Category Archives: Event
Upcoming Farming Workshops
Let the season of Workshops begin! Hope you are able to attend!
***Nov 30-Farmers and Ranchers College with Dr. David Kohl: “Global Economic Impacts on the Farm and Ranch” will be the topic of Dr. Kohl’s presentation on November 30th from 1:00-4:00 p.m. at the Bruning Opera House in Bruning, NE. There is no fee.
***Nov. 30-Specialty Crops Grants Available: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provided a grant to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) to administer a project that is designed to provide small, competitive grants, in amounts of up to $4,600, to a limited number of Nebraska specialty crop growers for the sole purpose of extending the growing season for specialty crops. Growers who want to be considered as a potential project applicant for the 2012 year can find more info. and complete the application by Nov. 30th at: http://www.agr.ne.gov/promotion/2011_specialty_crop_block_grant_program.pdf
Farmers wishing to apply and needing assistance with the application process and writing their proposal are welcome to contact NSAS through healthyfarms@gmail.com or the Nebraska Cooperative Development Center with Elaine Cranford at, ecranford2@unlnotes.unl.edu
***Dec. 2-Symposium to Feature Fruit and Vegetable Production, Marketing Strategies: Fruit and vegetable growers are invited to attend the Tri-State Fruit and Vegetable Growers Symposium Dec. 2 from noon to 5:15 p.m. at Stoney Creek Inn, 300 Third Street, in Sioux City, Iowa. Featured speakers include South Dakota State University Professor of Forestry John Ball with an overview of specialty crops and Tim Vala of Vala’s Pumpkin Patch near Omaha providing marketing tips. Growers can choose from a variety of fruit/vegetable production and marketing sessions led by university extension horticulture specialists and experienced local growers. Topics include fruit trees, aronia berries, grapes, ethnic vegetable varieties, organic insect and pest control, and community supported agriculture strategies. The symposium is planned in partnership with University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach and South Dakota State University Extension. Cost is $25 for the first person and $15 for the second person participating from the same farm or business until Nov. 23. Cost at the door is $30. For more information or to register call ISU Extension in Woodbury County at 712-276-2157 or visit http://www.flavorsofnorthwestiowa.org.
***Dec. 3-Explore Farming Class Planned: Do you have dreams of self-sufficiency and living off the land? Are you a budding entrepreneur? If so, you may wish to attend the free Explore Farming Class at UNL Extension in Lancaster County on December 3, 2011 from 10 – noon. This two-hour seminar will help you think through the resources, skills, and time you will need to launch a successful farm business. Local farmers and participants in the Community CROPS Growing Farmers Training Program will be on hand to answer questions. Information about various training opportunities in the 2012 season will also be available. The class is free, but you must register to attend. To register, simply send your name and phone number to warren@communitycrops.org. For more information, check out this website: http://www.communitycrops.org/
***Dec. 5-Summit on the Proposed Revised 2011 P-Index: A Dec. 5 University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Animal Manure Management team workshop will help those who work closely with livestock operations and their nutrient management plans. The “P-Index Summit” will be at the Nielsen Community Center, 200 Anna Stalp Ave. in West Point, Neb. The program will be from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Central Time. Topics include: the science and history of the P-Index, discussion on proposed revisions, case studies illustrating the differences between the 2007 and 2011 versions and discussion of livestock environmental issues of interest. CCA continuing education units will be available.
For more information and to register, contact Leslie Johnson at 402-584-3818, email ljohnson13@unl.edu. Registration is $20 per participant if sent with your registration or $25 at the door. The use of a computer with Microsoft Excel is necessary; please bring your laptop as there will only be a few extra computers. To save time the day of the event, old and new versions can be downloaded at http://go.unl.edu/847 These workshops are sponsored by the UNL Extension AMM team which is dedicated to helping livestock and crop producers better use the state’s manure resources for agronomic and environmental benefits. For additional information and other resources for managing manure nutrients, visit http://manure.unl.edu.
***Dec. 6-Landlord/Tenant lease workshop: I can’t stress enough for you to consider attending this workshop and it is recommended that the landlord and tenant attend together! Cash Rental rates for farmland has nearly doubled in the past 6 years. Volatility in the grain markets is wilder than ever. These and other land lease issues will be discussed Tuesday, Dec. 6th at the Adams Co. Fairgrounds in Hastings. The program begins with registration at 5:00 p.m. and concludes at 9:00 p.m. The main purpose of these workshops is to help with establishing and maintaining positive farm leasing relationships. A meal and handouts will be provided. The workshop is free to participants because it is sponsored by the Nebraska Soybean Board. Participation is limited, thus you will need to pre-register to reserve your spot. To pre-register, please contact the UNL Extension Office in Adams County at 402-461-7209.
