Researchers at the University of Maryland are inviting growers across the state to participate in their University of Maryland – Testing Ag Performance Solutions (UMD-TAPS) program this year. The program is supported by the Maryland Soybean Board and will run throughout the summer.
Piloted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the TAPS program provides farmers with a zero-risk opportunity to advance their agricultural management skills and knowledge. It serves as a growing season contest and research framework, designed to uncover how producers’ management decisions drive crop yields, farm profitability, and input-use efficiency.
Growers must make decisions about variety selection, fertility, pest management, and irrigation and their management decisions will be executed in small plots at the Wye Research and Education Center. Decisions made by all participants will be executed in one field, in a true head-to-head competition. The goal is to identify which suite of management decisions will become the most profitable, efficient, and highest yielding.
Researchers at the Maryland Agricultural Experimentation Station (MAES) WYE Research and Education Center will lead the program and gather data on each plot to share with farmers.
When the season ends, growers will participate in an awards dinner where they will gain access to valuable data sets to help them enhance their agricultural operations.
The irrigated corn competition is limited to 20 teams and the irrigated soybean competition is limited to 15 teams. Due to limited availability, researchers urge teams to sign up as soon as possible.
Interested applicants can sign up by following this link: bit.ly/UMDTAPS25. For any questions, please reach out to Dr. Nicole Fiorellino at nfiorell@umd.edu.
