USDA-Agriculture Research Service’s Field Day Held in July
South Dakota Specialty Production Association’s (SDSPA) Malisa Niles was recently invited to participate in the USDA-Agriculture Research Service’s (ARS) Field Day.
The event was held July 9th on their experiment station a couple miles north of Brookings, SD. The event featured presentations from the researchers performing various agricultural experiments on the farm. During the 2025 growing season, researchers investigated the use of cover crop and production crop spacing, pollinator counts, soil compaction, and soil fertility. The number of different experiments and diversity of the experiments demonstrated the USDA’s commitment to the farmer.
Many of the studies are still ongoing and the end data have not been completed, however a couple startling details were released. In the pollinator study, researchers counted 177 native species of bees, including 55 new species. There were 75% more bees on sunflowers grown in conjunction with a cover crop. Sunflowers grown with a cover crop also had a 36% increase in head mass. SDSPA will share the rest of the data when it is completed.
SDSPA producers are welcome to submit ideas for future research projects. Ideas may be submitted to Malisa Niles at sdspa.urbanag@gmail.com, Niles can come to us and discuss the idea, or you can request a Zoom meeting with Niles and the USDA-ARS staff by contacting Niles.