***Dec. 9-10-Returning to the farm: If you are considering a family member returning to the farm in the future, please consider attending this returning to the farm program! It will be held Dec. 9-10 and Jan. 6-7 the Holiday Inn Downtown in Lincoln and it is required that you attend both weekends and that all members of the farm management team attend. Bringing a young person into a farm/ranch operation presents challenges. However, the business operation can accomplish numerous goals by helping the young person get a solid start in the operation, keeping the farm/ranch in the family, and ensuring a comfortable retirement for all involved. Blending a variety of talents and personalities into one farming or ranching operation takes planning, communication, and management. The Returning to the Farm program is designed to assist families and operations in developing a financial plan and successful working arrangements that will meet the needs of multiple families. For more information call 800-472-1742 or check out: http://agecon.unl.edu/rtf.
Visit from Chinese Agronomists
Last week I had a neat experience in speaking to a group of agronomists from China about Extension. They are in the U.S. for 10
days and are interested in high yield corn production. I scrapped the presentation I had been asked to present as they had so many questions about our Extension system. So we started in a discussion…how do we set up a field day/meeting in Extension? How do we let farmers know about them? How do we decide what to talk about? Thus ensued a discussion of farming in China vs. farming in Nebraska. In China, many of the fields are hand-planted and less than 10% of their farmers have internet connectivity. In Nebraska, we’re seeing the trend of larger equipment and the majority of our farmers are connected to the internet. I suggested that they start with field days and meetings which shared the research-based information they are generating at their research sites. Advertise to farmers via word of mouth, radio, newspapers, direct mailings, or brochures/flyers left at common gathering spots. Once they have the people at the meetings, they can follow up with a survey to determine needs assessment for what the farmers would like to know more about in the future to determine future meeting topics.
Extension in Nebraska has greatly changed in my 7 years regarding how we share information. We are challenged today to
reach a broad audience who on one hand primarily finds information from newspapers to the other hand, primarily from the Web-and everywhere in between! This year, I’ve worked at trying to share the same information 7 different ways to reach a broader audience. I showed the agronomists from China the impact of the Web and social media in sharing information in Nebraska. They were amazed!
We then went on a tour where they were able to view harvest. It was fascinating watching them excitedly discuss and question no-till farming as they were digging through residue and in the soil. They also predicted corn yields by measuring and counting and comparing that to the combine yield monitor. Some enjoyed getting into the combines and learning about the precision ag tools available to farmers. It was a neat experience and I learned much from our visitors as well!
Water Jamboree & Removing Irrigation Scheduling Equipment
Last week was fun and somewhat exhausting teaching with my colleagues in Extension and several area Agencies at the Water Jamboree at Liberty Cove in Lawrence. Water Jamboree started over 15 years ago to teach 5th and 6th graders about the
importance of water and water-related subjects. Nearly 800 youth learned about where water goes when it goes down the storm drain, about irrigation and siphon tubes, the aquifer, life inside and outside of the lake, mosquitoes, water movement, and much more. Holli Weber and I utilized the nature trails through the tallgrass prairie to teach a session on life outside the lake focusing on the importance of plants as buffers to filter chemicals and allowing youth to run through the trails doing a photo ID scavenger hunt of the area plants (also to burn off energy!). While I’ve done this session the past 5 years, this year I took time to show the youth specific characteristics to ID grasses. God created each plant unique and I was showing them how Indiangrass has rabbit ears when you pull the leaves back from the stem…or the M/W on the smooth brome leaves. It was fun watching the youths’ faces light up and then try to find these and other characteristics for themselves while on the trails. It was a great day, although I really don’t know how teachers do it day in and out! I wish I could’ve attended something like this when I was young! A special thanks goes to Marlene Faimon at the Little Blue NRD for coordinating this each year.
After Water Jamboree, I headed to my research plot at Lawrence. It’s been a trying year of coon damage and most recently a skunk inside our traps instead of the coons (and it still smelled like skunk out there!). Anyway, I was pulling watermark sensors and the 1st and 2nd foot ones were really rough but the 3rd and 4th feet came out easily. So just a reminder, when pulling watermark sensors, clamp a vice grip below the cap, twist and pull up. I’ve taken out hundreds of these and have only pulled apart four. If your sensor won’t pull up, simply take a spade and dig around the sensor and also bring a jug of water with you. This is the first time I’ve had to dig sensors out but the water really helped as I got it to run down the tube, it eventually loosened at the base to pull out easily without removing the sensor from the pvc pipe. Sensors can be gently washed with a hose or in a bucket of water using your fingers to gently clean them-don’t use a brush. Allow to dry and store in your shed, garage, basement, etc. Also a reminder (although I should’ve done this during the cold of Husker Harvest Days), to get your ET gages inside. Pour out the water and empty the ceramic top by pulling out the tube and then store that inside where it won’t freeze during the winter.
