Silo construction

The value of the silo as a means of utilizing almost the entire corn plant and producing valuable feed has been thoroly demonstrated. Silage is an economical and desirable feed and it is highly desirable that the use of the silo be more generally adopted. The construction of silos has been for many years one of the principal lines of investigation followed by the Agricultural Engineering Section of the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station. Results have been published in the following bulletins: No. 100, July, 1908, revised and republished July, 1909; No. 117, June, 1910, by J. B. Davidson and M. L. King, and No. 141, June, 1913, by J. B. Davidson. This new bulletin No. 189 is a revision of Bulletin No. 141. The Agricultural Engineering Section does not recommend any one type of silo above all others. It has been demonstrated by experience that a number of different types of silos will each give satisfactory service if properly constructed. It is well worth while for the silo builder to study the types and details of construction which will insure a reasonably permanent structure

Curing Hay in the Barn

Making hay in the barn isn’t exactly new. But only a few farmers have equipment for doing it. This method of making hay—curing it in the mow—was tried more than 10 years ago by the Tennessee Valley Authority

Dryer Corn Means Safer Storage

Today\u27s farmer has dozens of corn varieties to choose from. Unfortunately, most of the highest-yielding varieties need a long growing season. That means you may be taking some risk in choosing a high-yielding variety. If your planting is delayed by wet weather, if the summer is cool or if there\u27s not good drying weather in the fall, you may have the problem of storing corn that\u27s not dry enough for ordinary crib storage

Farm to Migrant and Seasonal Head Start In Action

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) is a division of Head Start that serves the needs of migrant and seasonal farmworkers' children and their families and operates seasonally based on the needs of agricultural labor.1 Qualifying families earn at least 50% of their income from employment in fishing, agriculture, or agriculturalrelated work. MSHS operates in 40 states and provides services to more than 37,000 children annually, including early education services; medical, dental, and mental health screenings and referrals; nutritional services; parental involvement activities; and referrals to social service providers.2 Programs are run by a regional grantee organization that oversees multiple sites, coordinates services, and often addresses food procurement. With a built-in connection to agriculture and seasonal operation, integrating farm to early childhood education (ECE) food purchasing and education practices is a natural fit to enhance quality programming

We Have Some Soft Corn

Many Iowa farms have a lot of soft corn, and most farms have corn with high moisture content to be taken care of this fall. The wet spring and the necessity of replanting many fields made this unavoidable. The problem now is how best to handle it

2021 National Farm to Early Care and Education Survey: Farm to Early Care and Education Continues to Foster Bright Futures for Children and Communities - Brief Compilation

The resource documents collection highlights key findings from a national survey of ECE providers regarding the implementation of farm-to-ECE programs. Findings also include the challenges identified by ECE providers that are informative for the field in dissemination and advocacy. Providers can also use the information to support their efforts and seek funding

Farm to early care and education continues to foster bright futures for children and communities: 2021 National farm to early care and education factsheet

The resource documents highlight key findings from a national survey of ECE providers regarding the implementation of farm-to-ECE programs. Findings also include the challenges identified by ECE providers that are informative for the field in dissemination and advocacy. Providers can also use the information to support their efforts and seek funding

Adaptive smartphone-based sensor fusion for estimating competitive rowing kinematic metrics.

Competitive rowing highly values boat position and velocity data for real-time feedback during training, racing and post-training analysis. The ubiquity of smartphones with embedded position (GPS) and motion (accelerometer) sensors motivates their possible use in these tasks. In this paper, we investigate the use of two real-time digital filters to achieve highly accurate yet reasonably priced measurements of boat speed and distance traveled. Both filters combine acceleration and location data to estimate boat distance and speed; the first using a complementary frequency response-based filter technique, the second with a Kalman filter formalism that includes adaptive, real-time estimates of effective accelerometer bias. The estimates of distance and speed from both filters were validated and compared with accurate reference data from a differential GPS system with better than 1 cm precision and a 5 Hz update rate, in experiments using two subjects (an experienced club-level rower and an elite rower) in two different boats on a 300 m course. Compared with single channel (smartphone GPS only) measures of distance and speed, the complementary filter improved the accuracy and precision of boat speed, boat distance traveled, and distance per stroke by 44%, 42%, and 73%, respectively, while the Kalman filter improved the accuracy and precision of boat speed, boat distance traveled, and distance per stroke by 48%, 22%, and 82%, respectively. Both filters demonstrate promise as general purpose methods to substantially improve estimates of important rowing performance metrics

Labor, power and machinery in corn production

Commercial corn production cannot be carried on by hand methods; it can be done only with machinery. Operating costs in corn production greatly depend upon the efficiency of labor, power and machinery management. Results obtained in a study of the use of labor, power and machinery at Ames are as follows: Raking and burning cornstalks before plowing in preparing a seedbed for corn required .47 man-hour of labor and .38 tractor-hour of power per acre and appeared to be largely a waste of labor and power. Cutting stalks with a stalk cutter before plowing required .23 hour per acre for man and tractor with no apparent benefit. Disking before plowing took .25 hour per acre for man and tractor and seemed to be of doubtful value

Weed control in growing corn

A study of machinery for growing and harvesting corn has been carried on at Ames, Iowa, since 1931 by the Agricultural Engineering Section, Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station, cooperating with the Bureau of Agricultural Chemistry and Engineering, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Experiments were conducted on the Agricultural Engineering Research Farm at Ames. This farm comprises soils in the Webster and Clarion Series, and the topography is comparatively level. Maximum slopes are about 5 percent. The purpose of this bulletin is to report the results of these experiments insofar as they relate to the methods and machinery best adapted for controlling weeds in surface-planted corn. Recent improvements in machinery enable the corn grower to produce his crop with less labor than was formerly required and to improve the control of weeds in cornfields. Machinery, labor and power for producing corn have been discussed in a previous publication. Improving weed control is the principal objective under consideration in the present bulletin