Agricultural Research Centers In Sidney & Williston Preparing For Annual Field Days

The 2023 MSU-EARC Field Day, Sidney, 1501 N Central Ave., will start at 9 a.m. on July 11. They have an agenda packed with speakers who will be covering their current research projects, all of which affect our local farmers and crop choices.

Marie Dorval, MSU Ph.D. student, will be discussing intercropping chickpea and flax for Ascochyta disease management.

Followed by, Dr. Frankie Crutcher, MSU-EARC plant pathologist, will speaking on cover crops affecting pulse crop root diseases.

Dr. Chengci Chen, EARC superintendent and agronomist, will share his findings especially interesting to local growers looking for alternatives to sugar beets. His studies of mung bean, adzuki bean, and dry beans as potential rotation crops for the region include variety selection, planting, harvesting, and weed management. Dr. Chen will present with Dr. Maral Etesami, research professional, their study of camelina and canola as potential rotation crops for dryland and irrigated production systems.

Dr. Gautum Pradhan, NDSU Research Agronomist, will cover black gram and soybean variety performance; followed by Drs. Jason Cook and Mike Giroux, and several other plant breeders, discussing cereal crop breeding and new released varieties.

Lunch will be served at the EARC building, 1501 N. Central Ave., Sidney.

Williston’s NDSU-REC 2023 Field Day will begin July 12, and plans to run from 4-8 p.m., at the Research Extension Center, 14120 Hwy 2, Williston.

Registration begins at 3 p.m. CT for those wishing to attend, with NDSU Vice President Greg Lardy and NDSU President David Cook welcoming attendees before loading the wagon to begin the tour. Speakers and talk titles are tentative currently, and subject to change before June 15.

There are three divisions of the Willistion-REC; Agronomy/Dryland, Horticulture, and the Irrigated Tour.

The Irrigated tour will be held separately on July 13, from 8:30 a.m.-12 p.m. at the Nesson Valley Irrigation Research and Development Farm, located 23 miles east of Williston on Hwy 1804.

Meals will be served at both, with the dryland and horticulture tour serving a steak and lamb dinner afterwards, and the Irrigation tour plans on offering hamburgers for lunch.

The agronomy, or dryland, section of the tour will host Hannah Worral, Minot Research Center, speaking on pulse breeding and upcoming releases, and Kyle Dragseth, WREC, will share their foundation seedstock pulse varieties at stop 1. At stop 2, Clair Keene will discuss Kernza perennial grain, also considered a sugar beet alternative. Lindsay Malone and Kelsey Griesheim are two planned speakers at this stop, along with Audrey Kalil, NDSU-REC plant pathologist. Kalil will speak on the impact of planting date on root rot of peas.

In fields 3 and 4, the third stop of the tour, they plan five speakers and an optional seed plant tour for those interested. Plotted speakers and topics include Elias Elias on durum varieties and breeding update; Andrew Friskop with a scab update; Charlie Lim with a weed management update; and Gautam Pradhan with guar and black gram trial results. James Rogers is a hopeful, discussing forage grass species selection and production.

The horticulture section of the tour was not able to share their plans at this time, but Tyler Tjelde, Nesson Valley Irrigation Research Farm plans to cover diseases in corn and small grains during their tour. Andrew Friskop, NDSU plant pathologist, will discuss weeds and weed management, especially in resistant varieties. Again, that tour will take place July 13, from 8:30 a.m.-noon., at the Nesson Valley Research Farm.

For producers, the field days provide priceless research updates and information valuable to their daily and future operations. They represent not only the last year’s research findings and progress, but decades of scientists and agriculture professionals’ labors to better our farming techniques and ultimately, results.

 

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