I take this opportunity to say farewell, so long and best wishes to a fellow with whom I’ve had the privilege to work for almost three years now.  Mike Corley, owner/operator of the local radio station WQBC here in Vicksburg, informed me that he is making big changes with the radio station and will be moving on to other projects.  

For the last several years, Mike and I have recorded a weekly radio show, which has aired on Saturday mornings at 7:30.  I consider him the expert and the professional when it comes to working all the equipment in a radio station booth.  In my opinion, he’s a very good interviewer, too.  I’ve just been the guy with the other microphone talking about various things the Extension Service happened to have going on that week or the next.  I am thankful to have had Corley’s help getting Extension’s programs, events and information out in yet another format. Corley has packed up his portable recording gear and traveled to Extension-related functions to record the Saturday morning show with me more times than I can count – events such as the Fall Flower and Garden Fest at Crystal Springs, 4-H Horse Shows and Field Days at the Brown Loam Experiment Station.   He and I once recorded a show from the Vicksburg Welcome Center when our Mississippi homemaker volunteers were there for their Child Abuse Awareness program we call Blue Ribbon Week.   

Perhaps the radio show I will remember the most is one we recorded last July.  I had gone out to the station prepared to talk all about the biology and control of ticks and the interactions between ticks, people and pets.  Corley did a great job getting all that recorded and he even included a portion of Brad Paisley’s hit, “I’d Like to Check You for Ticks” between the segments of the show.  This summer the National Association of County Agricultural Agents selected that particular radio program as the National Winner among all radio programs submitted by Extension Agents throughout the entire U.S. and they honored me with a fantastic plaque at the Association’s National meeting in Greensboro, NC.  When I got back to Vicksburg, I insisted that I get a photograph with Corley holding the plaque, because I felt he deserved the honor as much as I. 

He has furthered the Extension Service’s cause in other ways, as well, like the time he actually presented a program to our Homemaker volunteers on traditional Irish holiday dishes.  Once, he even judged the preserved foods at our Homemaker’s exhibit day.  Did I mention he has exceptional culinary skills in addition to his radio broadcasting expertise? 

Perhaps I should alert the Extension Agents in Navarro County Texas that they’ve got a fine resource heading their way and let them know that if they want a shot at a National winning radio program, Corley’s the guy who can help get it done. 

Reminder:  First Tuesday Gardening Series with Donna Beliech, Area Horticulture Agent, September 2 from noon until 1 pm in the Extension Conference room.  Topic: Southeastern Wildflowers.

One of the e-mails I received this week was from the owner of a local equestrian center. The question the sender asked was why they seem to have armyworms in their pastures about this time each year.  The truth is that armyworms have been so consistent about showing up the last few years, it seems that cattle and horse ranchers can almost plan on them appearing in late summer.  From the looks of things, we need to be on guard again this year.

The second part of her question was if there were something she could do to prevent the armyworms’ occurrence.  The best answer to that question is no.  It is really better to control armyworms only after they appear and after they reached the damaging levels we refer to as economic thresholds.   

Armyworms are not only pests to forage and hay producers, though.  Late summer and early fall are the peak season for fall armyworm invasions of well managed turf, too, especially bermudagrass lawns, athletic fields, and golf courses that have been fertilized and watered.  With the advent of football season upon us, it would really be an unpleasant situation to have the Friday-night playing surface disfigured by an invasion of armyworms.  Folks who take a lot of pride in the appearance of their home lawns wouldn’t appreciate that kind of damage either.  Believe me, the treatment threshold for golf courses, football fields and many lawns can be quite low, meaning very little damage will be tolerated.  

The armyworm adults or moths migrate in large numbers and lay as many as a thousand eggs each.  During these hot days of summer the eggs hatch in only a few days with the tiny caterpillars feeding almost continuously.   When small they may go unnoticed while consuming only a small amount of leaf tissue daily but nearing their last few days as larvae they can literally devour an entire lawn almost overnight. Therefore, it is important that a careful scouting regime be established to detect their presents and control them while they are small

.

