Up Close & Somewhat Personal

HJ: The Experiment Station does the heavy lifting when it comes to fieldwork, and the handful of OVT employees handle putting the trials together, packaging the seed, processing the samples, analyzing and reporting the results, and helping with fieldwork when and where we are needed. I often compare the relationship between the OVT program and the Experiment Station to a married couple. We’re stuck with each other for better or worse!

KB: How much of your work happens behind a desk versus in a field?

HJ: More of my work happens behind a desk than I would prefer. I love being outside and working in the field. But as my cousin would say, “if it was supposed to be all fun, they would have called it fun instead of work.” As anyone who works in agriculture knows, the weather dictates many decisions. Since office work is never lacking, I try to prioritize it on days when the weather doesn’t cooperate with fieldwork. However, there always seems to be more office work than there is inclement weather.

KB: What’s the most unpredictable part of variety testing?

HJ: There’s not a single predictable part of variety testing. That’s part of the fun. No season is the same for us. We face many of the same struggles as growers, plus some that are unique to variety testing. We are always worrying about the weather, pest pressure, planting and harvest timing, getting results out. The running joke is, can we keep up with everything that is going on?

KB: How does your work directly impact Alabama growers?

HJ: Growers can use the results provided by the Official Variety Testing Program to make one of the most important decisions of the growing season. What variety fits my unique scenario? The answer to this question is typically more complex than selecting the highest-yielding variety in one of the trials. They must consider their soil types, irrigation capabilities, herbicide traits, pest resistance, planting dates and numerous other factors. This is where the program’s online variety selection tool comes into play. First, it is partially funded through checkoff dollars, and we are thankful for the support. Second, it enables growers to better use the results by allowing them to create a customized output that fits their preferences. Growers can examine as many data variables as they want, allowing them to see consistency across time, location, and multiple environments. Not only providing trial results but also providing them timely and in a format that allows maximum utilization is critical to both the program and the grower’s success.

KB: If someone shadowed you for a day during peak season, what would they experience?

HJ: The short answer would be chaos. A large portion of the year could be classified as peak season. This is because the OVT program handles multiple crops: the warm season’s cotton, corn, grain sorghum, peanut, sesame, soybean; and cool season’s wheat, oat, barley, and triticale for grain and ryegrass, wheat, oat, triticale, and rye for forage. There is always a crop in the field, results to analyze and report, and rarely any downtime. A typical day could range from sitting behind the desk doing data analysis to harvesting forage trials, to presenting at a field day or Extension type meeting while also answering phone calls, managing undergraduate student workers, coordinating plans with my Alabama Experiment Station partners, keeping the results flowing to stakeholders, and putting out as many fires as possible.

KB: What’s your earliest memory connected to farming or agriculture?

HJ: My earliest memory connected to farming or agriculture would be helping my grandfather work in his garden. He grew squash, zucchini, tomatoes, green beans, peas, peppers, eggplant, and more. I remember helping with everything from tilling the ground to pulling weeds to picking and canning everything we harvested. Thinking back on it now, I don’t know that I was as much help as I thought I was when I was a little guy, but there’s no doubt that we both enjoyed our time together more than anything.

KB: On a long day of plot checks, what are you listening to in the car?

HJ: I am notorious for devouring audiobooks. On a day when I’m traveling to one of the stations, it’s nothing to get 4-8 hours of audiobook time, not counting phone calls. This is one of the few times a variety testing guy will make recommendations: A few fiction series on my recommended list are the “Joe Pickett” series by C.J. Box, the “Cork O’Conner” series by William Kent Krueger, and “A Sheriff Bo Tully” series by Patrick F. McManus — all murder mysteries. “Texas Ranger” by John Boessenecker is one of my favorite non-fiction biographies about the man who killed Bonnie and Clyde.