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MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Garden enthusiasts can welcome spring with a variety of plants available for purchase at the Mississippi State University Horticulture Club’s spring plant sale.

The student-run event will be from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 4 and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 5 at the greenhouses behind Dorman Hall. The event is open to the public.

Shopping in a garden center in the spring confronts visitors with an almost dizzying array of new plants with flower colors that seem to go beyond our imagination.

But today, I’m not writing about any of those plants. I want you to consider an old-time garden staple that many gardeners forget about -- the nasturtium. I’ve been growing nasturtiums in my garden and landscape for the past couple of years and couldn’t be happier with the results.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- How to feed the world’s growing population is a continuing challenge for agricultural researchers and producers, and one expert who spoke Thursday at Mississippi State University said pesticides are essential for meeting that challenge.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Mary Jane Coign, of Starkville, is no newcomer to the agricultural industry -- or the challenges women face in it.

Coign grew up on a farm as one of four daughters, and her father trained her and her sisters to help with farm chores out of necessity. These skills eventually paid for most of her college tuition at Mississippi University for Women.

STARKVILLE – Mississippi State University and its leaders earned national recognition recently for promoting and maintaining healthy trees and inspiring faculty, staff, students and community members to conserve.

The Arbor Day Foundation named the university a Tree Campus USA. The program honors campuses that implement proper urban forestry management principles and promote environmental stewardship.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- If thoughts of keeping bees have been buzzing in your head, you’re not alone.

“Beekeeping can be a fascinating hobby, a profitable sideline, or a full-time occupation,” said Jeffrey Harris, beekeeping specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service.

Mississippi is home to approximately 12 full-time commercial beekeepers, 35 part-time honey producers, and several hundred hobbyists. The state ranks twenty-eighth in the nation in honey production, with about 2.25 million pounds of honey produced each year.

JACKSON -- Twenty-five people interested in environmental science and natural history can take eight weeks of classes as part of the process of becoming Master Naturalists.

The Mississippi State University Extension Service is partnering with the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science to offer the training. Classes will be held 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each Tuesday from May 6 to June 24 in the museum at 2148 Riverside Drive in Jackson.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- The Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine is inviting visitors of all ages to attend its 29th annual Open House April 4 and 5.

The veterinary college doors will open from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Wise Center, located on the south side of campus off Spring Street. The April 4 program is for preregistered school groups, while the community is welcome to attend April 5.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Today’s cattle producers have a variety of technological applications available on their smartphones, which are about the size of the little notebooks their predecessors once carried in their shirt pockets for record keeping.

Brandi Karisch, an assistant professor of animal and dairy sciences and Extension beef cattle specialist at Mississippi State University, said use of smartphones and their apps is growing among beef cattle producers.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Registration is now open for three summer camps where kids can participate in arts and crafts, cake decorating and academics.

Dawg Daze of Summer, sponsored by the Mississippi State University Center for Continuing Education and the MSU Extension Service, offers two weeklong camps with emphases on creative and academic experiences for children ages 5-7 and 8-10. The camps will join together for certain events throughout the week. Activities include Artful Antics, Critter Crafts, Silly Sticky Slimy Science and Data Data Data.

The signs are all around us.

Red maples and redbuds are flowering, and yellow jessamine is scrambling and blooming along fences and way up in trees. This winter’s low temperatures have the ornamental pears really putting on a show.

Daylight Savings Time has kicked in, and we’re almost to the Spring Equinox. This can only mean one thing: Warmer weather has to show up sometime in the near future.

OKOLONA – Okolona poultry grower Joe Ellis did not even want the Mississippi State University Extension Service professor to get out of his vehicle unless he had practical experience raising chickens.

Tom Tabler was new to Mississippi, but he was not new to the challenges poultry growers like Ellis face every day -- and sometimes night.

“I know what it feels like to wake up to alarms going off at 3 in the morning,” said Tabler, the MSU Extension poultry specialist.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- The days are getting longer, and the temperatures are warming up. Spring is almost here, and soon the birds will arrive.

More than 200 bird species migrate northward every spring from their wintering grounds in the southern U.S. and Central and South America.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – The New Albany Home and Garden Show will offer two packed days of exhibits and speakers as they celebrate “Wings into Spring” April 4 and 5.

The Union County Master Gardeners will host the sixth annual event at the Union County Fairgrounds. The show is free and open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets are already sold out for the Lunch and Learn Seminar on Friday.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Industry leaders will gather at Mississippi State University on April 23 to discuss existing and potential issues related to manufacturing and how to capitalize on the state’s current momentum.

Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves will be the keynote speaker at the 2014 Manufacturing Summit: The Road Ahead. The event will be held at the Franklin Furniture Center.

Topics to be discussed at the annual manufacturing summit include transportation and logistics, manufacturing competitiveness, workforce development, the regulatory environment and the Affordable Care Act.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Cattle producers can learn ways to improve their pastures at upcoming events taking place around the state this spring.

On April 10 in Starkville, the Oktibbeha County Extension office is hosting a cool-season forage tour at the Henry H. Leveck Research Farm on the south side of the Mississippi State University campus. The evening tour will be from 5 to 7 p.m.

Topics will include alfalfa, clovers, tall fescue, oats and ryegrass.

The dreary conditions of winter have made me ready for the warm days of spring and summer. I’ve been giving a lot thought to the types of plants that provide maximum color with minimum effort.

As much as we all want to believe it’s possible, there’s no such thing as a maintenance-free landscape and garden. However, a couple of plants that I definitely will have in my landscape this spring are calibrachoa and verbena. I think you should have them, too.

STARKVILLE – Mark Peterman joined the Mississippi State University Extension Service as the new aquaculture associate March 1.

Peterman returned to MSU after nine years at Auburn University’s School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences, where he was a member of the farm management team.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in fisheries management from MSU and a master’s degree in aquaculture from Auburn University.

By Brittnie Burton
MSU Ag Communications

BELZONI -- After 47 years of farming through ups and downs, Wanda Hill still is able to appreciate the rewards of her career.

Hill farms in Humphreys County with her husband, Herbert, and brother-in-law, Charles. They grow soybeans followed by winter wheat and cotton. Until 2014, they were also catfish farmers.

Wild hogs continue to be a plague throughout Mississippi, occupying about half of the state’s land area.

A farmer recently said, “I wish I had a deer problem.” His statement summed up the hog problem very well. There’s no doubt that deer can cause a lot of damage to certain crops, but that damage is minor compared to the destruction wild hogs can cause. What’s more, hog damage is no longer limited to farmland. You may even see them in your back yard!