Listen to today's industry research at a discount. These are the words of Emerson Nafziger, professor emeritus and extension expert at the University of Illinois.
When Nafziger's career began decades ago, most applied research was conducted at land-subsidized universities to inform farmers about how new practices affected profits and yields. Created by scientists.
Today's research environment is very different, and most scientists are employed by private companies. As a result, findings reported to potential customers often lack third-party testing to verify the claims.
“Product descriptions make a lot of claims about what the product does, with little implied support from company research,” Nafziger says. “Science is used to support marketing, but not in a way that allows the data to speak clearly.”
University scientists have been largely left out of the research process, creating a major problem for farmers (and their checkbooks) trying to separate marketing claims from third-party research.
“Today's data is created and selected by the companies marketing their products,” Nafziger says. “That means the data shows what we expect: This product works.”
Nafziger said the main culprits include biostimulants, biologicals, microorganisms and products that have a sustainable impact on soil health.
Ultimately, farmers want to know whether a product is effective or whether it will work even after years of tilling their fields. However, it is almost impossible to answer “it works”, especially since many products are marketed as addressing deficiencies that many fields and crops do not experience. Marketers also tend to focus on intensively managed farmers seeking high yields.
“Today we are witnessing perhaps the largest expansion of commercially available products ever, many of which are sold with little externally produced or publicly available data on their performance. '' Nafziger said.
Many products are sold to increase yields and profits in ways that are less visible and almost impossible to document. for example:
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Information about how the product helps is not clear.
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Effects on plants are usually invisible.
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The impact on yield is often minimal, if any.
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The impact on yield, which depends on whether there are defects to correct, is expected to be inconsistent across fields and years.
How to approach new products
One approach, Nafziger says, is to avoid using products that are sold solely on testimonials or that have several trials listed on their website. In recent years, many fields have produced very high yields, but most of them do not have new products.
Many farmers may want to conduct their own field trials, even if they cannot definitively answer the question “Does this work?” question. One good reason to do this is that maintaining curiosity and running trials is very satisfying for most people.
“Farmers are better equipped than ever to conduct field studies to compare produce, even if the data doesn't speak very clearly,” Nafziger says. “Currently, we benefit from the combination of the planter with as-applied maps, yield monitors, and the ease of extracting field data. We can split the two treatments across the field in the planter and compare yields. It is one of the easiest and best research activities available to most farmers today.”