News

STARKVILLE – A Mississippi museum is conserving the past inside and embracing the future outside with its modern, sustainable landscape.

Visitors to the Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum will enjoy a new pavilion’s shade but may not realize they are surrounded by environmentally friendly solutions to a challenging landscape using environmentally friendly solutions.

By Kaitlyn Byrne
MSU Ag Communications

STARKVILLE – A growing number of Mississippians are interested in how their food gets from the farm to the table and are looking for local fruits, vegetables and meat.

Ali Fratesi, a graduate student in Mississippi State University’s Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion, said more people are choosing locally grown food. When they do, they can ask farmers how it was grown or raised.

There is just no escaping technology these days. As I entered a new, swanky restaurant on one of my travels, I saw the host tapping away on his iPad. He explained there would be a 15-minute wait and asked for my cell phone number. This particular restaurant has joined a growing number of businesses replacing their pager systems with text messaging.

TUPELO – Steve Hale is banking on today’s young consumers embracing sustainable vegetable production for the good of the environment and their health.

2012 is Hale’s first year in the hydroponic tomato business. St Bethany Fresh tomato farm, located just west of Tupelo in Pontotoc County, started with 3,000 plants in December. By mid-April, Hale was harvesting blemish-free, vine-ripened tomatoes.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Much of agriculture’s success depends on effective water management, which must be done to keep both farmland and surrounding areas healthy.

Agriculture was a $6.7 billion industry in Mississippi last year, and the state is on track to match that value in 2012. That makes agriculture big business with a big responsibility to the environment.

One of the final gifts a productive garden can give us is raw materials to compost for use in the next year’s garden.

As we move into autumn, many of us will be cleaning up the garden, pruning and getting rid of leaves. A lot of this yard trash will end up at the curb for the city to pick up. Some of this will be chipped and composted for municipal use. The rest probably will end up in the landfill, which is not ideal.

JACKSON – Seventy-eight Mississippians have been diagnosed with West Nile Virus, and one death is attributed to the disease.

Mississippi is one of the three hardest-hit states, following Texas and Oklahoma. Specialists predict the number of cases will continue to increase through early fall.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Mississippians do not have to look far to see the impact of the Midwest’s historic drought, as the state’s catfish farmers already feel the pinch of sky-high feed costs.

DURANT – Holmes County, where 4-H was born as a “corn club” more than 100 years ago, is getting back to its roots by inspiring a new generation to garden.

A community garden project blossomed with the help of District 2 county supervisor James Young, the Mississippi State University Extension Service and local volunteers.

Students across the state are hitting the books and buckling down for a great school year. Likewise, teachers across the state are engaging youth in science, technology, engineering and math activities…but there are only so many hours in a school day, and teachers cannot do it all.

Groups like Mississippi 4-H can help fill in the gap and interest kids in careers in technology fields. The Mississippi State University Extension Service’s 4-H youth program partners with local organizations to bring robotics to the classroom and after-school clubs.

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- In an industry with small profit margins, a perishable product and fierce, largely unregulated competition, one Mississippi company has confidently filled its market for more than 30 years.

Pride of the Pond is the catfish processing operation of Battle Farms of Tunica. Owned by Bill Battle, the farm has about 10,000 acres of row crops and 2,700 acres of ponds in Panola, Tunica and Quitman counties. The state-of-the-art catfish processing plant is located just a few miles outside Tunica and employs 121 people.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – July brought 32,000 grasshoppers to Mississippi State University, but rather than being a plague of locusts, they are a research bonanza.

The Mississippi Entomological Museum is borrowing a portion of the grasshopper collection from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. JoVonn Hill, a research associate with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, said the collection complements what MSU already has.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – About 32,000 grasshopper specimens from the Smithsonian Institution are now housed in the Mississippi Entomological Museum to support ongoing research at Mississippi State University.

JoVonn Hill, a Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station research associate in MSU’s Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, has been working since last summer to secure the collection’s loan from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

VERONA – Mississippi State University recently hosted the academic equivalent of a “baited field” for row-crop farmers, consultants, university researchers, Extension agents and industry representatives.

The North Mississippi Row Crops Field Day Aug. 9 provided the latest research information and recommendations for local producers at the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center in Verona. Participants also heard from Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Cindy Hyde-Smith.

CLARKSDALE – Mississippi State University will hold the first North Mississippi Peanut Field Day on Aug. 29 in Coahoma County.

Registration for the half-day event begins at 9 a.m. Activities will include updates by MSU research and Extension specialists, as well as harvest demonstrations. The event will be held at Mark and John Agostinelli’s farm on Monty Martin Road off New Africa Road in Clarksdale. Snacks will be provided by the Mississippi Peanut Growers Association.

OCEAN SPRINGS – The St. Martin High School 4-H Club took second place in the 4-H edition of the Great American Seafood Cook-Off.

“I am so proud of them and their accomplishment,” said Evelyn DeAngelo, Jackson County 4-H Agent with Mississippi State University’s Extension Service. “I know they were a bit disappointed not to win first place, but their second place win paired with last year’s first place has established Mississippi as the team to beat in future competitions.”

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A professor with the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine received national recognition from the American Veterinary Medical Association for his dedication to animal welfare.

Dr. Phil Bushby received the 2012 American Veterinary Medical Association’s Animal Welfare Award at the national convention in San Diego. He has taught at MSU since 1978 and holds the Marcia P. Lane Endowed Chair in Humane Ethics and Animal Welfare.

Summer’s heat can be pretty hard on flowering annual and perennial plants, but colorful foliage plants can fill in those gaps in the landscape and containers.

Foliage plants provide color without relying on flowers, so you don’t have to wait for the show to begin. Plants with colorful foliage are attractive the moment they are transplanted into your landscape.

Foliage standbys in the landscape are caladium, ginger and cannas, but there are lots of other choices. One colorful foliage plant that is underused in our Mississippi landscapes is the copperleaf plant.