News

PICAYUNE – The traditional skills, crafts and arts of Mississippi’s Piney Woods region will be showcased during the Piney Woods Heritage Festival at Mississippi State University’s Crosby Arboretum Nov. 15 and 16.

Visitors to the Picayune facility will enjoy educational exhibits and skills demonstrations, including blacksmithing, wood carving, quilting, storytelling and more. Craftsmen and artists also will offer their work for purchase.

By Dave Storment
MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Mississippi State University scientists are working to find out why some pregnancies are successful and others are not.

Jean Feugang, a research assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, is studying the reproductive stage that remains one of the most mysterious -- the time just before conception.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- This year’s rainy spring kept grass from growing, but it also kept contractors from building, allowing Mississippi’s sod farmers to manage the season’s rough beginning.

Barry Stewart, turf management specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service and Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, said demand was low at a time that benefitted growers.

I am a firm believer that many of our flowering landscape plants are only one or two steps out of the ditch. The goldenrod is no exception.

I sometimes find it hard to believe that some gardeners actually grow it in their gardens on purpose.

Most folks can recognize goldenrods growing wild. In a couple of weeks, we will start seeing their annual explosion of golden color. Flowering goldenrods are a sign that cooler fall weather is not far away.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Mississippi State University’s commitment to its land-grant mission and to the state’s $7.5 billion agriculture and forestry industry resulted in a top spot in a recently released National Science Foundation report.

JACKSON – Gardeners can keep insects and diseases under control and make spring planting easier with a little bit of cleanup right now.

“Good sanitation is one of the easiest and most economical methods of insect and disease control in the vegetable garden,” said Rebecca Bates, Mississippi State University Extension Service Lincoln County coordinator.

In vegetable gardens, plants should be removed as soon as production stops. Any live plant material will continue to provide food for insect pests and allow them to mature and multiply.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- In a state where tornadoes, hurricanes and floods are regular -- although unwanted -- visitors, Mississippi State University has plans for how to preserve data and ongoing research projects.

Hurricane Katrina’s Aug. 29 anniversary provides reminders of the havoc natural disasters can wreak with lives, homes and businesses. Losses to research are less tangible but can be just as devastating.

Dr. Stephen Pruett, head of basic sciences at MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, knows just how high those losses could mount.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippi’s farm and ranch women can learn how to plan for the future of their farming businesses at a workshop series offered by the Mississippi State University and Alcorn State University Extension Services.

by Kaitlyn Byrne
MSU Office of Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- The Mississippi State University Extension Service uses creative technology, including video conferencing and webinars, to cut costs and reach more people with research-based programs.

Connie Templeton, distance learning analyst with the Distance Education team in the Extension Center for Technology Outreach, said a combination of video conferences, webinars and online training modules help Extension agents reduce costs for meetings, workshops and classes.

Even though we’re still in a very warm August, now is the time to start thinking about fall color.

Planting fall-flowering annuals can enhance your landscape’s ability to offer color right through spring. Garden centers will soon be offering some good choices of fall bedding plants, so make plans now for what you want your landscape to look like.

WOODVILLE – Four months ago Elease Sullivan knew very little about Facebook or the potential it held for her business.

But the Mississippi Bricks to Clicks pilot program changed that.

Mississippi State University’s Extension Service partnered with Woodville/Wilkinson County Main Street Association to test a program that helps small businesses understand and use social media to market their products or services.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippi’s cotton growers are hoping weather challenges don’t prevent their late-planted crop from making the good yields it seems capable of producing.

Darrin Dodds, state cotton specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said the bulk of the crop was in pretty decent shape by late August.

“Some folks feel they are sitting on one of the better crops they’ve had,” he said. “All that will boil down to the weather we have in the fall. We need a long, favorable fall, and the heat to stick with us and the rain to stay away.”

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- When Labor Day rolls around each year, friends and family throughout Mississippi head to the fields early in the morning to get the first flights of doves over the fields they planted in the spring.

John Long, 4-H youth development specialist and shooting sports state program leader with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said opening day of dove season is the big kick-off to hunting season and is considered a Southern tradition.

STONEVILLE – When it comes to irrigating crops, farmers are like Goldilocks.

“They don’t want too much water; they don’t want too little water; they want it just right,” said Jason Krutz, irrigation specialist with Mississippi State University’s Delta Research and Extension Center.

Krutz explained that too much irrigation can damage a crop, drive costs up and reduce underground water supplies.

By Kaitlyn Byrne
MSU Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Members of Mississippi State University’s football team traded helmets and shoulder pads for cows and hay bales at the third annual Beefing Up the Bulldogs event at the new Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex.

VERONA – North Mississippi flower and vegetable gardeners will have the opportunity to tour fall horticulture plots at the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center on Sept. 28.

Mississippi State University Extension Service and Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station personnel will host the annual event from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. on that Saturday in Verona.

MSU horticulture experts will lead educational seminars, answer questions and provide tours of the flower and vegetable gardens at the facility located at 5421 Highway 145 South.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- The American College of Theriogenologists recently recognized a veteran Mississippi State University professor’s research and teaching career with an honorary membership.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippians looking for more information about how to better care for themselves and their families have a new resource available online.

Even though we are still in the grip of summer’s heat and humidity, garden centers soon will start stocking gorgeous, flowering fall mums. Start planning now where to use these plants most effectively in the landscape.

Incorporating fall garden mums into your landscape is easy.

One of the most popular ways to display these beautiful plants is to simply place them in a big container on the front porch. The many warm colors available can fit into almost any home color scheme. The plants seem to have hundreds of flowers, so the impact is immediate.