Clemson’s agriculture and forestry research and education centers are ‘high priority’

Published: September 2, 2010

Marion Barnes, senior extension agent who works in Allendale, Colleton and Hampton counties, demonstrates the Penn State Hay Probe. image by: Peter Hull

BLACKVILLE — John Kelly, Clemson's vice president for economic development and public service and agriculture, said Thursday at the Edisto Research and Education Center’s annual Fall Field Day that the off-campus agriculture sites are stamped “high priority” by the university administration.

Clemson’s research and education centers do some of the most important work for agriculture in the state, Kelly said, and "our intent is to protect them.”

As one example, Kelly pointed to the soybean rust-monitoring program led by Clemson’s John Mueller, extension soybean pathologist and director of the Edisto center. The program saves South Carolina growers more than $25 million a year in the form of about $10 million in reduced crop losses and about $15 million in reduced spraying costs.

The project is funded by the U.S Department of Agriculture, United Soybean Board, S.C. Soybean Board and the North Central Soybean Research Council.

In 2009, South Carolina growers produced more than 14 million bushels of soybeans on 590,000 acres with a gross value of nearly $140 million. Thanks, in part, to Clemson’s monitoring program, less than 1 percent of the state’s soybean crop is lost to rust.

More than 200 visitors to the annual field day toured the center’s 2,300 acres of peanuts, row and vegetable crops, beef cattle and the Edisto Forage Bull Test Center.

During the beef cattle and forages tour, Marion Barnes, senior extension agent who works in Allendale, Colleton and Hampton counties, demonstrated the Penn State Hay Probe. Rather than sampling from a few handfuls of hay, probes allow nutrition samples of bales to be taken across an entire field, improving accuracy and helping farmers save money, he said. Hay that is low in nutrition may require supplements, which cost money. Good quality hay is all some cattle and horses need, he said.

“The better the sample, the better the results,” Barnes said.

During the peanut tour, Jay Chapin, an extension peanut and small grain specialist at the Edisto center, gave visitors an overview of the many varieties on trial, such as the large Titan variety.

“Bigger peanuts equal bigger risk,” he said. “From calcium deficiency to disease, it’s important to know the risks associated with specialty varieties.”

Other tours included agronomic crops, which included presentations on choosing optimum planting dates and seeding rates for soybeans, and fall vegetables, which discussed major viruses that attack pumpkins, control of pumpkin insects and pumpkin diseases.

Guest speakers included agriculture commissioner Hugh Weathers and David Winkles, president of the S.C. Farm Bureau.

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