Lots of Summer Tours with Organic Topics!

There have been a lot of opportunities this summer for Organic Farmers to attend tours held outside, in the field, that featured organic agriculture.  I hope that you as an organic farmer took the time to attend, learn, and show your support.  I hope that organic farmers realize that Extension education works much like a business! If farmers do not show up (make a purchase) then there will be an assumption that they do not need Extension organic education. If they do not need organic education, then the “educators” might be forced to do something else – just saying! Check out the pictures and information and then plan to be a part the next time you get the invitation!

The picture above is at the Hi-A Corn Field Day held July 31 in and around Halfway just west of Plainview.  There was a good crowd of farmers, seed producers and businesses interested in new corn hybrids.

The pictures below are of the Organic Cotton and Peanut Field Day held on August 19 just north of Seminole in Neil Froese’s fields.  We toured peanuts, cotton and had a robot demonstration and a great talk by Aigen about their new robot weeders.

Dr. John Cason has his back to us in the picture as he talks to the crowd about the organic peanut variety trial. It was great weather that day with a little over 2 inches of rain the day before.

The picture above is some discussion about the organic cotton fields surrounding the crowd. The fields were clean of weeds, and we discussed the implements and timing to keep them clean.

Below the picture is showing a potential crop robot developed by Texas A&M researchers using common components found in most electronic stores. The technology is sophisticated but the design and parts are pretty simple. Imagine building robots in your shop that could run continuously weeding your fields!

The pictures below are from the Resilient Cropping Systems Tour held on September 24 that started at the Quarterway Cotton Growers but toured from there to the Helms Farm south of Halfway.  This tour featured so many speakers and demonstrations that I can’t name them all but organic was discussed on many of the tour stops. I want to also mention that Megan Singletary is doing some great work in organic weed control and results should be something we can use to improve our fields.

Let me add one more tour that I wish I had more pictures to show you the crowd and facilities. I am a terrible photographer and wish I would do better! The Southwest Dairy Day had over 300 attending and Organic Dairy was front and center.

This is just one of many seminars given at the Southwest Dairy Day held on October 9. The day featured lots of exhibits in outdoor tents, lots of equipment demonstrations, and a tour of the Aurora Organic “Pepper” Dairy just outside of Dublin Texas. The Pepper Organic Dairy features the latest in robot milkers for batch milking. A completely automated system we were able to tour from above the entire operation from the balcony at the milking parlor – it was a site to see!