Our cold and rainy fall

I’ve lived in Wisconsin long enough to have seen this kind of fall occur many times. Our corn and soybean crops were planted later than normal, but not too late.  However, out summer was cold and our fall has been cool and wet. Add to that a killing frost occurred on October 10th, effectively ending the growing season for corn and soybeans. Soybean and corn silage harvest is now under way, but has been hampered by the weather conditions. Grain corn will dry down very slowly because much of it was killed before physiological maturity. Both the early killing frost and the rain will delay grain corn harvest well into November. Some farmers may elect to wait until the soil freezes to harvest their crop.  Couple this with historically low milk prices and you can easily see why Wisconsin’s agricultural economy is under tremendous stress.

With this as a backdrop, now please consider the fact that corn and soybean seed is currently being sold for 2010 planting. As a seed specialist, it is very obvious that seed sellers are probably having trouble getting growers to commit to a seed order at this time. However, in my conversations with representatives of the major seed companies, they are reporting progress. It is my hope that the Wisconsin farmer will work through the cold and rainy fall and have a successful planting season again in the spring of 2010.

Searching, Waiting, Searching , Waiting

Right now, I’d like to be out harvesting a corn silage plot, but I’m not. I am searching for a new opportunity. My most recent position was eliminated as a result of economic hard times in the fertilizer industry. No hard feelings, of course, but it put me in the position of searching for a new employer. My search has taken me to Illinois twice and Minnesota once for second interviews, but none of them has evolved into a new job. That’s a bummer. The other thing that I have learned is that potential employers have no qualms about making you wait for any feedback whatsoever. One interview was on September 25th and I am still waiting for feedback from that one. I had one last week that I am waiting for a response.  That one would/could be a great position.  Searching, waiting, searching, waiting. It isn’t any fun and I am anxious to get back to work.

First Steps into the Field

My first venture into the field of agronomy took place at the University of Wisconsin. I accepted a split position with the UW Extension as Elwood Brickbauer’s technician for the Wisconsin Hybrid Corn Performance trials and as a seed corn field inspector and lab technician for the Wisconsin Crop Improvement Association. It was a great job. In the winter, Jim and I organized the trials and packeted the seed sent to us by the seed companies that wanted their hybrids tested in the UW program. I also worked in the WCIA seed lab running oat seed purities and germination tests. In the spring, we drove all over the state of Wisconsin planting replicated corn trials with a 2-row modified White air planter. Each entry was replicated 3 times. In the summer, I worked for the WCIA as a seed corn field inspector in southwestern Wisconsin at Pride Seed Company’s (part of Northrup King at the time) Glen Haven seed production area. My job was to inspect seed fields where the resulting seed corn was destined for export. I did it for 2 summers and it gave me a lot of time to myself to think about my life. It was during my 2nd summer doing that that I decided that it was time to ask my girlfriend to marry me.  She eventually said yes.

Graduate School in Agronomy

After my initial exposure to agronomy research, I wasn’t too excited about doing it for a living. Hand-planting 10 acres of sweet corn was not what I dreamed of as my life’s work. Thankfully, it wasn’t. I did discover that setting up my own research project to compare different methods of calculating growing degree days and correlating them to flowering dates of sweet corn was more fun than I could have imagined. I learned that the simplest methods were the best (most consistent), but more valuable than that was the camaraderie that developed among our crew of graduate students and Dr. Andrew’s technician. I’ve found that in my many jobs since then, it has always been the people that make the job enjoyable. When I graduated, I was fully committed to Agronomy. Looking back at it, maybe I should have been committed. It has not been the easiest career choice, but it does allow you to get a terrific tan!

It all started with sweet corn

I really enjoy working outside. My first experience in agronomy was working for Dr. Robert Andrew,  the sweet corn breeder at the University of Wisconsin. I worked on a crew of laborers that hand-planted his sweet corn nursery. It was tedious work. Drop a couple of seeds in what is called a jab planter, push it into the soil, step on it, move a few inches and repeat. We planted 10 acres of sweet corn that way. After planting his nursery for 2 days, Dr. Andrew offered me a graduate assistantship.  I refused him and gave up on agronomy for the time being. That summer I worked as a counselor at a scout camp and began a very short career as a district scout executive in northeastern Indiana. After a month or so in that job, I began exploring a new career. First I researched Wildlife Ecology again, but there were still no jobs (even with a Master’s degree).  Second, I called Dr. Andrew and asked if I could still work with him in Agronomy. He agreed and I began my career back in Madison as an Agronomy graduate student. I did enjoy the outdoor work and got a pretty nice tan in the process. Fighting the corn aphids and raccoons were another thing.  I’ll save that for my next post.

What’s an Agronomist, Anyway?

Technically speaking, an agronomist is a crop scientist. However, I did not become an agronomist in the usual way. Most agronomists, in fact most of the people involved in agriculture were raised and probably still live on farms. I was raised in small towns and small cities (suburbia). I graduated from high school in Peoria, Illinois and enrolled at the University of Illinois in the Pre-Veterinary curriculum. It was very hard, but I got an excellent background in the chemistry, physics and biology. During my sophomore year, my parents moved to DeForest Wisconsin (just north of Madison) and I applied to Veterinary School. I did not have the grades to get into vet school, so I transferred to the University of Wisconsin for my junior year. I changed my major to Wildlife Ecology and really enjoyed it. The trouble was that there were no jobs for a person with a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Ecology. So, my advisor suggested that I meet with an Agronomy professor who had a program in crop ecology. That’s how I got into agronomy.