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Feature Story from 2011

July 14, 2011 - Filed Under: Agriculture, Forages

MISSISSIPPI STATE – An Aug. 13 tour of Mississippi State University’s South Farm will teach participants about the university’s warm-season forage research and demonstrations.

The Warm-Season Forage Tour will be held from 8 to 11 a.m. at the Henry H. Leveck Animal Research Farm at MSU. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. The tour is hosted by the MSU Extension Service forage program and the Oktibbeha County Extension Office.

Students go in the mouth of a model of the human body and explore for 30 minutes as volunteers teach them fun, healthy lessons about their bodies. The Body Walk exhibit, sponsored by MSU's Extension Service and Family Nutrition Program, will be returning to elementary campuses across the state from the last week of August until May. (MSU Ag Communications File Photo)
July 14, 2011 - Filed Under: Family, Health

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Starting in August, students will again go in the mouth of a model of the human body and explore for 30 minutes as volunteers teach them fun, healthy lessons about their bodies.

Gary Lawrence and undergraduate students Ben Berch and Patrick Garrard (from left) collect hyperspectral reflectance data from cotton plants infected with reniform nematodes for a grant-funded project at Mississippi State University.
July 14, 2011 - Filed Under: Agriculture, Cotton, Insects-Crop Pests, Remote Sensing Technology, Plant Diseases

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Researchers at Mississippi State University have developed technology that uses reflected light to analyze the presence of certain nematodes in cotton fields so producers can increase profits.

July 14, 2011 - Filed Under: Agriculture, Community

MISSISSIPPI STATE – This spring’s rash of deadly tornadoes bears a striking resemblance to the Super Outbreak of 1974, but the summer weather that followed both of these La Nina springs is very different.

Grady Dixon, an associate professor of geosciences at Mississippi State University, said this spring’s tornadoes were caused by a predictable weather pattern.

“A strong low-pressure system moving across the Midwest, coupled with warm, humid conditions over the East and Southeast and a strong jet stream, caused the early spring tornado events we had,” Dixon said.

Brian Templeton, Extension associate with MSU's Department of Landscape Architecture (left), and landscape architecture student Taylor Pounds plant a tree in front of the Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum. They are part of a team that is providing a new landscape design to manage storm water and also demonstrate to the community the importance of sustainable landscapes.
July 21, 2011 - Filed Under: Community

Karen Templeton
MSU Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE – The Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum in Starkville reminds visitors of what a small Southern community once was, but also what it could be.

July 21, 2011 - Filed Under: Family, Children and Parenting

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Many adults know from experience about the scars school bullies can leave and should remember that the evidence is not always obvious.

Karen Benson has witnessed behavior by bullies and their victims in the course of teaching relationship classes to teens. She is a child and family development area agent based in Neshoba County with Mississippi State University’s Extension Service.

Pine bark beetles have attacked this stressed pine tree, burrowing under the bark and killing the tree. (file photo)
July 21, 2011 - Filed Under: Forestry, Timber Harvest

MISSISSIPPI STATE – With most of the state needing rain and south Mississippi under exceptional drought, landowners are watching as their trees deal with stress.

Glenn Hughes, forestry professor with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said dead or dying trees, both pine and hardwood, are becoming a common sight in south Mississippi. This concerns both homeowners and forest landowners.

George M. Hopper
July 26, 2011 - Filed Under: Agriculture, Community

MISSISSPPI STATE – The dean of Mississippi State University’s College of Forest Resources and director of the Forest and Wildlife Research Center will take on an expanded leadership role.

Effective Aug. 19 and pending formal approval by the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, George M. Hopper will also serve as the dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

Julie Burt (back left), CVM clinical services coordinator, sits next to Bootsy Hooker of Lexington as he consults with CVM small animal surgery resident Dr. Dena Lodato (front left) about his Boston terrier. CVM class of 2012 veterinary student Erika Hanna participates as part of her educational training. (MSU College of Veterinary Medicine/Tom Thompson)
July 28, 2011 - Filed Under: Animal Health, Pets

By Karen Templeton
MSU Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE - The services at Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine reach far beyond the university and the surrounding community.

James Callicutt, a former Mississippi State University graduate student, is the first to scientifically compare the acoustic features of wild female mallard calls to the acoustic features of humans using duck calls. (MSU University Relations/File Photo)
July 28, 2011 - Filed Under: Wildlife

MISSISSIPPI STATE - Most duck hunters look forward to the thrill of mimicking duck calls to attract members of the flock.

James Callicutt, a former Mississippi State University graduate student, has spent much of his life as a duck hunter and call maker. Most recently, he has studied the sounds of female mallard ducks and compared them to sounds from man-made duck calls constructed of different types of materials.

Mississippi State University vice president Greg Bohach, center, gives a listening ear to farming issues important to James Earnest, left, and Doil Moore, owners of Prospect Produce Farm in Chickasaw County. Bohach, MSU vice president for agriculture, forestry and veterinary medicine, visited several farms to hear firsthand reports of how MSU is helping farmers and how the division can help them more in the future. (Photo by Scott Corey)
August 1, 2011 - Filed Under: Agriculture, Farming
August 3, 2011 - Filed Under: Fisheries, About Extension

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A Mississippi State University Extension associate will be supporting landowners and fisheries resources throughout Mississippi.

