News

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Gardeners can add fresh color to their landscapes with plants purchased at the Mississippi State University horticulture club’s annual fall plant sale.

This year’s sale will take place Oct. 12 from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. at Dorman Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Popular flowering plants, such as chrysanthemums, pansies and dianthus, will be available for purchase. Ornamental white and orange pumpkins and cold-hardy vegetables, such as Swiss chard and kale, also will be for sale.

Even though pansies, viola and dianthus are showing up in garden centers, don’t be too quick to pull up your summer-flowering annuals. The Fall Flower and Garden Fest in Crystal Springs this weekend gave visitors a glimpse of what summer annuals can do for the fall landscape.

Our summers in Mississippi can be brutal, and they even take a toll on flowering summer annuals. But once we turn the corner and start heading towards fall, these plants get a second wind. Like humans, they also appreciate the moderating temperatures.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- This year’s soybean crop is on track to set a state yield record, but much depends on whether recent heavy rains that halted harvest seriously damaged what remains in the field.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the state’s 2.1 million acres of soybeans were 77 percent harvested by Sept. 30. Acreage is up 17 percent from what was planted in 2011.

VERONA – DeSoto County emergency responders were just settling in for a day of large animal rescue training when the call came on Sept. 28.

“An 18-wheeler hauling about 100 calves through the state hit the Coldwater River bridge on Highway 78 in DeSoto County,” said Dr. Carla Huston, an associate professor with the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine and a member of the CVM Disaster Response Team. This was not a drill.

VERONA – Several agencies joined forces in Wiggins and Verona to help train first responders how to rescue large animals safely following a disaster or accident.

“Mississippi is a rural and agricultural state, but many of our first responders have no experience with horses, cattle and other large animals,” said Elmo Collum, disaster preparedness coordinator for the Mississippi State University Extension Service. “Over the years that we have conducted these trainings, we have discovered that even people with large-animal experience can learn from the classes.”

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and if the men in the National Football League can wear pink, surely the rest of us can use technology to prevent, diagnose and beat breast cancer.

Research shows that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and early detection is important.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – To most consumers, the idea of someone purposefully contaminating food seems far-fetched, but to food business owners, it is a reality for which they must plan.

By Kaitlyn Byrne
MSU Ag Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Fall is an ideal time for farmers to add value to their businesses by engaging in agritourism and developing farm-to-table relationships.

Becky Smith, Mississippi State University Extension Service instructor of agricultural economics, said farmers can diversify income through fall agritourism activities like corn mazes, tractor rides and pumpkin patches.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Landscape and garden enthusiasts can get help planning for next spring from nationally acclaimed designers at a Mississippi State University landscape design event.

The 57th annual Edward C. Martin Jr. Landscape Design Symposium will be Oct. 17 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Bost Conference Center on MSU’s Starkville campus. Attendees can preregister by Oct. 12 for $20 or register at the door for $25.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- When hunters in Lowndes and surrounding counties see deer with colored ear tags this fall, researchers at Mississippi State University hope they will allow the research subjects to roam.

Scientists at MSU’s Forest and Wildlife Research Center are studying antler size and growth rates for 77 tagged whitetail bucks in the wild. Researchers hope to determine whether antler size in young deer is a predictor of antler size at maturity.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- The Mid-South Forestry Equipment Show will showcase the newest technology and machinery being used to advance the South’s timber industry.

The event is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the John W. Starr Memorial Forest off of Highway 25 near Starkville. It is sponsored by Mississippi State University’s College of Forest Resources, Hatton-Brown Publishers Inc., the Mississippi Logger’s Association and the Mississippi Forestry Association.

Gardeners getting ready for fall planting should consider dianthus, a versatile group of plants that grow well in Mississippi gardens and landscapes.

Dianthus come in annual and perennial selections. There are cool season and warm season varieties. I really like their color palette – we can grow a wide variety of pinks, purples and whites, along with bicolors. Dianthus is one flower that lets us keep a sense of landscape and garden color continuity across all the seasons.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Commercially grown catfish in North America or Africa face similar challenges, a fact that sent one Mississippi State University veterinarian on a training mission to Nigeria in June.

Dr. Skip Jack, a professor of pathobiology and population medicine at MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, spent almost three weeks teaching Nigerian catfish farmers, veterinarians and students about health issues related to their fish. He was part of the Farmer to Farmer project, teaching under the oversight of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Sidebar to MSU veterinary expert shares expertise in Nigeria

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Fish make up about 41 percent of the meat in the average Nigerians’ diet, but domestic supply falls short of that, forcing the country to spend $500 million a year on imported fish.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Most people avoid thinking about animal cruelty, but two groups recently joined efforts to train and support law enforcement officials who encounter these cases across Mississippi.

Mississippi State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and the Mississippi Animal Control and Protection Association hosted a course for animal control officers, veterinarians and others at MSU’s Wise Center on Sept. 13. The goal of the course was to increase awareness of animal cruelty issues and the laws related to them.

Having recently returned from a family vacation, I am all set to show off the more than 800 digital photos I took. In days gone by, we would have hooked up the slide projector and clicked through the carousel in a darkened living room. Today, we have more options.

By Dr. Rebekah Ray
MSU Delta Research and Extension Center

STONEVILLE – Mississippi State University scientists are evaluating a free software tool that can increase irrigation efficiency for the state’s soybean producers.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- A doctoral student in Mississippi State University’s Department of Plant and Soil Sciences recently received a national fellowship from the Southern Regional Education Board.

Andre Payne of Mount Olive, Miss., was selected as a fellow for SREB’s competitive State Doctoral Scholars program, which works to increase the number of minority faculty members at universities in the South. Payne will receive $20,000 per year for up to four years of study.

STONEVILLE – Mississippi State University will host row-crop producers for a conference dedicated to Mississippi Delta agriculture.

The Delta Crop Summit will be Nov. 13 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at MSU’s Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville.

Registration for the free event begins at 7:30 a.m. in the lobby of the Charles W. Capps Jr. Entrepreneurial Center.

For more than 30 years, those interested in home horticulture have been found at two events in early October that showcase landscapes and gardens.

The back-to-back events are sponsored by the Mississippi State University Extension Service and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES). The 39th annual Ornamental Horticulture Field Day is Oct. 4 at the South Mississippi Branch Station in Poplarville. The 34th annual Fall Flower and Garden Fest is Oct. 5 and 6 at MSU’s Truck Crops Experiment Station in Crystal Springs.