Find out what’s new with wheat at WheatU
The Kansas Association of Wheat Growers will hold its 2016 annual membership meeting on August 10 at 7 a.m., at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Wichita Airport. The meeting will include a review of KAWG’s activities and priorities, followed by a policy resolutions session where members can discuss and debate wheat grower policies.
Registration begins at 8:30, and the program begins at 9 a.m., with a welcome, followed by a farmer panel. High Plains Journal editor Holly Martin will moderate the panel, which includes farmers Rick Horton of southwest Kansas, Michael Peters of central Oklahoma and Mike McClellan of north central Kansas.
Breakout sessions include “Wheat Production, A Transfer of Wealth” and “Marketing and Economics” by Kim Anderson, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University; “Maximize Productivity & Profitability – Variety Selection & Management” by Romulo Lollato, KSU Extension Wheat and Forage Specialist; “Economic Management of Soil Fertility” by Lucas Haag; and “Making the Most Out of Your Fertilizer Inputs” by Brian Arnall.
Anderson serves as the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Crop Marketing and Risk Management Specialist and teaches “Agricultural Production and Sales.”
Lollato’s research and extension efforts are focused on management practices to improve wheat and forages enterprise productivity and profitability, minimizing the gap between current and potential yields and maintaining producers’ profitability.
Haag is currently an assistant professor of agronomy and Northwest Area Agronomist with Kansas State University stationed at the Northwest Research-Extension Center, Colby, Kansas. He conducts research and extension activities in a variety of areas but specializes in precision ag and dryland cropping systems.
Dr. Arnall’s extension, teaching, and research efforts are focused on precision technologies and nutrient management in all of Oklahoma’s cropping systems with an emphasis in site specific techniques. He works closely with extension educators and industry personnel to improve nutrient management practices in Oklahoma that will lead to increased profitability of producers.
Over lunch, explore “The Future of Wheat Breeding” with Dr. Jesse Poland. Poland is Assistant Professor at Kansas State University and serves as Associate Director of the Wheat Genetics Resource Center and Director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics. His research is focused on wheat genetics and germplasm improvement. His research group is currently developing new marker technologies for use in breeding and association genetics. They are also focused on developing germplasm with resistance to important diseases of wheat; stem rust, stripe rust, leaf rust, Hessian fly and barley yellow dwarf; as well as abiotic stress tolerance to heat and drought. In collaboration with public breeding programs they are implementing the use of genomic selection methods in wheat breeding. They are developing field-based high throughput phenotyping platforms to accelerate basic and applied genomics and breeding research.
View a full schedule of events at http://wheatu.com/event-schedule/.
Wheat U is a free event, but preregistration is requested online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wheat-u-tickets-25793754815.
A silent auction will be held during the conference to support the Kansas Wheat Growers Research Foundation scholarship fund. The Herb Clutter Memorial Scholarship is awarded annually to a high school senior pursuing a career in agriculture.
All wheat farmers, aspiring wheat farmers and wheat enthusiasts alike won’t want to miss this year’s Wheat U, to learn with experienced farmers and industry leaders how wheat can contribute to the profitability of your operation.