Defining the Lines

Any readers of my other study away blog from previous trips (or probably anyone who knows me) will understand that I like to set a clear, well-defined stage for my experiences. In just our first few days of discussions with various farmers, I have come across many terms that are new to me. As they are wont to appear in future blog posts by myself and classmates, I'd like to create a short list of them here - and perhaps, in doing so, you may gain some insight into our topics of discussion. I'm going to assume that, as readers of a Farm blog, you understand basic terms such as "crop," "till," "tractor," "organic," etc. - though I do respect that these often have further implications than one may initially realize. Anyway, here's a more technical list of words that have come up so far:

Tiling - the act of bringing soil moisture levels down for optimal crop growth via a drainage system of below-ground pipes. Iowa is actually full of post-glacial wetlands that many conservationists stress must be protected. Who knew?
Disking - tilling a field with the traditional disk instrument on the tractor. Disking can also level and clod-bust or even incorporate herbicide into soil.
Filter strip - a buffer area of vegetative substance (not crops) installed as a best management practice around streams to reduce runoff of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other potentially harmful chemicals.
CRP - Conservation Reserve Program, designed to reduce water runoff, soil erosion, and sedimentation while improving the condition of surrounding waters. A USDA program handled through local divisions in Iowa, this program seems to garner mixed reviews from farmers. It's important to note that, while this is a volunteer program, to comply, farmers must often compromise their land resources in order to satisfy delineated environmental requirements, such as planting resource-conserving vegetative covers. On the other hand, compensation is available if they choose to certify their land.
GMO - genetically modified organism. Basically, this is any living thing whose DNA has been altered - usually to help plants increase yield, resist disease, etc. The ubiquitous presence of unlabeled GMOs in today's American food supply is a hotly debated topic which I may expand upon later in another blog post.
"Beans" - soybeans, the #2 cash crop of Iowa (and many other parts of the country and the world) - used for food, biodiesel, and many other varied, innovative uses.
"Corn" - almost certainly field corn/yellow corn, which is used mostly for animal feed and also for products like high fructose corn syrup or ethanol, which open up entirely new cans of worms. This is exclusively being grown on the Neubauer farm this year and is the #1 concern of pretty much all of Iowa - as I've seen, at least.

Hopefully, this gives y'all some idea of what we've been discussing already. I'll be sure to explain more new terms as I post about them!