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Agronomic Educational Program
| Name | John Oxner | | Situation | Agronomic crops don't provide a lot of direct products on our dinner table, but are necessary parts of just about everything we eat except for the perishable fruits and vegetables. The major agronomic crops produced in Aiken and Lexington Counties are corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, peanuts and hay/pastures. Farmers are dealing with rapid changes in agronomic production. These changes include bio-engineered crop varieties, production system and market volatility. Extension educational programs have been developed to assist producers in evaluating and adopting these technological advances. | | Response | Each year farmers have many decisions to make with different crop production practices. In 2005, an Area Corn/Soybean Production Meeting was held with Extension Specialists providing the latest research information to area farmers. This meeting focused on varieties, weed management, nematode management, no-till systems and marketing. It also
focused on the big issue of Asian Soybean Rust. Another part of the agronomic program was Extension run on-farm demonstrations. These demonstrations allow farmers to evaluate varieties in a side by side comparison. These demonstrations included: Roundup Ready Corn, Roundup Ready/ Bt. (stacked) Corn and two Round-Up Ready Soybean Variety Demonstrations, one Group 5-6 and one Group 7-8. This gave producers the opportunity to evaluate more than 25 corn varieties and 20 soybean varieties and their characteristics. On the consumer side, Extension agronomic programs provide a Field Crops Exhibit at the SC State Fair. This exhibit, Farming for Everyday Living, allows consumers to see how
the crops grow and what everyday products are made from these raw materials. Over 80,000 people visited the area during the ten days of the SC State Fair. A youth component of the exhibit reached over 400 youth with educational information. | | Impact | On-farm demonstration information, along with replicated trials through Clemson University, gave farmers valuable information for selecting crop varieties for the 2006 growing season. Producers made changes in their production practices based on information provided through Clemson University research. Agriculture production is extremely important to
everyone. Extension agronomic programs are designed to assist farmers so they can continue to provide the United States with the safest, highest quality, most abundant and cheapest food supply in the world.
No endorsement of the products mentioned in this article is intended or
implied. |
Last update7/11/2008
This website is maintained by Vickie Browder.
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