AGRICULTURE, NATURAL RESOURCES, AND HORTICULTURE
Josh Coltrain
Crop Production
Local Foods
In The Spotlight:
Stripe Rust
RADIO PROGRAMS:
Value Added Wheat
Rental Rates
On March 31, I presented at the Ag Day Celebration at the Girard Public Library. This was the third year I have participated in the event and I really enjoy it. Area grade schools (Girard, Frontenac, St. Mary’s Colgan, etc.) bring their students (grades K through 4) to learn about a wide variety of topics. I chose to talk about how Kansas crops may make their way into grocery carts. In general, corn is in a shockingly high amount of food products in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. The most surprising product that a Kansas crop appears was probably cotton in the form of cottonseed oil in some premade frostings.
On April 4, I was the first person in the state to find stripe rust in wheat. The field was north and west of Independence and the discovery was by accident. I was asked to look at the field concerning what was probably a soil nutrition issue. While it’s a good thing I was able to find it, I wish for wheat producers’ sake that the disease would miss us this year. In general, if Texas and Oklahoma have stripe rust, Kansas will get it. However, this year our neighbors to the south reported very low levels of the disease so we were expecting the disease. I was eventually able to confirm the presence of stripe rust in Labette and Crawford counties as well. In an effort to spread the information in a wide variety of methods, I used social media (Twitter), email (Constant Contact), Radio, and Video (YouTube and Adobe Spark).
On April 11, we began the construction of the high tunnel at the Career and Technical Education Center of Crawford County (CTEC). I freely admit we had aimed for an earlier construction date, but I am happy that we are finally proceeding with the structure. I am very grateful to the Crawford County personnel who were incredibly helpful in building the pad, spreading compost, and driving the sidewall posts. Kim Coates, CTEC Construction Science Instructor has worked with his classes to build the arches. I hope this project can demonstrate a method local producers can use to increase local foods production.
Managing Risk