The University of Wyoming Powell Research and Extension Center (PREC) treated the community to its annual Field Day on Thursday. The event offers the public the opportunity to learn about the center’s research and those working in agriculture to swap stories and share knowledge. 

Among the displays at this year’s event was Wyoming Heritage Grains. Owner Sara Wood grows a wide variety of ancient grains on her Heart Mountain farm. Some people find these grains easier to digest than modern varieties. Wood stone grinds them into flours, which she sells around the state and online. Unlike high-volume steel burr mills, which burn away some of the nutrition in the grains, the stone grinder operates at a lower temperature and preserves more of the grain’s nutrition.  

Wood had an assortment of cookies made from the grains grown on her farm – as well as buttermilk biscuits that burst with flavor – for people to sample. 

PREC research assistants Chloe Winkler and Cody Hurford gave away some of the produce from the novelty bean variety research being done at PREC. 

The varieties come from the United States, Japan, and Canada, and they include Yellowstone, tiger’s eye, southwest red, and great northern. The goal was to determine if the beans can be grown in the Basin’s climate and what their yields are. 

The center often works with a range of companies that help support the research projects. Briess Malt & Ingredients Company and Miller-Coors, who are among the center’s collaborators, provided samples of the beers that are brewed using barley grown right here in the Big Horn Basin. 

Pest control 

Scott Schell, extension entomology specialist, is a regular fixture at the Field Day event. This year he talked about his research into alfalfa weevil management. Alfalfa is a key crop, and the weevil is a rather insidious threat to it. 

“They’re probably the number one pest,” Schell said. 

One of the challenges to pest management, he explained, is that what works well today will lose effectiveness over time. A genetic mutation that produces insecticide resistance may be found in a small portion of an insect population, but when you’re dealing with populations in the tens of millions, a small portion is still a lot of insects. So ongoing research is required to keep them at bay. 

“Nothing’s static in the world of insects,” Schell said. 

Schell has also been looking into the elm leaf beetle, which attacks the Siberian elm. The tree was imported to the Basin because of its hardy wood. Now, it’s being infested with the beetle, which Schell said some call the “Wal-Mart beetle.” 

The theory is the beetle might have come over in the wood of pallets that were constructed with Siberian elms. 

A future threat is the emerald ash borer. So far, Powell has been lucky not to have a major infestation. Much of Powell’s urban forest is ash trees, and should the borer make a home here, it would devastate the city’s urban forest. 

Research tours 

The PREC heads led tours of the 175 acres of testing fields the center operates. 

Farming is always trying to grow profit at very thin margins, which leaves farmers with little room for experimentation. 

PREC can conduct these projects without having to worry about producing a crop. They often donate the produce from those projects that do produce a crop. 

Samuel George, PREC research assistant, explained how the center is the primary irrigation research center of all the research centers the University of Wyoming operates throughout the state. 

“Mostly because nothing grows here without irrigation … and with so little moisture we get, it makes it very easy for us to implement drought conditions in our studies,” he said. 

Besides their novelty bean trials, PREC researchers have been doing trials on cover crops for weed management in dry bean production. Graduate students planted a wheat cover crop prior to the dry bean planting to see how well it managed weeds without impacting yield. This was compared to an area without the cover crop. 

Jim Heitholt, PREC director, discussed his research into the use of nitrogen fertilizer in dry bean production to determine how much the fertilizer is contributing to yield. The research has been ongoing for several years, and as fertilizer prices have doubled in the past year, it could help farmers determine the value of their inputs. 

The tour also went past the center’s research into drought tolerance and fertilizer rates on chickpea crops. The center has an overhead pivot system that allows it to control how much moisture the crops receive. With little rain coming from the sky, PREC researchers can simulate various drought conditions, from moderate to severe. Then, they can see how fertilizer rates on the chickpeas respond under different drought conditions. 

The PREC researchers are also doing long-term rotation studies on tillage barley, beets, and corn. They vary the tillage and irrigation and have found that minimum tillage increases soil health. 

Additionally, they’re doing deficit irrigation studies with barley varieties and evaluating experimental herbicides on sugar beets. Graduate students are running experiments on sugar beets to evaluate the impacts of Biochar and coal char, which are carbon materials. Incorporating the products, the researchers hypothesize, will increase plant productivity significantly. 

As they do every year, after the tours are done, PREC treated the community to a free meal.