Archive for the ‘Field Days’ Category

2010 Bean and Beet Field Day

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

-E. Taylor

Yesterday was the annual field day held at the Saginaw Valley Research and Extension Center in Richville, MI. This was the second year that the field day has been held at the farm’s new location. This year’s tour offered more one-on-one interaction between the attendees and the researchers which received positive feedback. There were researchers there from the many different disciplines that work at the “Bean and Beet Farm”, including pathologists, breeders, entomologists, extension specialists, and of course weed scientists. Christy Sprague and Alicia Spangler were at the sugarbeet stop to talk about the many different weed management trials and Alicia’s M.S. project looking at varying nitrogen fertilizer rates in combination with weed removal timings. Gary Powell and Ryan Holmes were at the dry bean stop to answer weed control and dessication questions as well as to talk about Ryan’s M.S. project looking at row spacing and populations as it relates to canopy closure, weed management, and some insects in black and small red beans. The field day turned out to be a great success and we look forward to doing in again next year.

2010 MSU Weed Tour Video

Friday, July 16th, 2010

-E. Taylor

Thank you for those that attended the annual MSU Weed Tour. We had a great turn out this year and enjoyed presenting our research to you. Please enjoy a video highlighting the day’s events.

2010 MSU Weed Tour featured in State News

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

-E. Taylor

The State News visited the 2010 MSU Weed Tour and wrote a nice article on the days events.

http://www.statenews.com/index.php/article/2010/06/msu_weed_tour_educates_mich_growers

Keep checking back as we will be posting the official 2010 Weed Tour video soon!

Online Registration LIVE for 2010 MSU Weed Tour

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

-E. Taylor

The 2010 MSU Weed Tour is fast approaching (June 30th). Information regarding the day’s events along with online registration are now available at http://www.msuweeds.com/events/2010_msu_weed_tour/

2009 SVREC Field Day

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

-E. Taylor

What’s SVREC? It’s the Saginaw Valley Research and Extension Center…but we still call it “Bean and Beet”. Tuesday, August 25th was the first field day at this new Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES) in Richville, MI. With around 1/3 of the farm’s acreage in research plots there was a lot to learn from the researchers. I drove one of the eight wagons around to each station. Our first stop was with Christina DiFonzo, MSU entomologist. She introduced us to Western Bean Cutworm, showing us it’s lifecycle, distribution in MI, and signs of damage. Apparently the worms are what do the most damage to crops such as corn, dry edible beans, and snap beans. Our next stop was with Greg Varner, research director for the Production Research Advisory Board for the Michigan Bean Industry. Among other things, Greg discussed some of the disease issues dry bean producers have been seeing around the state. Our third stop was with  Jim Kelly, MSU Dry Bean Breeder. Here we learned about the timeline for introducing new varieties. From crossing the two ”parent” bean varieties to creating a new commercially available variety can take 8 to 10 years!  New varieties are selected for disease resistance, favorable structural characteristics, yield, quality, etc. On our fourth stop we met with Michigan Sugar Company research agronomist, Jim Stewart, who discussed trends in sugarbeet yields and disease incidence across MI, and USDA Sugarbeet Geneticist, Mitch McGrath who gave us an introduction to sugarbeet genetics and how favorable traits determined. Our fifth stop was with Corey Guza, Michigan Sugar Company Agronomist, and  Linda Hanson, USDA Sugarbeet Pathologist. Corey and Linda talked about a variety of diseases that occur in sugarbeet, including cercospora leaf spot, phoma leaf spot, and rhizoctonia root rot.  Our final stop on the tour was with Christy Sprague, our own MSU weed scientist. Among the things she discussed were dessication trials that her team is conducting in dry beans using Valor, Gramoxone, and Roundup and the control of volunteer glyphosate-resistant corn and soybeans in glyphosate-resistant sugarbeet.  After the tour we headed up to the brand new equipment shed to have a delicious pork chop lunch and listen to a brief presentation regarding the progress at the new farm.