Inspiring Young Nebraskans-HHD 2011
Last week was busy with Husker Harvest Days-the coldest one I can remember! It’s always fun for me to see many familiar faces-like a big reunion! The theme at the IANR booth this year was “Inspiring Young Nebraskans”. This theme was important
to showcase how IANR is influencing our youth from early childhood development to entrepreneurship activities and future careers. A statistic that may surprise you is that over 144,000 Nebraska youth (nearly every 1 in 3 youth in the State) is involved with 4-H. That’s something we would like to continue to grow as I think any of you who have been involved with youth programs whether 4-H, FFA, or scouts can attest they build life skills! The goal of this year’s exhibit was to show how IANR is impacting youth to hopefully keep more local youth here in Nebraska.
The first exhibit dealt with UNL Extension’s focus on Early Childhood Development which focuses on youth ages 5 and under by helping childcare providers, babysitters, and parents understand brain development and UNL’s research in this area. An alarming statistic is that up to 25% of children are not ready to begin school. The second exhibit was Teaching Science through Soybeans in which an iPad app was created for youth to drag and drop items into grocery carts to learn from where their food comes. There are many additional activities involved in the partnership between the College of Ag Sciences and Natural Resources, UNL teacher education, and local schools.
The third exhibit showcased the Unique Role of Teachers in Rural Communities and a research grant obtained by UNL to study the best strategies for supporting rural teachers in reading (K-3) and science education (6-12). Robotics is a curricula exploding with interest amongst youth in the State and was the fourth exhibit. “Bots are Hot” but they’re not only toys, they’re teaching technology to our youth with Nebraska being the leader in this National Science Foundation initiative. The fifth display showcased Youth-Adult Partnerships in which youth are encouraged to define and address community issues in addition to helping provide youth a voice and responsibility in their communities by working with adults. Connecting the Dots for Nebraska Youth was the sixth display in which an iPad app was developed for youth to link actions and personal choice to his/her future success in a college or career. So often we showcase projects in 4-H, but we’re striving consciously link them with future careers-to show youth how their 4-H projects truly are their first class at the University of Nebraska!
The seventh exhibit showcased Public/Private partnerships in which UNL Extension is working with Nebraska businesses to create opportunities for young Nebraskans across the State. Entrepreneurship was the focus of the eighth display with the goal of building a strong root system for homegrown Nebraska businesses. Reid Ely was front and center on that display banner with his asparagus and Ashley Nunnenkamp helped in the booth as part of the Paul Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program at UNL. Market Journal taped their latest show there and the Mobile Diagnostic Lab had interactive displays this year on Soybean Cyst Nematode kits for FFA youth, Pine Wilt Nematode, Biological Invaders, and Crop Science Investigation (CSI) for youth. I was thankful for the Clay and Fillmore County youth who helped us in our CSI display as youth can better inspire their peers to be involved!
Like in the past, a Web site was developed and rolled out at Husker Harvest Days. To find out more about what UNL Extension is doing in the child and youth area, please check out our latest Web site at http://child-youth.unl.edu.
Soybean Management Field Days
Every year I look forward to attending the Soybean Management Field Days! I enjoy hearing the latest research-based information and seeing so many of our clientele who attend. We have an excellent opportunity for the Soybean Management Field Days to be held at South Central Ag
Lab near Clay Center on August 16th! I would encourage you to register and to go! If you’ve been to the field days before, changes have been made so that all the demo plots are now research plots-so all the trials will be harvested, data collected, and shared in future meetings and field days. The theme this year is “Growing Nebraska’s Future” and the event will focus on staying competitive in a global marketplace, increasing profits and meeting the world’s growing food and energy needs starting in Nebraska.
Topics include: nutrient management and high yield alternatives; pest management and yield enhancement products; weed management; and marketing and risk management. In addition, UNL Extension’s BIT Mobile will be on hand for participants to visit and learn how to optimize irrigation efficiency and energy use with the SoyWater program. If you have unknown crop problems, please bring along your samples for agronomists and plant disease and insect specialists to look at for no charge.
The field days are sponsored by the Nebraska Soybean Board in partnership with UNL Extension in the University’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and are funded through checkoff dollars. The efforts of the checkoff are directed by the United Soybean Board promoting effective, efficient, farmer-driven programs. The field days begin with 9 a.m. registration and conclude at 2:30 p.m. Free registration is available the day of the event; it would be helpful to RSVP for meal count to 800-529-8030 or you can let me know by replying to this blog or emailing me at jrees2@unl.edu. More information can be found at http://ardc.unl.edu/soydays. I hope to post the pod cast of this event shortly, but am still working on how to do this!
JenResources 