Wes Robbins: High Plains Soil & Moisture Conservation Evangelist / By Don Lilleboe — “Wes Robbins holds up the dry, dark, L-shaped sunflower taproot to illustrate his point: Despite sunflower’s almost-legendary reputation for being able to break up soil hardpans, it is not ‘Superplant.’ Even the hardy sunflower cannot overcome excessively compacted soils. . . .
“In his inimitable down-home style, Robbins hammers his point regarding the sunflower root’s limitations:
“ ‘It doesn’t have a stainless steel tip, and it surely doesn’t have an auger on it.’
“The impact of field compaction is just one of many soil and moisture conservation message which Robbins preaches — and practices — on a daily basis throughout his corner of northeastern Colorado. Based in a small, nondescript office on the eastern edge of Burlington, the 30-year veteran of USDA’s Natural Resources and Conservation Service takes on the tone of an evangelist as he lopes through a broad gamut of topics: soil compaction, the use of Nobel blades (undercutters), gypsum blocks, no-till crop production, irrigation efficiency, wheat/fallow rotations and a host of other ingredients in the region’s ag recipe book.
“Informative? Indeed. Controversial? Sometimes, you bet. Dull? Never. Robbins doesn’t hold a divinity degree; he doesn’t pass the hat at meetings; and he doesn’t have his own television show (though he has been featured in National Geographic). But there’s no doubt this High Plains ‘evangelist’ firmly believes what he preaches — and numerous farmers in his part of the High Plains have joined Robbins’ congregation of conservationists during the 10-plus years he’s worked out of the Burlington office.”
Winter Waterland / By Don Lilleboe — “Steve Scott chuckles as he relates the story of how, on a bitterly cold winter morning, he walked into a local irrigation supply shop and heard another customer exclaim, ‘There’s some guy south of here who’s got his sprinkler running today! What the hell is he doing?’
“ ‘First of all, I thought, “Now what idiot would do that?” ’ Scott quips. ‘And then I realized I was thinking of myself!’
“The Burlington, Colo., sunflower, wheat, edible bean and corn producer concedes that more than one neighbor probably thought he’d been afflicted by dehydration of the brain when they saw water coming out of his LEPA drop-equipped center pivot in midwinter. But by applying water at that time of year, and coupling it with an extremely slow rate of application, Scott says he is maximizing not only the number of acres he can irrigate with his wells, but also the efficiency with which the water is applied.
“ ‘I don’t have what I’d call “irrigated” ground,’ relates the Kit Carson County producer. ‘Because all my wells are so small, I have “semi-irrigated” ground.’ By that, Scott means he utilizes towable sprinklers, each of which service a minimum of two center-pivot systems. ‘After I take off a crop, I’ll build up the moisture profile on that field,’ he explains. ‘Then I’ll tow it to another field and build up that profile.’
“The water-holding capacity of Scott’s silty clay loam soils is between 2.2 to 2.4 inches per foot. Gypsum blocks are installed in his fields to a four-foot depth as a moisture-measurement tool. ‘I’ll read my gyp blocks in the fall, compute how much water is there — which is generally is not very much — and then decide on my watering plan,’ he says.
“Scott hit upon the idea of winter watering in the fall of 1992. Because of the limited pumping capacity on his wells, he wanted to build up the moisture profile on a harvested 130-acre wheat field which would be planted to corn the following spring. How could he make the most timely use of that well — and simultaneously maximize the percentage of applied water actually moving into the soil profile?
“That’s when he hit upon the idea of turning on the sprinkler during winter — a time when evapotranspiration rates would be at their lowest level.”
Sidedressing ’Flowers Can Ease Time Pressures of a Busy Spring / By Don Lilleboe — “He’s a stickler for timeliness; but Lawrence Peterson wasn’t getting much cooperation on that regard during the spring of 1995. A cool, wet spring in his area for southeastern North Dakota, coupled with an unanticipated stay in the hospital, put added pressure on an already-hectic spring schedule. Peterson and his wife, Diane, who farm 2,000 acres for wheat, sunflower and soybeans with the help of one part-time employee, had not been able to apply fertilizer on their upcoming sunflower ground the previous fall; and now Mother Nature’s narrow North Dakota planting window was closing in.
“That’s precisely the type of situation where sidedressing nitrogen on the ’flower crop makes good management sense, according to the LaMoure County producer. Peterson, who has grown sunflower fore nearly 25 years, says his top priority is timely planting. He prefers to begin seeding his 700-800 acres of sunflower around May 23-24 and be done no later than June 1. In some years, like 1995, that means planting first and then satisfying the crop’s nitrogen needs afterward with a sidedness application. ‘I’d rather get my ’flowers in on time and put down anhydrous later if I have to,’ he states.
“Peterson’s standard sunflower yield goal is 2,000 pounds per acre. To achieve that, he wants to ensure a good 110-120 pounds of available N for the crop. Following wheat, it’s common for his springtime soil test to read 30 to 40 pounds of nitrogen in the top four feet; so that translates into his supplying 80 to 90 pounds of NH3 preplant or — as in 1995 — via a sidedress treatment.
“What’s the proper timing for that sidedressed N? To avoid root injury, it has to be before the sunflower roots have extended too far into row middles. But as Dave Franzen points out, sometimes there’s a tendency to wait a bit too long before sidedressing. . . . ‘If sunflower was the last crop being planted, a person could, if he wanted to, turn around, hook up the applicator and sidedress “blind,” ’ notes the North Dakota State University extension soils specialist. ‘From the minute the seed is put in the ground until the plants are too tall to get the applicator through . . . , that’s the sidedress window. It doesn’t start when the crop is six or eight inches tall.’ ”