News Stories - Page 236

CAES News
OGP Strategic Plan
Although the ink is barely dry on the newly adopted three-year strategic plan, faculty and staff in the Office of Global Programs already are attacking the plan’s priorities, according to OGP Director Amrit Bart.
Pictured is miscanthus grass used as bedding in a poultry house. CAES News
Alternative Bedding
The growing poultry industry in Georgia has farmers searching for alternative bedding options for their birds. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension poultry scientist Claudia Dunkley recommends that growers use giant miscanthus grass as bedding in their poultry houses.
UGA peanut geneticist Peggy Ozias-Akins, director of the UGA Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics, examines a peanut blossom. Ozias-Akin's lab on the UGA Tifton Campus focuses on female reproduction and gene transfer in plants. CAES News
D.W. Brooks Awards
The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences will recognize nine of its finest next month with the D.W. Brooks Awards for Excellence and the CAES Faculty and Staff Support Awards.
Pictured are pumpkins growing on the UGA Tifton Campus in 2014. CAES News
Growing Pumpkins
High temperatures, humid nights and disease pressure make growing pumpkins difficult for south Georgia farmers, according to Tim Coolong, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension vegetable horticulturist.
Jared Whitaker speaks during the UGA Cotton and Peanut Field Day in Tifton. CAES News
New Cotton Agronomist
The University of Georgia’s newly hired Cooperative Extension cotton agronomist believes the biggest challenge Georgia cotton farmers face is making a profit. Jared Whitaker will officially being his post on Dec. 1 and will be based in Tifton, Georgia.
Two steers graze on sorghum/sudangrass hybrid forage at the UGA Eatonton Beef Research Unit as part of a 2014 study on grass-finished beef forages. CAES News
Farmgate Value Report
Led by increases in forestry and livestock values, Georgia’s agricultural output increased by $484 million in 2014, making agriculture, once again, the largest industry in the state with a value of $14.1 billion. According to the most recent University of Georgia Farmgate Value Report, published earlier this month, the value of Georgia’s livestock and aquaculture industries increased by almost 36 percent from 2013.
CAES News
Pest Facility
Since the pest control training center opened on the University of Georgia campus in Griffin, Georgia, thousands of pest control operators from across the Southeast have received training. Now the training facility is expanding to allow pest control operators to learn how to control pests in commercial kitchens and schools and pests like bed bugs in bedroom settings.
Pictured, from left, are Quentin Robinson, Georgia Director for USDA Rural Development; Joe West, assistant dean of UGA Tifton Campus; Craig Kvien; Lisa Mensah, USDA Rural Development Undersecretary; and Representative Austin Scott. CAES News
USDA Grant
In an effort to use the latest technological advancements to benefit families, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences a $72,000 grant.
To determine the quality of hay, Georgia farmers trust forage tests from the University of Georgia Agricultural and Environmental Services Laboratories in Athens, Georgia. The lab provides an estimate of Relative Forage Quality (RFQ). This value is a single, easy-to-interpret number that improves a producer's understanding of forage quality and helps to establish a fair market value for the product. CAES News
Hay Testing
Hay can’t be evaluated by touch, smell, color or any other on-the-spot technique. To get a true measure of forage quality, hay has to be tested.