K-State TAPS Programs – Taking on Agriculture’s Challenges
By Pat Burt – Wild West District Agriculture & Natural Resources Agent
Photo Credit: Kelsey Stremel, Western Kansas Research-Extension Centers Communications and Marketing Specialist
Have you ever wanted to test a new agricultural technology or wanted to try to improve on a current practice on your farming operation? There are so many different technologies and conservation management practices right now, so where do you start? Have you ever considered entering the K-State TAPS competition? TAPS is the acronym for “Testing Ag Performance Solutions”. The goal of TAPS is to “foster understanding of how decision-making and management leads to productive, profitable, and conservation-oriented outcomes”. TAPS is a farm management competition that brings together farmers, researchers and industry exports to brainstorm and try their ideas. TAPS hopes to address some of agriculture’s biggest challenges, including the decline of the Ogallala Aquifer.
Participants will have a test plot and they will be making decisions on when to plant, seed populations, hybrid selection, irrigation, nitrogen application, grain marketing, and crop insurance on the replicated test plots. The 2025 TAPS program will have test plots at Colby and Garden City. The results from the competition are scaled to represent 2,000-acre farms.
TAPS competitions begin in March of each year. This year, there will be three competitions. At Garden City, there will be a corn water utilization competition and at the Colby location there will be competitions in corn/forage sorghum water allocation and a grain sorghum competition. Cash awards are given to the top three in each category. If you are interested in learning more or signing up, contact Renee Tuttle at rstuttle@ksu.edu or (620) 805-9045. You can also get more information at: https://www.k-state.edu/taps/ .