At least once a week during the remaining growing season randomly check several locations in the lawn by brushing the grass back and forth with your hand, parting the blades down to the soil line and looking for coiled light-tan or green to nearly black caterpillars.  If you care to pick one of them up and look at it straight on you may noticed a small inverted “Y” marking on its forehead.    

Control is not too difficult if the lawn is treated with an appropriate insecticide when the caterpillars are small.  Liquid sprays or granules containing active ingredients of carbaryl, cyfluthrin, permethrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, or trichorfon are recommended. 

REMINDER: MSU will host a Muscadine Field Day at the McNeil Experiment Station Vineyard on Hwy 11 at McNeil, MS this Thursday beginning at 9 am.  Almost every named muscadine variety in existence is included in this vineyard.  Contact the Extension office for program topics and directions to the McNeil station.

Trees are among the longest living things on this earth.  Along with their long life is an exposure to risk over time.  Yet as a forest landowner, you can take steps to lower your risk of growing a forest.  The upcoming Master Tree Farmer Special Series will address these risks.  The course theme is “Forest Risk and Risk Management”.  This course will be held at the Warren County Extension office here in Vicksburg via our interactive video network. 

The program is being broadcast across the south from Clemson University.  Three sessions will be held on Tuesday evenings from September 9-23, at 5:30 to 9:00 p.m.  Course topics will include the nature of risk in forestry, how to prepare for managing that risk, and what tax policy and regulations allow in forest risk.  I believe that forest landowners will find this course very beneficial and enlightening. 

The cost of the course is $80 per person or $130 per couple.   The registration fee covers lecture notes, notebooks, course CD, and certificate.  In addition, a meal and refreshments will be served at each session.  There is an early registration deadline of August 29 to order materials.  Participants registering after this date cannot be assured course materials will be available at the beginning of the course. 

For a brochure and additional registration information, please contact the Warren County Extension office. 

For those of you wanting something fun to do this week, let me recommend you participate in the Miss-Lou Regional Tourism Summit, which is this Tuesday thru Thursday.  The theme of this year’s summit is Cultivating Your Community With Fresh Air and Fresh Ideas.  For those who want to check out some interesting ways to enhance local tourism, this summit is for you.  Participants will discover ways to turn their rural properties into tourist destinations. 

Parts of the summit include a bus trip up to Rolling Fork, where a few of my fellow Extension Agents will be coving topics such as developing a corn maze, making teachers love your farm, and hosting farm tours.  A full agenda for the Summit can be found at http://srdc.msstate.edu/misslou/agenda.htm.  Cost for the entire Summit is $100 per person or there is a per-day of $35 if you only have time for part of it. 

This final item I want to mention in this column today is for those who want to explore the manufacturing and marketing of a food product.  I talked to a fellow who operates a car repair shop here in the county about that concept a year or so ago.  This gentleman and, according to him, lots of his friends seem to think he’s got a great recipe for beef jerky.  Perhaps you or someone you know makes the best whatever you’ve put in your mouth.   

Our “Food as a Business Workshop”  on Thursday, August 28, at Raymond, MS will cover business plan development, keeping it legal, marketing and marketing research, “Make Mine Mississippi”, food processing regulations, labeling regulations, internet sales and more. The registration deadline is August 18 and there is a $35 per person fee.  Contact the Extension office for further details.

Trees are among the longest living things on this earth.  Along with their long life is an exposure to risk over time.  Yet as a forest landowner, you can take steps to lower your risk of growing a forest.  The upcoming Master Tree Farmer Special Series will address these risks.  The course theme is “Forest Risk and Risk Management”.  This course will be held at the Warren County Extension office here in Vicksburg via our interactive video network. 

The program is being broadcast across the south from Clemson University.  Three sessions will be held on Tuesday evenings from September 9-23, at 5:30 to 9:00 p.m.  Course topics will include the nature of risk in forestry, how to prepare for managing that risk, and what tax policy and regulations allow in forest risk.  I believe that forest landowners will find this course very beneficial and enlightening. 

