Ah Extra Credit- I'm sure some of you are thinking does she REALLY need extra credit? Well, in my opinion, YES!!! I really do.
So one of our extra credit "assignments" is to find two videos (one bad & one good) based on a crop that we have looked at (corn, wheat, soybean, alfalfa, sunflowers, and sorghum) on http://www.you-tube.com/. Then we are to explain why we liked or disliked each video. We can only do two crops since each crop is worth 5 points and there is a maximum of 10 extra credit points.
So first up: CORN
In my opinion this is a good video. Two men (Darren & Brian Hefty) have a television show (Ag PhD) where they talk about several aspects of farming. I looked at a few of the shows videos before I found this one. In this episode they discuss tips for when to use fungicides in corn. I appreciate the fact that they talk about how important weather is when determining if using a fungicide is justified. However, I think the video could be improved with better photography (its a bit grainy) and if they discussed the diseases and signs of the disease in more detail.
In my opinion this is a BAD, BAD, BAD video for many reasons. If you don't want to watch the video I understand its 10 minutes LONG - yes I watched the entire video. It seems to be what occurs in this farmers life when he's harvesting corn; he harvests corn, loads corn, unloads corn, drives through town (NOTE- they have nice bus stops), and repeat (several times). In addition, there are no words or text so unless you are a farmer or know a lot about farming- you have NO IDEA what's going on. No I'm not a farmer so I'm guessing as to what he's doing. However, the music is great (sounds a bit like Enimga) so I enjoyed listening to that while being bored by the video. However, I think this could become a good video with editing (lots of editing). In addition, add some text or voice overs for what's going on (for example- the farmer could introduce the video by saying "Hi I'm [insert name here] and I'm going to show you a typical day when I'm harvesting corn."). Now, I understand that this video was done in some other country (likely a slavic country given the text at the end of the video {credits?}) but I'm sure that not everyone in this persons country knows what he's doing and there are translator software packages out there. For those of you with young ones- I'm curious as to if your children liked the video (lots of cool machinery) so if you could give me some feedback on that aspect I would appreciate it.
I admit that this video was just for fun. I was looking for corn videos and ran across this one and despite the fact that its not educational it is visually & musically enjoyable. Think of this as a reward for sitting through the above 10 minute video- a well deserved reward!
Next up: SOYBEANS
I found another good video on insects. However, this video is VERY long (16 minutes). They do use text to break up the video and provide information such as economic thresholds. In addition they have music in "text breaks". However, I think this video could be improved by cutting the video in half in essence making two videos (one for Japanese Beetle and one for Soybean Aphid). In addition, I think that Dr. Cullen could discuss natural enemies of these two pests in order to provide a more complete picture of these soybean insect pests.
So I thought I would see if I could find a better harvesting video. I watched several and they are all similar to the 10 minute corn video. However, this one while still bad for all the non-informative reasons mentioned above is MUCH BETTER than the corn video. So please note that this one is shorter (much shorter- less repetition) and the song kicks ASS (yes, it's more metal so be forewarned before going down this road). If there are any farmers out there that are interested in making a video of your harvest, please, please, please tell us less farm machinery oriented people what you are doing so we can learn. Thanks! (Note- I did talk to one of my friends about these harvesting videos and he agrees with me that there should be some detail about what the farmer/grower is doing)
And to end on a high note: I found dancing slugs (that's right I said dancing slugs)! Enjoy!!
Corn videos:
ReplyDeleteI agree, they did a nice job organizing the "good" video. However, is it truly "IPM" when the hosts of the show recommend to "protect the yield no matter what"? What about thresholds or injury levels? In my opinion, a treatment recommendation of "protect with whatever it takes" doesn't always equal an economic return or is environmentally responsible. Plus, I found their information misleading. Why would we need to treat if we "don't typically have a lot of these diseases"? Treating to protect yield does not equal IPM. What are the costs/benefits of using such a spray? As a side note, these two experts own multiple coops in South Dakota and also heavily promote a threshold of 3 soybean aphids per plant when a majority of soybean aphid researchers recommends treatment at 75 times this density. Just some food for thought.
The bad video doesn't really have an IPM focus, but you give a lot of useful suggestions on how to improve this harvest video.
Soybean videos:
ReplyDeleteGreat assessment of the soybean video. I agree, it would be helpful to split out the two pests and expand on natural enemies, etc.
I don't think these harvest video are really meant to "inform" the viewer. It's more of a "hey, check this out", which YouTube has plenty of. I must agree, the music is much better in this video! :)
slug video = awesome!
ReplyDeleteYou make some good points on the good corn video; I think I picked that one because it was less "insecticide promoting" than some of their videos that I watched. I'm glad you agree on the good soybean aphid points. I will say that I honestly expected something different from the harvesting videos and once I got into them I wanted to post them so I could see if I could get a better video that told me what I wanted to know.
ReplyDeleteIn general (for anyone to respond)did your "kids" like the slug video?