DATE: 8/12/04                                                                                                CONTACT: Dr. Steve Meadows, (803) 284-3343, ext. 270                                          WRITER: Tom Lollis, (803) 284-3343, ext. 241

Fall Field Day is Sept. 2 at Clemson’s Edisto REC

BLACKVILLE – South Carolina farmers are always on the lookout for ways to improve efficiency, productivity and profitability.

They can find some of those ideas Sept. 2 at Clemson University ’s Edisto Research and Education Center during Fall Field Day.

“We’ll have information for the farmer who grows cotton, oybeans, peanuts, melons, vegetables or beef cattle,” said Steve Meadows, resident director at Edisto REC.

Registration begins at 9 a.m. and the program at 9:30 . Morning and afternoon sessions will each feature two tours. In the morning, one tour will concentrate on peanuts and the other on cattle and forages. After a noon lunch producers may choose between a tour which concentrates on vegetable and melon production and one that looks at cotton and soybean production issues.

Peanut experts will tell which fungicide programs work best, how in-furrow and foliar insecticides affect tomato spotted wilt and how liquid inoculants and inoculant mixes work. Producers will also get a look at peanut variety trials and plots that show the effects of growth regulators and injury from three cornered alfalfa hopper. They will also see a demonstration of how to use a pressure washer to evaluate peanut maturity.

The morning cattle/forage tour will give producers tips on how to manage legumes in pasture systems, how to manage clovers interseeded into permanent pasture sod, what alfalfa varieties work in grazing systems and look at new varieties of fescue free of the endophyte that causes fescue toxicity.

Beef producers will also hear about the benefits of preconditioning cattle, retaining ownership of cattle sent to feedlots and improved production and profits to be had through crossbreeding.

Speakers will also discuss the Integrated Resource Management Program, which explores ways to make more efficient use of the farm’s total resources to produce a better, more profitable product.

Afternoon tours begin around 1:15 and conclude around 3:30 .

During the vegetable tour speakers will hear about new compounds and traditional products used to control caterpillars in collards; an evaluation of neo-nicotinoid aphicides and application methods for best control in peppers; comparisons of new and traditional insecticides for control of common squash insects; fungicide treatments on Athena cantaloupe and their effects on Gummy Stem Blight, Alternaria, Downy Mildew and other diseases.

Producers will also get a look at 16 different varieties of seedless watermelons and 26 different varieties of palm melons. Other plots show the effects of a seaweed extract called BM 86 on fruit set in the Palm melon variety Mohican, nematicide options for double-cropped squash, and the effects of treatments to control viruses in Mystic Plus pumpkins.

The cotton/soybean tour will give producers a look at control strategies for piercing/sucking insects in cotton, the state cotton and soybean variety trials and the soybean variety development program at Clemson University

Other stops will show how various varieties fare in fields infested with some of the major nematodes found in South Carolina , the role fungicides may play in control of cotton hardlock, an evaluation of varieties in hardlock development and variable rate irrigation systems.

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