The cost of the course is $80 per person or $130 per couple.   The registration fee covers lecture notes, notebooks, course CD, and certificate.  In addition, a meal and refreshments will be served at each session.  There is an early registration deadline of August 29 to order materials.  Participants registering after this date cannot be assured course materials will be available at the beginning of the course. 

For a brochure and additional registration information, please contact the Warren County Extension office. 

For those of you wanting something fun to do this week, let me recommend you participate in the Miss-Lou Regional Tourism Summit, which is this Tuesday thru Thursday.  The theme of this year’s summit is Cultivating Your Community With Fresh Air and Fresh Ideas.  For those who want to check out some interesting ways to enhance local tourism, this summit is for you.  Participants will discover ways to turn their rural properties into tourist destinations. 

Parts of the summit include a bus trip up to Rolling Fork, where a few of my fellow Extension Agents will be coving topics such as developing a corn maze, making teachers love your farm, and hosting farm tours.  A full agenda for the Summit can be found at http://srdc.msstate.edu/misslou/agenda.htm.  Cost for the entire Summit is $100 per person or there is a per-day of $35 if you only have time for part of it. 

This final item I want to mention in this column today is for those who want to explore the manufacturing and marketing of a food product.  I talked to a fellow who operates a car repair shop here in the county about that concept a year or so ago.  This gentleman and, according to him, lots of his friends seem to think he’s got a great recipe for beef jerky.  Perhaps you or someone you know makes the best whatever you’ve put in your mouth.   

Our “Food as a Business Workshop”  on Thursday, August 28, at Raymond, MS will cover business plan development, keeping it legal, marketing and marketing research, “Make Mine Mississippi”, food processing regulations, labeling regulations, internet sales and more. The registration deadline is August 18 and there is a $35 per person fee.  Contact the Extension office for further details.

The Extension Service has a couple of events on the agenda this week for crop and livestock farmers as well as home gardeners.

For the farmers or for really anyone who enjoys spending part of a day learning about the latest farm technology, we are holding our 2008 Field Day at MSU’s Brown Loam Branch Experiment Station near Raymond, MS on Thursday, August 7. The Station is a very short drive from Vicksburg. Registration for the field day is on-site and begins at 8:30 am.   There will be both informational sessions presented by our state Extension crop and livestock specialists along with several field tours throughout the morning.  The field day concludes with a sponsored lunch at noon. 

I feel certain a couple speakers will capture the attention of livestock producers near the Warren County area.  Dr. Jane Parish, Extension beef cattle specialist, will talk on Ethanol Co-Products for Beef Cattle Diets.  Also, Debra Buckelew with Bunge-Ergon Vicksburg LLC, will make a presentation on distillers grain.  This has really been a hot topic among cattle farmers since the ethanol plant began operations earlier this summer.   The grain portion remaining after the ethanol has been produced can make an excellent dietary supplement for beef or dairy cattle. 

Of course there will be sessions by our corn, soybean and cotton experts – Dr. Eric Larson, Dr. Trey Koger and Dr. Darren Dodd, respectively.  Dr. Chris Daves, Extension corn entomologist will also talk about the studies he is conducting.  Dr. Daves travels through Warren County each Monday as he makes his way up to Dorothy Butt’s farm at Eagle Lake. He has been taking season-long data on Southwestern Corn Borers – an insect that can devastate a corn crop. 

I do hope that area crop and livestock producers come to enjoy and to learn from this year’s field day and I sincerely hope some non-farmers will come, too.  Come witness your tax dollars hard at work keeping our farmers competitive and keeping your cost of food and fiber among the lowest in the world.  I can promise you’ll enjoy your morning. 

Now, let me mention the program for home gardeners.  Donna Beliech, Extension horticulture agent, will be here in Vicksburg for her First Tuesday Gardening Series on August 5.  Beliech’s topic this month is Making a Hypertufa Pot – a lightweight planting container which is relatively inexpensive and fairly easy to make. 

