July 25, 2008

Irrigated crop and pest management research will be the focus of the Aug. 6 field day at UNL's South Central Agricultural Laboratory near Clay Center. The event will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Extension specialists conducting research at SCAL will discuss and share their work and findings at three tour stops. Topics and speakers include:

• New crop herbicides, weed identification and volunteer corn management and population estimation — Mark Bernards, Extension irrigated weeds specialist
• Organic cropping systems research and soybean variety demonstration — Bob Wright, Extension field crops entomology specialist, and Elizabeth Sarno, organic farming systems educator
• Center pivot research, subsurface drip irrigation research update and soil evaporation and crop transpiration for no-till and disk-till fields with corn and soybeans — Suat Irmak, Extension water resources engineer
• Management of foliar diseases of corn, fungicide efficacy trials — Tamra Jackson, Extension plant pathology specialist
• Quad County On-farm Research, soybean population study — Jennifer Rees, Extension educator
• Remote sensing of crops, Veris pH mapping and in-season nitrogen sensing — Richard Ferguson, Extension soils specialist

Ken Cassman, director of UNL's Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research, will speak during the noon hour on "Avoiding the Backlash: Ensuring Sustainability of Corn-Ethanol Systems." The noon meal will be provide by the field day sponsors, including UNL's Southeast Research and Extension Center, the Nebraska Corn Board, the Nebraska Soybean Board, and the Flowserve Pump Division of Hastings.

Location

The South Central Agricultural Laboratory is located on the south side of Highway 6, 13 miles east of Hastings or 7.5 miles west of the Highway 14 and Highway 6 intersection. For more information visit the South Central Ag Lab's Web site at http://scal.unl.edu or call (402) 762-4403.