News

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Cool temperatures through March kept some Mississippians comfortable, but they slowed the development of wheat, the state’s only row crop grown through winter.

Erick Larson, corn and wheat state specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said wheat acreage is high this year, with 420,000 acres planted in the fall. State growers planted 500,000 acres in 2007, but this year marks the second highest planting since 1990.

PURVIS – There was no shortage of sweethearts at a recent biannual rodeo in Lamar County.

“The sweethearts of this rodeo are the individuals in the community with special needs, but the 4-H members and volunteers are pretty special, too,” said Kimberly Wilborn, Lamar County 4-H agent with the Mississippi State University Extension Service.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Many Mississippi business owners are investing in their online business presence as a way to increase their profits, and Mississippi State University Extension Service experts are helping.

Specialists from Extension’s Center for Technology Outreach and the Extension Broadband Education and Adoption Team, or e-BEAT, recently taught more than 125 business owners ways to improve their online presence in an online seminar, popularly called a webinar.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Anne-Marie (Gillon) Wells, a Mississippi State University undergraduate student, received the Outstanding Didactic Program in Nutrition and Dietetics Student award from the Mississippi Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Wells, a senior Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion major in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, received the award March 21 at the annual meeting in Oxford. A resident of Philipp in Tallahatchie County, she was selected based on her grade point average, professional association involvement and service activities.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Homeowners in small communities and rural areas without a public water supply often have questions about how to manage, operate and protect their private wells.

The Mississippi State University Extension Service is working with the Rural Community Assistance Partnership and the University of Illinois to help Mississippians with private wells learn more about managing their water supplies.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Seventy-five years have passed since Mississippi State University began producing its distinctive Edam cheese.

To celebrate this major milestone, MSU’s Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station will host a celebration on Saturday, April 20, outside the MAFES Sales Store. Refreshments will be served at the free public event from 9:30 a.m. to noon.

BILOXI -- Mississippi’s produce growers can evaluate and comment on the new food safety regulations being proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration during three upcoming workshops.

Experts with Mississippi State University’s Extension Service and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station will help participants understand the Food Safety Modernization Act. The act aims to improve the safety of the food supply by strengthening rules intended to prevent food contamination.

Every spring the home gardener is bombarded with new and improved petunias for the garden and landscape, making it hard to decide which to bring home from the garden center. In my opinion, you simply can’t go wrong selecting any of the Supertunias.

For the past several years, I have been watching and writing about these fantastic garden performers. Whether used as spreading plants in the landscape or as container and hanging basket plants, supertunias have been good performers in Mississippi.

Daffodils are giving their last burst of color while the Bradford pear trees are blooming, signaling we have survived another winter. This time of year makes me do crazy things like host a tea party in my backyard for 15 preschool friends and their families, which means I have a lot of landscape work to do.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – In response to the increasing popularity of raising chickens for eggs and meat, Mississippi State University Extension experts are offering tips for people interested in starting their own flock of backyard birds.

PEARL RIVER COUNTY –The Pearl River County Master Gardeners hope to boost the population of the Blue Orchard bee in south Mississippi with a project intended to attract this native pollinator to area backyards.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – The Mississippi chapter of the American Fisheries Society recently honored a Mississippi State University professor with a conservation award.

Donald Jackson, a professor in MSU’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, received the C.A. Schultz Conservation award at the chapter’s annual meeting February 22 in McComb.

MISSISSIPPI STATE –Mississippi State University’s horticulture club will inspire garden enthusiasts with a wide variety of plants at its annual spring plant sale.

This year’s sale will take place Friday, April 5 from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 6 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. outside the campus greenhouses behind Dorman Hall on MSU’s main campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Student-grown bedding plants, baskets with flowering plants, perennials, herbs and some vegetable plants will be available.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Hundreds of veterinary professionals will gather in Phoenix for the annual American Animal Hospital Association meeting, but part of the conference will originate at Mississippi State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

During a March 15 AAHA pediatric spay and neuter session sponsored by PetSmart Charities, Dr. Phil Bushby will demonstrate surgeries and share his surgical expertise. Bushby, the MSU-CVM Marcia Lane Endowed Chair in Humane Ethics and Animal Welfare, will operate on shelter dogs and cats to help them become more adoptable.

By Kaitlyn Byrne
MSU Office of Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE — A Mississippi State University senior is combining unique course opportunities and farm experience to prepare for a future in agriculture.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A Panola County cattleman is using native grasses in a 200-acre intensive grazing operation that is both efficient and environmentally friendly.

Durwood Gordon owns Gordon Farms, a pasture and cattle farm near Batesville. He is experiencing the kind of success that is the goal of the Research and Education to Advance Conservation and Habitat, or REACH, initiative coordinated by Mississippi State University.

According to the calendar, we are just a few days away from the official start of the spring season. But if you have been watching the garden and landscape like I have, you’ve seen signs of spring for at least several weeks. The plants are starting to wake up.

Yellow jasmine is one of the most reliable early signs of spring and is native all over the Southeast. While you’re driving along the roads and highways in Mississippi, you can see yellow jasmine showing off its vivid blooms.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Three Mississippi State University graduate students earned recognition for presentations on bottomland hardwoods at a recent meeting in the Delta.

The Bulldogs competed at the 60th Annual Southern Hardwood Forest Research Group Meeting held Feb. 21 in Stoneville with students from several universities around the region, including the University of Mississippi, the University of Arkansas and Louisiana Tech University.

STONEVILLE – Two Mississippi State University students placed in competitions at the Southern Branch of the American Society of Agronomy annual meeting February in Orlando, Fla.

MSU agronomy student Jennifer Corbin of Cleveland placed second in the graduate division for her oral presentation on crops. Corbin is a research associate in rice at MSU’s Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville.

Joshua White of Ackerman, a doctoral student in agronomy, placed second in the graduate student crops poster contest. White managers forage variety testing at MSU.