 This trial behind me here is a corn alfalfa intercropping trial. This site here is in its second year of production, so you won't see the corn on top. There is still corn stubble and hidden alfalfa itself. This site here is at the North Central Research Extension Center. It started last year, we had two sites, one here, one in Belfour, and the Belfour site got hailed out. So we had to unfortunately restart again this year. And we have two sites, one again in Belfour and one up in Tali. And those two sites, they are starting the first year. They have the corn intercropped in with the alfalfa. It is looking at different spacings, so 30 inch spacing, 60 inch spacing for the corn, and then alfalfa intercropped with the corn as well. One of the main things we are looking at here is trying to establish alfalfa. Alfalfa in its first year generally doesn't produce the most tonnage, so we are looking at putting in a companion crop with it so that way we can have an extra source of income to entice the farmers into wanting to grow this. So for this one we looked at grain corn, Marisol Birdie, she is the heading up this project in Fargo. They are also looking at doing sunflower this year, intercropping with the alfalfa. So there are a few different things that we are looking at. One thing about alfalfa is that it is really good for your soil health. It prevents soil erosion, prevents fertility erosion. It becomes a long standing crop, it goes for three, sometimes five years, and it produces a nice root that goes down, and this helps soil permeability so that way you can get more water, more moisture into the soil itself, which is kind of helpful out here in the dry areas of western North Dakota. This project is also being done on the east side of the state by Sam Bibby, and he is wrapping his master's work up, so we have some of his data that we can bounce off of. Unfortunately because of the hail, I don't have much statistics to do, but observationally I've seen some consistencies between the two of us. One thing to notice about this is the weed control can be a problem. We have Roundup Ready alfalfa mixed, intercropped with Roundup Ready corn. So your first year, all you really have to work with is Roundup. So if you have weeds that are Roundup resistant, like this Kosha behind us, then they kind of become a nuisance. As you move on into your second and third year of just straight alfalfa establishment, that weed pressure should reduce due to the fact that you are getting more cuttings off of your alfalfa, you have more herbicide that you can work with. We would expect the weed pressure to go down as we move forward. As I mentioned, we have the 30 inch spacing, the 60 inch spacing, and then the intercropped 30 and 60 inch spacing. For the first year, we intercropped all that, and the second year, the spots where it was straight corn for 30 inch spacing and 60 inch spacing, we came back in and replanted alfalfa to have another source of establishment to compare with. So just at a glance, observationally from what I have observed here and what sand has recorded, we've noticed that 30 inch intercropping is the most economically viable option, followed by straight alfalfa. One thing to note is that the 30 inch intercropping due to its spacing causes more shading. So your alfalfa isn't quite as tall or as yielding as it would be as you see in the alfalfa alone or the 60 inch spacing with alfalfa because it gets more sunlight. One reason why the 60 inch spacing wasn't quite as economically good as the 30 inch is because you are losing about half of your corn profit just to get that sunlight in there. One of the biggest takeaways for Sam's was that the environment is going to have a role to play in what intercropping you go with. If you're further south per se, like Nebraska or Iowa, where your corn is going to grow longer, you're going to see more of a shading effect on that alfalfa and your alfalfa is going to suffer a little bit more. Whereas if you come north a little bit here to North Dakota or a drier area and the corn doesn't get quite as tall, your alfalfa is going to get more sunlight and you're going to get a better yield off of that.