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Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board


Soybeans Today January 1999

Million Dollar Program Reaps Big Benefits For Farmers

By Rich Maples

Early Morning Soybean Harvest

If research is the engine behind advances in soybean production, then the Soybean Research Verification Program (SRVP) is where the rubber hits the road.

Since 1983, the Soybean Promotion Board has invested more than a million dollars in the verification program to put the findings of University of Arkansas researchers to work in farmers' fields, says Lanny Ashlock, U of A Cooperative Extension Service agronomist and SRVP coordinator.

Ashlock, who's been involved in the program since the first year, says, "The Soybean Research Verification Program was an offshoot of the Cotton Research Verification Trials begun in 1980. The two programs began for the same reason.

"Yields weren't increasing, even though there was research going on in areas like fertility and varieties. The research just wasn't coming together. We didn't have a holistic approach, where the parts function together as a whole.

"We wanted to know if our recommendations were practical and cost effective for the farmer. Could we really help the farmer?"

The idea was to have an extension specialist work with a county agent and the farmer on every phase of production for a selected field, using the farmer's equipment and labor. If a problem arose, the SRVP team could confer with researchers and extension specialists to find a solution.

"We started with four trial fields in southeast Arkansas in 1983," notes Ashlock. "In '84, we went statewide with 10 fields, including some doublecropped soybeans behind wheat.

"Until 1988, all of the fields in the verification program could be irrigated. That year we added dryland fields."

He says that although irrigated soybean acreage in the state has increased almost 10 percent since 1983, 60 percent remains dryland. "We still need to do more work with non-irrigated beans."

Ashlock says the Soybean Research Verification Program has proven to farmers and the U of A scientists who serve them that yields can be improved regardless of the production system, be it irrigated or non-irrigated, conventional tillage or no-till, full season or doublecropped behind wheat.

"When we first started the program, we felt like if we produced more than 40 bushels per acre with full-season, irrigated soybeans, we had done well. Now, we're disappointed if we produce less than 50 bushels, full season or doublecropped.

"We want to know what went wrong. Was it the variety? Did we miss an irrigation?"

Ashlock says dryland production has been more challenging, but yields in the non-irrigated SRVP fields have been a few bushels higher than the state average. "We need to do more work to increase yields and the profitability of dryland production."

He says the verification program has given farmers, researchers, extension specialists and county agents and others in the agriculture business a chance to see first-hand how U of A recommendations work in the field.

Soybeans Today January 1999
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ATTN: Warren Carter
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Phone: 501-228-1265

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