This past week I attended the National Association of County Agricultural Agents meeting in Dallas, TX. It’s a joy to see my ag educator/agent friends serving people through the U.S. and its territories, to talk through local issues, learn from and encourage each other. Extension is truly like a big family, both within Nebraska, and outside of it, and I’m grateful for that and for peer groups in my life over time. Even though I took care of clientele during my time away, it’s also nice to physically get away at times to reset.

A highlight of these meetings is a tour of local ag for that State. My tour was on cotton production including touring a cotton gin. Others of you probably know this, but I didn’t realize the cotton flowers were so beautiful! They begin white when they bloom. Once they pollinate, they turn pink, then turn into the boll which eventually form burs around it. Cotton is either stripped with a stripper header like some harvest wheat (which essentially leaves the stalk standing), or it is harvested by picking where only the bolls are removed. Most of the farmers in this area of Texas use stripper headers. Some fun facts: a cotton boll has 4 compartments, each with 7 seeds in it. Each bale of cotton removed from a field goes through the gin individually. It comes in at about 10-12% moisture and is dried to 6-7% to allow for easier cleaning. The cottonseed, burrs, sticks, etc. are removed from it and the cleaned cotton is baled and bagged with a sticker tracing that bale back to the original field. The grower is paid for the cleaned cotton and the cottonseed (and often more money is made from the cottonseed than the cotton). The rotation in the area I toured was corn/cotton.

(Captions for photos above: Cotton field (top left); Several flower and boll stages in this pic (top right); First flowers are this beautiful white color but don’t smell (bottom left); How cotton comes into the gin compared to cleaned cotton (bottom middle); cottonseed compared to the remaining material removed from the cleaned cotton (bottom right).)

I also presented on the importance of peer groups. Participating in peer groups with like-minded individuals (regardless of one’s career or the topic) is a rewarding way to learn, encourage, and be more innovative. In 2020, in the midst of covid while serving a large area, one grower encouraged me to connect him to the growers I was telling him about who were like-minded in their thinking regarding regenerative agriculture. So, we started a small soil health support group with growers from three counties and myself, met via zoom at first, then did a late summer driving tour of farms. I’ve watched deep friendships develop, sharing of equipment across county lines, and supporting each other’s businesses including cover crop seed sales, biological product sales, seed treatment, and seed cleaning. These specific peer groups have grown to around 30 farmers in a few groups from 6 counties. The goals were connection of like-minded farmers who were humble and vulnerable in sharing successes and failures, openminded in trying new things, and ultimately that collectively we could “fail forward faster” in finding meaningful solutions to reducing chemical and nutrient inputs.

Because the growers wanted to obtain data around some of their efforts, since 2020, they’ve completed 19 Nebraska On-Farm Research Studies in the regenerative ag space. And because farmers like to hear from other farmers, they have shared on these studies at 13 Ag Industry and Extension meetings thus far. In ag, it’s so easy to isolate and feel alone. Perhaps many careers are this way? Would encourage anyone to consider joining or creating a peer group with like-minded individuals if you’re not already in one.

On-Farm Research: I’m so grateful for all the farmers who have/continue to work with me/my peers via on-farm research to collect meaningful data that benefits all of us! The Nebraska Soybean Board followed a few of our farmers with on-farm research efforts last harvest season and had the following short video created that highlights the importance of on-farm research if you’d like to know more: https://youtu.be/XUyouEjYgIU?si=KIVfrXrDR9pSuN_D.