The Carrington REC will host our 57^th Annual Field Day on July 19.  We gather at 9:00 a.m. for coffee and a welcome from Center Director Blaine Schatz.  Tour wagons leave the yard at 9:30 a.m.

Participants will choose from four tours in the morning:

• Agronomy:   NDSU plant breeders will review spring and durum wheat, barley, field pea, soybean and dry bean cultivars. Extension agronomists will discuss the status of corn and soybeans and end-of-season management.
• Beef production tours will highlight current feedlot research projects, winter rye forage systems, mortality composting management, predation control and profitability of feeding calves.  Several live demonstrations are planned, including opening our mortality compost piles, calf implanting, and opportunity to access the rumen through cannulated steers.
• The Northern Hardy Fruit Evaluation Project was established in 2006 to introduce and demonstrate alternative, economically viable fruits that will grow in North Dakota. The project features grape, black currant and Juneberry variety trials as well as demonstration plantings of University of Saskatchewan cherries and haskaps; apples; aronia; red, white and black currants; elderberries; gooseberries; honeyberries; and plums.  Fruit project manager Kathy Wiederholt will lead a tour of our fruit orchard; guest speaker and former Cornell University Extension fruit specialist Steve Makay will speak about black currants during the morning tour.
• Organic crop production management, organic variety trials and organic vegetable research continue to expand, in this, the 12^th year since an organic field was established at CREC.  Research specialist Steve Zwinger has scheduled tour stops featuring presentations from NDSU specialists and industry breeders and researchers.

A complimentary noon meal, catered by the Prairie Inn of Carrington, will be served before afternoon programming continues at 1:00 p.m.

Afternoon events include: 

• Fruit specialist Steve McKay will discuss small-scale processing, fruit products and marketing in a classroom setting.
• A second agronomy tour:

• A crop pest management update will look at sclerotinia in soybeans and dry beans.

• Unmanned aerial systems used at CREC, phosphorus research, and crop management on variable topography will be highlighted during plant nutrition and soil management stops.

• An einkorn field evaluation will include participants in the selection process of developing a variety.
• Expanded organic land will be viewed during an informal tour.
• CREC’s new Agronomy Lab, completed just one year ago, will be open for viewing.
• Forty species of northern hardy trees and shrubs are available for inspection year-round at the CREC Arboretum, and self-guided walking maps will be available.
• CREC’s weed arboretum contains about 60 weeds arranged in groups including North Dakota noxious weeds, perennials, biennials, annual or winter annual grasses, annual broadleaves and winter annual broadleaves, all identified with labels.

The Carrington Research Extension Center is located 3.5 miles north of Carrington on Highway 281.

Linda Schuster
Administrative Secretary