When it comes to weather, farmers learn to roll with Mother Nature’s punches.

Already postponed due to an earlier snowstorm, the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council’s Production action team braved another round of snowstorms to meet with researchers, listen to proposals and set the stage for production research.

“This farmer-lead action team is unique because we are able to open up our proposal availability to students, university faculty and farmers,” said Kris Folland, MSR&PC’s District 1, 2 & 3 director who chairs the Production action team. “By doing this, we are not only advancing the genetics of soybeans as a whole but we are also encouraging the growth of bright minds.”

More than 32 individuals cycled through the Minnesota Soybean office in Mankato this week to request funding on 42 different projects intended to address the diversity of problems across Minnesota’s agricultural landscape.

“We tried to evaluate all the projects on the effectiveness and need from our grower meetings this summer,” said David Kee, director of research for MSR&PC. “Because the growers of Minnesota are so diverse, our projects are diverse. What we selected were the best quality of the 42 projects, and we supported those projects as much as we could. “

Kee said the best projects were the project that not only sought knowledge development of a problem, but also identified how to share that knowledge with farmers and agribusiness.

Andrew Lueck, owner of Next Gen Ag, was one of several independent researchers who presented proposals to the Council. Among the projects Lueck submitted to the Council was research into water hemp and giant ragweed that specifically looked at control methods through row spacing, row cultivation in season and layering of residuals.

“As a farming community, we need to ensure that we are putting (checkoff) money towards innovative and yield changing efforts,” Lueck said.