MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Mississippi pecan growers can learn more about production and marketing issues at a June 30 workshop in Raymond.
Registration for the free workshop begins at 8:30 a.m. at Mississippi State University's Central Mississippi Research and Extension Center. The morning educational programs will address worker protection standards, a pecan insect update, calibration of air-blast sprayers and the "Make Mine Mississippi" marketing program.
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Along with budding flowers and buzzing bees come spring storms, and resulting damage to trees may require a professional's help.
Steve Dicke, a Mississippi State University Extension Service forestry professor, said homeowners should choose a licensed, certified arborist to repair or remove damaged yard trees. Dicke, now a member of the International Society of Arboriculture, said he learned this lesson the hard way.
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- The battle against an inevitable soybean disease has begun in Mississippi, with researchers and specialists ready to attack rust once it appears in the state.
Soybean rust is a fungal disease spread by spores. It can be carried on the wind for hundreds of miles, transported on people or machinery, or spread by infected plant material. Left untreated, it completely defoliates and often kills a plant, reducing yields by as much as 80 percent.
By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center
One of the hottest plants for container gardens is the old-fashioned vinca. Maybe I should not say old-fashioned because the popularity is coming from selections like Illumination and Mojo's Gem.
It seems like it was only yesterday that the word vinca brought to mind the Madagascar periwinkle, now known botanically as Catharanthus, the common periwinkle we use as a groundcover. Now we look at the common periwinkle as a hot, new plant for large, mixed containers.
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- "Pretty" is a useful adjective for describing a girlfriend or a Mississippi sunset, but this year's corn fields are producing similar admiration from crop watchers dreaming of a second year of record yields.