According to Beliech, old stone sinks and animal troughs have been used for years to grow plants in Europe.  The English garden troughs became popular in the 1930’s.  They were originally chiseled from tufa rock.  The tufa troughs are now scarce and expensive.  Hypertufa is an artificial medium with absorbent qualities very similar to tufa rock.  The end product will be lighter than regular concrete and resistant to cracking from freezing temperatures. 

Gardeners, come to the Extension office Tuesday at noon and hear Beliech share her recipe and instructions for making your very own hypertufa masterpiece. 

In just a week or so it will be back-to-school time for students in our area.  I’m sure the K-12 kids are taking inventory of their school uniforms and getting anxious about whom their teachers are going to be.  College students are making housing arrangements and perhaps figuring any way they can to cover the high cost of tuition and life away from home.  But what about the folks who are not involved in formal education and who still want to learn new skills? 

Ahhh….the Extension Service.  We will be having several informal sessions over the next couple of months that may interest those wanting to hone their computer skill and knowledge.  We have offered these to the general public before and have received a very good response.  Now, our Extension Service computer specialists are once again agreeing to teach the how-to’s of several popular computer programs utilizing our interactive video network.  Via that system, the professors can teach from the campus of MSU, while the students participate right here from the Warren County Extension office.  Keep in mind, though, that the sessions are interactive, so the student can ask questions and get answers just like being in a traditional classroom setting. 

I hope you will pull out your planning calendars and jot down the dates and times of the courses being offered.  Our space is somewhat limited, so I urge potential students to contact the Extension office and register soon for the classes you select. These classes are free.  The following is the list of sessions we have on our calendar for August and September: 

Understanding PDF’s, August 12, 1:30-3:00 pm.  Learn about the uses for PDF files and the different types of software available to use and edit PDF documents.

Working with Adobe 7.0 Standard, August 12, 9-12 pm.   Learn how to create a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat.

Using Photo Albums in Power Point, August 18, 9-12 pm.  Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 has a new feature called photo albums that allows you to quickly make a slide show from your photos.  This will allow you to make a slide show by inserting photos, applying basic edits, and creating subtitles.

Creating Newsletters in Word 2007, August 27, 9-12 pm.  Learn to add such features as watermarks, logos, photos and drop caps to your newsletters.

Cyber-Bullying, September 4, 12-1 pm.  Learn what to do if your child is the victim or the bully and the legal ramifications of both. 

Intro to Excel 2007, September 8, 9 am-4 pm.  This course will give you all you need to create and use simple spreadsheets to make your basic calculations and data sorting easier.

Using Mail Merge in Word 2007, September 9, 9-12 pm.  Learn to combine MS Excel and Word to create mailing labels and envelopes from scratch.

Creating Forms in Word 2007, September 9, 1-4 pm. Learn to use the developer component of Word 2007.

Using Web 2.0 Technologies, September 10, 1-4 pm.  We will look at several programs like Bitstrip, Flickr, TastyPlanner, Pixton, Fix My Movie and more.

Advanced PowerPoint 2007, September 18, 9-12 pm. 

Multimedia in PowerPoint 2007, September 18, 1-4 pm.

If you called the Extension office this past week, you noticed I was out. I was attending the National Association of County Agricultural Agents (NACAA) annual meeting and professional improvement conference in Greensboro, North Carolina. 

The NACAA rotates its conferences to each of four regions throughout the country each year. Conferences have been held annually since 1916. They are a great place for a County Extension Agent to pick up on a lot of new ideas and network with other agents from around the US. 

Warren County’s Extension Agents have a very long history of participating in the NACAA.  In fact, some of you may even be old enough to remember longtime County Agent W.R. Lominick, who was extremely involved in the National organization years before I was born. Others like Hunter George and Terry Rector were quite involved throughout their careers as well.  

The national meeting is not a vacation – it’s truly designed to help agents become better at doing their jobs back home.  There are scientific presentations, educational posters, commercial exhibits and farm tours. 

