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| Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences VISION eXtra is e-mailed weekly to faculty and staff of Bumpers College and the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Division of Agriculture. This service is primarily for timely announcement of news and events for the AAES and Bumpers College. Submit items to hmedders@uark.edu. You may also wish to submit items to headline@uark.edu for posting on "UA Daily Headlines" for campus-wide distribution. |
Aug. 25 , 2008 |
2. Herbicide Tolerance is Southern Pea Field Day Top
3. Forestry and Wildlife Field Days at Hope and Colt
4. Disease Screening Program Expands
5. Miller Elected to ACT Adviser Post
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1. Classes Resume
As classes resumed Monday, Bumpers College ambassadors staffed tables to help new students find their way around campus.
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FIRST DAY -- Bumpers College ambassadors Ashley Reitzler, left, and Nathan Waldrip, at a "Help a Hog" table in front of the Agriculture Building, help freshman Britta Thielemann find her way to class on the first day of classes. |
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2. Herbicide Tolerance is Southern Pea Field Day Topic
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| FIELD DAY -- Visitors tour southern pea research plots during a field day Aug 22 at the Division of Agriculture's Vegetable Research Station near Kibler. |
Graduate student Vinod Shivrain told visitors to the Souther Pea Field Day Aug. 22 at the Division's Vegetable Research Station near Kibler that weed scientist Nilda Burgos is working with vegetable breeder Teddy Morelock to select southern pea breeding lines for tolerance to several commercial herbicides.
Similar work is being done for spinach and other vegetable crops, he said.
Morelock said building herbicide tolerance in southern peas is an exciting move for the breeding program. Since the program began about 60 years ago, he said, breeders have developed improved varieties for both commercial processors and home gardens.
Morelock said there are about 7,500 breeding lines in the program, a massive number to keep track of. The latest varieties to be released, in 2008, are Ebony, a black pea with a white eye, and Envoy, a red "Holstein" with a reddish brown and tan mottling.
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| BREEDING PROGRAM -- Jim Moore of Thackerville, Okla., left, and vegetable breeder Teddy Morelock look at a test plot of Early Scarlet peas during a field day Aug. 22. Pea growers, processors and seed dealers learned about the southern pea breeding program and other research at the Division of Agriculture's Vegetable Research Station near Kibler. |
"These are both good eating peas," Morelock said. "Envoy had the top yields in trials for three years in a row, so it's a novelty variety with high yields."
In another presentation, entomologist Paul McLeod told the pea growers, processors and seed dealers in attendance that entomologists like working with southern peas.
"Insects love southern peas," McLeod said. "They go after them from planting right through storage." But treating pea fields against insect pests can be expensive for a crop with a narrow profit margin.
The main culprits, McLeod said, are thrips and aphids. McLeod said tests of relatively inexpensive seed treatments indicate that the treatments provide good control of both thrips and aphids.
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3. Forestrty and Wildlife Field Days at Hope and Colt
Forestry and wildlife field days are scheduled for Sept. 18 at the Southwest Research and Extension Center in Hope and on Oct. 11 at the Pine Tree Branch Station, Colt.
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4. Disease Screening Program Expands
The Division of Agriculture's department of plant pathology has expanded its disease screening research program to include a site at the Newport Research Station in Jackson County.
The Newport site provides several new and unique opportunities for applied research, field demonstrations, and "hands-on" in-service training, according to Scott Monfort, assistant professor and extension plant pathologist. The Division of Agriculture installed a two-tower center irrigation pivot at the station, with support from the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board and the Arkansas Corn and Grain Sorghum Promotion Board. The 17-acre site will provide a location for research on soybeans, corn and grain sorghum. In the 2008-09 season, disease management plots on wheat will be added.
Plant Pathologists will look at worse case infection scenarios where they can control inoculum build-up, Monfort said. "This approach will allow us to evaluate disease every year, and it will offer growers an opportunity to see the damage potential of selected diseases affecting a monoculture-type cropping system."
Currently, disease research trials are located at Kibler in the northwest, Hope in the southwest and at Rohwer in the southeast. The Newport site adds a northeast location.
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5. National ACT Elects Miller to Adviser Post
Jeff Miller was elected adviser of National Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow at the 2008 National ACT Conference in Tampa. The adviser is the only faculty member to serve as an officer in the ACT student organization. Miller was nominated by the National ACT officer team and was elected by the national organization's membership in the annual business meeting. He will serve as national adviser from 2009 to 2012. ACT is the only national student organization for students pursuing careers in agricultural journalism and communications.
AAES and Bumpers College Web sites:
http://aaes.uark.edu/
http://bumperscollege.uark.edu/