Bill Maily began his new duties as an Extension associate in MSU’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture on Aug. 1 and will work from the Central Mississippi Research and Extension Center in Raymond. Before joining the department, Maily was an area Extension agent in the Hinds County Extension Office.

Breanna Lyle of Aberdeen uses a net to collect water insects during an insect and plant camp at Mississippi State University, while her twin sister, Deanna Lyle, waits with a bucket to take them back to campus for identification. Insect collecting is a favorite activity at the annual summer camp. (Photo by Scott Corey)
August 4, 2011 - Filed Under: Wildlife Youth Education, Insects

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Two sisters who like bugs and spiders and getting their hands in dirt found their calling from those activities at summer camps hosted by Mississippi State University.

Breanna and Deanna Lyle, twins from Aberdeen, went to their first “bug camp” in the summer before their 11th grade year. Now, the college sophomores are ahead of many classmates as they pursue careers in entomology and in horticulture.

MSU Extension associate Lewis Sanders unloads laptop computers donated to the Monroe County School District for Smithville schools.
August 4, 2011 - Filed Under: Community, Technology, About Extension

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippi State University Extension Service donated 40 refurbished computers to the Monroe County School District for schools in Smithville, a small town recovering from a devastating tornado.

August 4, 2011 - Filed Under: Beekeeping, Insects

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Summertime brings out the flying and sometimes stinging insects in Mississippi, and some of them look a lot alike.

The mostly harmless carpenter bee resembles the sometimes bothersome bumble bee. Both are important pollinators in the Mississippi landscape.

Blake Layton, entomologist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said the look-alike carpenter bees and bumblebees are not even in the same entomological family.

Proper land and herd management strategies have a positive impact on the quality and health of the white-tailed deer population in Mississippi. (Photo courtesy of Steve Gulledge.)
August 4, 2011 - Filed Under: Wildlife, White-Tailed Deer

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Trophy bucks and high-quality deer herds are not the result of random chance, but of planned management of habitat and harvests.

“The white-tailed deer is likely the most economically and ecologically important animal in Mississippi,” said Bronson Strickland, wildlife management specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service.

Jaquan Johnson carefully hand-waters a seedling he planted in the freshly turned soil of the Corinthian Garden. Alcorn County Master Gardener volunteers share gardening and life skills with young men participating in a leadership development program at the Lighthouse Foundation in Corinth. (Photo submitted.)
August 11, 2011 - Filed Under: Community, Lawn and Garden, Vegetable Gardens

CORINTH – A few small seeds and many willing hands transformed an inner city vacant lot into a thriving, productive garden at the Lighthouse Foundation in Corinth.

Alcorn County Extension director Patrick Poindexter said the idea for a community garden in this challenging space took root in the mind of Master Gardener Herman Gray, who recruited other Alcorn County Master Gardeners and local businesses to the project in 2010.

The Jackson County 4-H team of chefs from St. Martin High School (from left), Cory Martin, Sarah Soares, Adriana Wilson, and Jarod Harris, were named grand champions of the first-ever Southern Regional 4-H Seafood Cook-Off, held in conjunction with the Great American Seafood Cook-Off in New Orleans. (Submitted photo.)
August 11, 2011 - Filed Under: 4-H, Family

ST. MARTIN – Young chefs put a Mississippi twist on a brunch favorite to create the winning entry in the first-ever Southern Regional 4-H Seafood Cook-Off, held in New Orleans.

Adriana Wilson, Sarah Soares, Cory Martin and Jarod Harris, seniors in the hospitality and tourism management program at St. Martin High School, prepared their Mississippi-Style Crabmeat Benedictine once a week throughout the summer to prepare for the competition, which is part of the Great American Seafood Cook-Off.

The tornadoes that tore through the state this past spring damaged about 74,000 acres of forestland in 22 counties, racking up timber losses of more than $30 million. (Photo by MSU Ag Communications/Scott Corey)
August 11, 2011 - Filed Under: Disaster Response, Timber Harvest

MISSISSIPPI STATE – The tornadoes that ripped through Mississippi this April damaged about 74,000 acres of forestland in 22 counties, racking up timber losses of more than $30 million. Most of that timber was uninsured, but the results of a survey conducted by Mississippi State University may help change that trend.

Steve Bullard was one of those uninsured. He owns 100 acres of timber in Webster County — 40 acres of 26-year-old plantation pine and 60 acres of mixed pine and hardwood.

The American Jersey Cattle Association ranked the Mississippi State University dairy herd at No. 7 in milk production for 2010. The only university-owned herd to make the top rankings, the dairy herd has been ranked in the top 10 for the last four years. (Photo by MSU Ag Communications/Kat Lawrence)
August 11, 2011 - Filed Under: Agriculture, Dairy

MISSISSIPPI STATE – When it comes to national rankings, Mississippi State University is near the top of the list for its prize-winning herd of Jersey cows.

The American Jersey Cattle Association ranked the MSU dairy herd at No. 7 in milk production for 2010. The only university-owned herd to make the top rankings, the dairy herd has been ranked in the top 10 for the last four years. The 35-head Jersey herd is also ranked in the top 10 in all categories for groups of similar size, ranking No. 5 in protein, No. 4 in milk and No. 10 in milk-fat production.

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