of the things we want to address.”

Through collaboration between university researchers and ISA agronomists, the On-Farm Trail Network will ensure farmers have the information they need to implement the conservation practices that work best for their operation.

Three types of on-farm trials – Demonstration, Action, and Legacy – will provide Illinois soybean farmers with more learning opportunities focused on conservation and other agronomic practices.

Three Research Angles

You can think of the On-Farm Trial Network like a bridge that fills the gap between traditional university-based research and industry research.

University research remains essential for farmers, yet it often takes substantial time and requires significant statistical analysis, Zuber says. ISA’s network of agronomists can help farmers more quickly access quality, scientifically valid insights.

Additionally, ISA will provide an important layer of practical, realistic and independently verified information compared to industry research, which Zuber says remains vital yet can suffer from bias.

Three types of on-farm trials will provide the state’s soybean producers with more learning opportunities focused on conservation and other agronomic practices.

• Demonstration Trials: These low-intensity trials will focus on gleaning observational details about how a conservation practice is working. Agronomists might take tissue tests and soil samples to collect limited data points. But there will not be statistical analysis. “The goal of this is to be able to test things out and see if it’s worth doing more work into. Or maybe it’s just to show farmers at field days, ‘This is how it worked for me, this is how it worked on these soils,’” Zuber explains. A combination of split fields or even check strips are anticipated. These trials can be conducted on small acreage or an entire field, depending on farmer interest and research questions under investigation.
• Action Trials: These short-term trials will likely run just a few years and can be used to respond to emerging Illinois farmer needs. For example, controls and treatments could be run to understand key challenges or opportunities facing farmers in southern Illinois, northwest Illinois or beyond. “The goal with these is to be able to get actionable guidance and recommendations to you to fit your operational needs,” she says.
• Legacy Trials: Several farms already have trials underway, and these will be included in the network. These long-term replicated strip trials will examine the effect of conservation practices such as cover crops, no-till and strip till on soil health, among other issues. “It takes a long time to see those changes in the soil, so we need to make sure that we are having trials that are set up and in place long enough to see those differences,” Zuber says.

Conservation practices studied in both Action Trials and Legacy Trials will be subjected to statistical analysis to examine variation among fields and other factors. This will help researchers determine whether the practice itself is contributing to a beneficial outcome—or if the outcome is likely a product of differences in fields and soil types.

Learnings from the On-Farm Trial Network won’t just benefit farmers. They can also strengthen ties between ISA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Statistical analyses and other data could help NRCS adjust conservation practice standards in a way that’s a better fit for Illinois farmers, Zuber says.

How To Participate

If you are interested in participating in the On-Farm Trial Network, you can contact ISA to learn more. ISA seeks to enroll farmers from across the state.

Over summer 2024, ISA will compile this information and organize the network.

“We are planning to ramp this up throughout this year, hopefully to start putting more of these in place this fall,” Zuber says.

For the latest Illinois conservation agriculture blog posts and more information about the On-Farm Trial Network, visit FieldAdvisor.com.