In my opinion, the farm tours are the highlight.  This year, the North Carolina Agents set up 32 tours from which one could choose.  The one I selected entitled “Farming on the Urban Edge” featured four tour stops – Maple Spring Gardens, Rock of Ages Winery and Vineyard, Fickle Creek Farm and Maple View Farm.  We rounded out the day at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds in Winston-Salem, NC for a BBQ sponsored by the NC Pork Council.  In addition to a great meal, we were also entertained by a Barney Fife impersonator who looked and acted so much like Don Knott’s character on the Andy Griffith show it was scary. 

I based my tour selection on the fact that I felt it would suit my job here in Warren County and perhaps even the future of agriculture in our area.  Maple Spring Gardens featured a small farm where the owners raised over 80 vegetable varieties, cut flowers and small fruits for sale to local markets.  I wonder if transportation costs continue to increase might we see a major comeback of locally grown foods.  The 61-acre Maple Spring Gardens is certainly a model of a viable, environmentally sound farming operation supplying food to the local community. 

Rock of Ages Winery and Vineyard certainly makes its contribution to the reason why North Carolina now ranks 12^th nationally in grape production and 12^th for wine production.  We can’t grow grapes in Mississippi due to Pierce’s disease, but muscadines thrive here very well.  

Fickle Creek Farm included laying hens, meat chickens, sheep, meat goats, jersey steers and pigs all grown on pasture.  The owners have found a substantial local market for their naturally grown animals raised without medicated feeds, hormones or grain finishing. 

Maple View Farm was a small family dairy whose owners realized they would either have to include direct marketing of their products or go out of business.  Since learning to process and retail their products to stores within a 50-mile radius of their farm, they now have a very sustainable farm and dairy processing facility.  

I learned a lot and am glad to have had the opportunity to attend.

One of my former college classmates started a new job last week.  Effective July 1, Dr. Steve Martin assumed the role as head of MSU’s Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville, MS.  Prior to being named head of the center, Martin worked as an agricultural economist at Stoneville for about 20 years. Down through the years, Martin and I have worked together on several projects involving the economics of various agricultural practices. I found one of Martin’s most recent publications very interesting and guessed that some of this column’s readers may find some useful information in Martin’s findings, as well.

His publication was the results of a survey he conducted late last winter regarding land ownership, land values, and rental rates. Martin’s report summarizes the findings from that survey. The title of his publication, which was published last month, is Mississippi Agricultural Land Values and Rental Rates.  Personally, I believe this information is good reference material for anyone who rents or leases a farm, owns farm land, or who may be considering investing in agricultural property.   

Agricultural landowners and farmers surveyed were asked questions about land values and rental rates.  In addition, the survey also gathered responses about the types of agricultural practices, conservation programs, length and type of rental arrangements, and demographics concerning residence and age. 

The results are actually reported in two ways – first as state totals and by specific geographic regions of Mississippi, which are the same as the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) reporting districts. 

Across the state, 98% of the respondents were landowners.  The average age of the respondents was 60 years, slightly older than the average of 57.2 years reported in the 2002 Census of Agriculture. Of those who owned land, 24% reported leasing a portion of that land to others. 
 
 

Martin showed some variation in the data based on whether the survey’s respondents received a cash rental rate for their land versus paying rent for agricultural land.  Statewide, the average cash rental rate received for row crop land was $62 per acre and for grass land $23.  Obviously, cash rental is more common today than crop share arrangements.  In Martin’s survey, on 4.75% of the respondents reported renting row crop land on a share rental arrangement with an average share rental agreement of 24%.  The average length of row crop leases reported was 2.5 years. 

Respondents who said they rented land from others – well over half of the farmers surveyed – paid slightly higher rates than those received, according to Martin’s data.  The statewide rental rate for row crop land was $70 and for grass land $30. 

Perhaps some of the details potential land investors might find useful are the statewide average land sale prices.  The average price for row crop land was $1,938 and grass land was $2405.  Timber land was also reported with an average sale price of $1954. 

While the information I’ve included in today’s column focuses on statewide averages, the results from the individual geographic regions reflect more of that region’s values based on land use and capabilities.  I will gladly share further details of Martin’s study or a copy of his report upon request.