2024 CSU-TAPS
It all started when…CSU-TAPS participants made their corn variety, seeding rate, and crop insurance selections in April and May, and chose a soil moisture probe. The 2024 TAPS field was planted in early May.
Team costs and returns are included in a comprehensive farm budget, with values scaled to represent a crop grown on a 1,000-acre operation.
Irrigation season opened June 12, 2024. Early on, teams could irrigate 1x/week, up to 1 inch, in increments of 0.05”. Teams made Nitrogen (N) decisions through the summer, implemented side by side on 3 random plots at the Ag Research, Development and Education (ARDEC) South research farm, northeast of Fort Collins (see field layout, right). Participants also made marketing decisions from April to November.
Harvest day was November 6, 2024, and crop marketing ended November 20. At that point, the CSU-TAPS team began data analysis to determine winners.
Winners were announced at the 2024 CSU-TAPS Annual Banquet on January 11, 2025.
2024 CSU TAPS Year in Review
Top row, left to right: competition field at ARDEC; plot seed bags; planting; soil moisture sensor; Omer Izrael and Wub Yilma; ARDEC linear move sprinkler;
Middle row, left to right: Tim Martin at field day; competitor team field visit; fertigation; plot sampling photo; late summer field; harvest planning image;
Bottom row, left to right: plot sampling photo; soil moisture sensors; Omer Izrael at biomass sampling; Wub Yilma and AWQP soil sampling; fall field; USDA ARS harvester on harvest day.
Image Credits: Omer Izrael, Amy Kremen, Christine Hamilton, and CSU Agricultural Water Quality Program (AWQP)