This might be a good time to look back, not so much on the past season but on what agricultural research means. We focus our attention on things like new insect resistant crops, pest management, increased yields with better crop genetics and lower inputs and less water etc. There is a vast industry involved in these things and I am but a small part. If one looks at the yield per acre of all of our crops it quickly becomes apparent that we, the collective agricultural researchers in both industry and academia, have made enormous progress, especially in the last 80 years. Here are some historical corn yields from Iowa. This is something to be proud of but the progress must continue if we are to keep pace with increasing world population.
What we do in agricultural research today is important today, but in reality it will not last. We are like workers setting the lower stones in a pyramid that will take thousands of years to build; we set our stones as a foundation for those who come after us. They, in turn, will set their stones for those that follow, and so it will be for as long as people grow crops on earth. There will be triumphs and there will be challenges, but the one constant is that nothing in nature lasts and we must always continue to move forward. So at the end of a hard year it is good to know that I have made some little contributions to knowledge and have set one or two stones in the pyramid.
The photos below are from this season. The first is of my corn being augured from the combine to the truck that will take it to the elevator. The second is of USDA-ARS researchers harvesting cotton plots.
