Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1303072
34 POTATO GROWER | NOVEMBER 2020 Embracing change in farming Fixing What Ain't Broke Diggin' In Diggin' In RESEARCH | By Rhett Spear My father once told me that farmers were the biggest gamblers he knew. Investing money that may or may not pay off while dealing with Mother Nature changing the rules—it all made for very uncertain growing seasons. I know he was trying to explain farming, but it didn't make much sense to an 8-year-old boy in Raft River, Idaho, who didn't think cultivating sugarbeets, moving wheel lines, and changing pivot tires made for a very fun summer. When we started farming, we followed the same patterns and processes of other farmers in the area. Almost like driving through a subdivision where all the houses were designed and built by the same builder, most of the farmers used the same kinds of equipment, tillage practices, inputs and, in general, had the same philosophy about growing the best crop: "If it's not broke, don't fix it." As I look back now, however, I ask myself, If farming conditions weren't the same year after year, why did all the practices stay the same? Change is a difficult thing, especially in the farming industry, where reliable results might take several seasons to collect. Inherently, people are hesitant to be the first one to try something new. Whether it's a new variety, a change in row spacing, or even a new piece of equipment, we would rather have our neighbor try it first; if he's successful, we might be a little less skeptical. In my experience, however, farmers are smart and will consider changes if they see accurate data from their own farming area and have a solid assurance that the new practice won't narrow their margins even more. Even then, change usually starts small. The high risk/high reward nature of potatoes makes adoption of new practices even slower because the process to gather good data is slow and extremely small in scale compared to typical commercial farms. For example, a new potato variety may take 12to 15 years of small plot evaluation before it's named and available for commercial use. This is followed by additional years of in-field evaluations by the potato industry before the variety is planted on larger acreages. New cultural practices such as changing row spacing or using different tillage equipment sometimes require