News From 2013

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Two Mississippi State University administrators have been accepted into a two-year leadership development program that will connect them with food systems peers and industry professionals.

Peter Ryan, MSU associate provost, and Michael Newman, professor and director of the MSU School of Human Sciences, will join the national Food Systems Leadership Institute’s fall 2013 class.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – The Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine is hosting a free webinar on preharvest beef safety Nov. 20.

The webinar, “Beef Safety: Are You Giving Good Advice?,” will be broadcast from 2-4 p.m. Seating for 95 participants will be available in the Tait Butler Auditorium at the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine for those who want to attend in person.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A career spent in forestry in the Southeast gave Leon Cambre the opportunity to collect more than 10,000 long-horned beetle specimens that he recently donated to Mississippi State University.

Terence Schiefer, a Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station researcher and curator of the Mississippi Entomological Museum, said the collection came pinned, labeled and organized by species. It is contained in three cabinets holding 36 glass-topped drawers of specimens. The insects were collected over more than 50 years and are now located at MSU.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – After a late start for the planting season raised fears that a hot August could damage the crop, Mississippi’s rice has yielded a high-quality harvest.

The Oct. 20 U.S. Department of Agriculture crop progress and condition report indicated the state’s rice crop was 96 percent harvested. The crop’s quality was rated as 50 percent good and 25 percent excellent.

Tim Walker, rice agronomist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said grain quality is based on several factors, including translucence.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Wildlife managers can get expert tips on what to plant in food plots year-round with a new app from the Mississippi State University Deer Lab.

Bronson Strickland, a wildlife management specialist with the MSU Extension Service, said he wanted to give people easy access to research-based information while in the field or in the feed store looking at seed.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A new agricultural event targeting third-graders will take place at Mississippi State University Nov. 5-9.

FARMtastic is an educational program designed to help children learn the sources of their food, clothing and other products. They also will learn about wildlife and health issues.

MISSISSIPPI STATE --The associate director of two research centers at Mississippi State University is a new Fellow in The Wildlife Society.

Loren W. “Wes” Burger Jr., a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, was recognized for exceptional service to the wildlife profession at the 2013 annual meeting of The Wildlife Society. Burger serves as associate director of the MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

By Kaitlyn Byrne
MSU Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Fourteen members of the Mississippi State University Dairy Science Club, none of whom had shown dairy cattle before, proved hard work pays off when they took home several awards at the Mississippi State Fair.

TUNICA – A decade after watching her first demonstration of Pat Parelli’s natural horsemanship techniques, Katie Cagle was in the arena with her horse for some personal instruction from the world-renowned horseman.

Cagle has experienced many equine challenges throughout more than 10 years in 4-H and a lifetime around horses. When the call went out from the Parelli organization for local horses that were difficult to load into a trailer, Cagle knew her horse, Popeye, was the perfect challenge.

As much as I’ve tried the last few weeks to encourage you to give summer annuals a chance to put on one last show, it’s time to start thinking about cool-season color. Probably the most recognizable cool-weather bedding plant is the pansy, a tough and reliable garden performer.

I really like the Cool Wave series of trailing pansies. If you think the name “Wave” sounds familiar, you’re right. Cool Wave pansies were bred by the same folks who brought the popular Wave petunias to many Mississippi gardens.

IMISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippi State University has planned three upcoming events to supply forage producers with the latest and best information possible to help them with production.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A partnership with Prestage Farms Inc. is allowing Mississippi State University to improve its swine research facility as university scientists prepare to resume swine-related studies.

John Blanton, head of the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences at MSU, said there is a need in the Southeast for science-based information on swine production.
“We are addressing that need of our stakeholders through our swine research program,” Blanton said.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippi’s pumpkins have experienced something of a holiday miracle with one of their best seasons ever.

David Nagel, horticulturist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said 2013 has been the best year for pumpkins since he started working in the state about 25 years ago. Mississippi growers are producing more and larger pumpkins than their competitors in states to the north.

INDIANOLA – An upcoming seminar will help people discover ways to secure, save and safeguard tax refunds for themselves or the clients they serve.

Mississippi State University Extension Service will offer the program from 11:45 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 23 at the Charlie Capps Technology Center in Indianola. The seminar’s purpose is to provide organizational leaders and professionals with information on tax credits that can result in higher income tax refunds.

BROOKHAVEN – When Hurricane Katrina destroyed his timber stand in 2005, Lincoln County landowner Jason McDonald searched for an alternative crop.

In May 2012, he visited the Charleston Tea Plantation in South Carolina and began to consider growing the crop himself.

“I wanted something that was sustainable and better at resisting storm damage,” McDonald said. “As long as tea plants are managed well, they are low-growing, which makes them able to survive high winds.”

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Master Gardeners know one of the basic principles that university students around the country are discovering: Education is about more than books.

Mississippi’s horticultural educators and volunteers recently returned to campus for the Master Gardener University, hosted by the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Like many college students, Master Gardeners take part in a variety of community service projects. The educational volunteers shared these projects along with their accumulated knowledge at the conference.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Gardeners with landscape challenges walked away with wheelbarrows full of ideas after three landscape designers shared tips at the nation’s oldest symposium of its kind.

The 58th Edward C. Martin Jr. Landscape Symposium drew more than 100 garden club members, Master Gardeners, students and design professionals to Mississippi State University Oct. 16.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Starkville-area teachers are invited to bring their students Nov. 1 to the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine to listen to the adventures of National Geographic explorer Helen Thayer.

The college is hosting Thayer as part of its Nestle Purina Human-Animal Bond Series. Thayer will share her adventures as the first woman to travel to the Magnetic North Pole with only the companionship of her dog. She will also discuss her experience living among wolves for a year.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippi State University is moving a popular horse sale into cyberspace with a special online auction.

More than 20 horses from the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station’s herd will be sold from Nov. 1 to 21 at http://www.auction.msucares.com. Buyers can also bid on the stud fee for one 2014 breeding to gray American quarter horse stallion UGA King of Aces.