Shannon Dill, Principal Agriculture Agent | sdill@umd.edu
Nicole Fiorellino, Assistant Professor & Extension Agronomist
and Kelly Hamby, Associate Professor and Extension Entomologist
University of Maryland
What is TAPS?
The Testing Ag Performance Solutions (TAPS) program was developed by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (https://taps.unl.edu/) as a zero-risk opportunity for farmers to gain experience with novel agronomic practices that are executed at a University research center, structured similarly to a yield competition. Over the last 8 years, the program has expanded across multiple states and cropping systems. Teams of farmers compete to see who can manage their “farm” to achieve the best overall profitability, input use efficiency, and yield for a given crop. Options include agronomic (variety selection, fertility, irrigation), pest management, and economic (crop insurance, forward contracting) decisions.
Why develop a UMD-TAPS program?
On-farm trials provide valuable opportunities for farmers and Extension personnel to work together to try alternatives and determine whether they work for an operation. However, the practices that can be examined may be limited by the available land and equipment. If practices do not work as expected there may also be lost yield or other financial costs to the operation. TAPS enables participants to try practices that they might not otherwise have access to, for example irrigation, or to try practices that might otherwise be too risky. In-season management decisions kept confidential, with all choices and awards presented at an end-of-season banquet to facilitate peer learning. The program is flexible from year to year, and in Maryland, we want participants to steer the management practices that are included in the competition.
2024 UMD-TAPS pilot
In 2024, we piloted this program with Extension faculty serving as participants and began with irrigated soybeans. The trial was executed at the Wye Research and Education Center, and each participant selected management options that were executed on replicated, randomized small plots. Participants receive a “menu” of both pre-plant and in-season management options to select. For the first year, we provided seven soybean varieties with maturity groups ranging from 3.2 to 4.8. Participants selected seeding rates of 80,000, 100,000, or 120,000 seeds per acre and chose irrigated or dryland. We also monitored slugs and provided slug bait options. A variety of crop insurance plans were offered and participants could forward contract at any point in the season by listing the CBOT closing price for the date. Unsold bushels received market price on the day of harvest at Mountaire and participants could determine the day that they wanted to harvest. We are currently in the process of calculating overall profitability, input use efficiency, and yield to determine winners.
2025 UMD-TAPS and beyond
In 2025, we hope to run the competition with farmer participants and will be advertising over the winter. We have built a strong partnership with the National TAPS collaborators and will use their portal in 2025 to facilitate easier communication with participants. Moving forward, we also hope to expand to additional research and education centers and possibly include a separate corn competition. We look forward to hosting field days where participants and others can come visit their replicated plots. We look forward to incorporating other ideas from our participants. If you are interested in participating in TAPS in 2025 or learning more about it, please add your contact information to this form.
TAPS Presentation at Mid-Atlantic Crop School
We are excited to have the creators of the TAPS program from UNL presenting about the TAPS program at Mid-Atlantic Crop Management School in Ocean City next week. If you are already registered for the event, we hope you will consider attending this talk.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank John Draper, Tom Eason, and Reagan Milby at the Wye Research and Education Center for their assistance managing the plots and irrigation, Arthur Young, Shea Ill, Maria Cramer, and Em Kohanski from the Hamby lab for monitoring slugs, and Gene Hahn, Louis Thorne, and Audrey Sultenfuss from the Fiorellino lab for assistance managing and harvesting plots. We appreciate the funding provided by the Maryland Soybean Board.
