In Tokachi region of Hokkaido, Japan, the soil’s freezing depth has become shallower since mid-1980s resulting in the proliferation of volunteer potatoes in the fields, where remaining potato tubers after harvesting survive the winter and grow as weeds to the following crops. To eradicate the volunteer potatoes, the farmers adopted soil frost enhancement by snow removal in winter, a practice that a farmer had invented before. The adopters, however, sometimes encountered undesired outcomes due to insufficient or excessive soil frost. An extension agronomist brought this problem to the attention of a scientist, who then combined the farmers’ practice with a soil temperature model and thereby established the soil frost control (SFC) technology. With SFC, soil frost depth is optimized for controlling volunteer potatoes without the excessive freezing. The SFC technology was implemented in a web-based decision support system, which facilitated the wide adoption of the technology by the farmers. After the SFC was transferred to Okhotsk region of Hokkaido, the agronomists at regional institutions extended the use of the technology to the improvements of soil physical properties and crop growth. The extended application of SFC enlarged its user base beyond potato growers. In Okhotsk also, the SFC was implemented in a web-based information system and was widely adopted by the farmers. We attribute the wide adoption of the SFC technology to the involvement of farmers and local agronomists at the early stages of technology development and the involvement of regional agronomic institutions at later stages of technology development and dissemination.
Keywords: innovation, soil frost, snow, volunteer potatoes, crop growth, soil tilth
In Tokachi region of Hokkaido, Japan, the soil’s freezing depth has become shallower since mid-1980s resulting in the proliferation of volunteer potatoes in the fields, where remaining potato tubers after harvesting survive the winter and grow as weeds to the following crops. To eradicate the volunteer potatoes, the farmers adopted soil frost enhancement by snow removal in winter, a practice that a farmer had invented before. The adopters, however, sometimes encountered undesired outcomes due to insufficient or excessive soil frost. An extension agronomist brought this problem to the attention of a scientist, who then combined the farmers’ practice with a soil temperature model and thereby established the soil frost control (SFC) technology. With SFC, soil frost depth is optimized for controlling volunteer potatoes without the excessive freezing. The SFC technology was implemented in a web-based decision support system, which facilitated the wide adoption of the technology by the farmers. After the SFC was transferred to Okhotsk region of Hokkaido, the agronomists at regional institutions extended the use of the technology to the improvements of soil physical properties and crop growth. The extended application of SFC enlarged its user base beyond potato growers. In Okhotsk also, the SFC was implemented in a web-based information system and was widely adopted by the farmers. We attribute the wide adoption of the SFC technology to the involvement of farmers and local agronomists at the early stages of technology development and the involvement of regional agronomic institutions at later stages of technology development and dissemination.
Keywords: innovation, soil frost, snow, volunteer potatoes, crop growth, soil tilth