CASSELTON, N.D. — Precision agriculture, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), cereal grains, soybeans, weeds, crop diseases and crop pests are the focus of this year’s field tour at the North Dakota State University Agronomy Seed Farm near Casselton.
The tour will be held Monday, July 17, starting at 5 p.m.
Participants will be able to view research trials and receive production information from NDSU specialists. This year’s tour will include a discussion on precision agriculture using UAVs, stops at soybean breeding plots, cereal grain plots and weed research plots.
The presenters for this year’s tour and the topics they will cover are:
- John Nowatzki, NDSU agricultural machine systems specialist – will discuss potential uses of UAVs for crop management. Nowatzki’s presentation will include a display of UAVs currently used at NDSU and recommendations for selecting UAVs and cameras for farmers.
- Jacob Maurer, NDSU Extension agriculture and natural resources agent, Cass County – will discuss the struggles and successes of precision agriculture technology adoption on the farm and how the inclusion of digital data can improve agronomic and economic farm management decisions
- Ted Helms, NDSU soybean breeder – will give an update on soybean breeding efforts and discuss several new soybean releases
- Joel Ransom, NDSU Extension agronomist for cereal crops, and his students – will discuss the use of hand held and drone mounted optical sensors for predicting protein in spring wheat prior to flowering, optimizing post-anthesis nitrogen applications to wheat for protein enhancement and corn hybrid selection
- Andrew Friskop and Sam Markell, NDSU Extension plant pathologists, will discuss current issues relating to crop diseases in small grains and row crops
- Jan Knodel, NDSU Extension entomologist and Pat Beauzay, research specialist in Extension entomology, will discuss current pest problems in cereal grains and row crops
- Andrew Green, NDSU spring wheat breeder – will discuss the newest NDSU release, ND VitPro, along with other new and upcoming wheat varieties, as well as answer questions about the wheat breeding program
- Kirk Howatt and Richard Zollinger, NDSU weed scientists – will discuss herbicide updates and answer grower questions
Following the tour, NDSU’s Carnivore Catering will serve participants a dinner.
The Agronomy Seed Farm is located one mile south and one mile west of Casselton. For more information, contact Brian Otteson at 701-347-4743.
— NDSU Agriculture Communication
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