November 20, 2014

Location

918 X Road Bladen, NE 68928

Featuring Dr Dwayne Beck and Dr Wendy Taheri

Description

Join us as we learn from two of the best: Dr. Dwayne Beck and Dr. Wendy Taheri. Dr. Beck will be discussing the importance of crop rotations and diversity for soil health and productivity and carbon sequestration. Dr. Taheri will be discussing the critical role of abuscular mycorrhiza in crop production and how you can increase your levels. We will also be taking a field tour (weather permitting) of double crop sunflowers with a 10 way companion crop mix and view a working demonstration of a small press crushing oil out of sunflowers and how that oil can be utilized to help power your farming operation. Elwyn Beck will be on hand to answer questions about biofuel production, use and equipment. Dan Forgey will also be joining us to address crop diversity and crop rotation. 

Schedule

  • Registration Opens - 8:30am 
  • Opening Session with Dwayne Beck- 9:00am 
  • Field Tour 1 - 10:45am 
  • Lunch Provided - 12:00pm 
  • Field Tour 2 - 1:00pm 
  • Session with Wendy Taheri - 2:00pm 
  • Break - 3:15pm 
  • Closing Session with Dwayne Beck - 3:30pm

Cost

$35 Pre-Register Online
$50 At the Door

Speakers

Dr. Dwayne Beck - Keynote

Dr. Dwayne Beck is both on staff with South Dakota State and the Research Manager of Dakota Lakes Research Farm, a not-for-profit corporation created by family farmers and local businesses in the 1980’s. This research farm has been managed using continuous low-disturbance no-till and diverse rotations exclusively since its inception. The primary impact was the development of programs that have allowed producers to adopt true continuous no-till techniques with diverse rotations in a large portion of central South Dakota and throughout the grassland ecosystems of North America. Identification of the extremely important role played by crop rotation in minimizing weed, disease, and insect problems while increasing potential profitability was the key contribution to this success. Dr. Beck was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 2007 and was presented with the American Agricultural Editors Association Distinguished Service Award in 2008. He has spoken at numerous national and international meetings and is renowned not just for his research work, but also for his teaching skills and his unique approach to managing ecosystems used for producing food.

Dr. Wendy Taheri - Keynote

A specialist in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), Dr. Taheri earned a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, with a minor in plant science, from Indiana University. She studied under Jim Bever, one of the top scientist in the field of AMF ecology. Her graduate research demonstrated that selection for the right AMF communities could increase plant biomass by as much as 69%. This earned her first research paper a press release. Realizing the tremendous benefits these organisms could bring to agriculture, she went to work for the USDA. Her research focused on developing molecular tools that would allow routine assessments of AMF in agricultural soils. She also examined manipulating cover crops to select the best microbial community for the subsequent cash crop. After completing two consecutive terms with the USDA she has come to realize that some of the testing farmers need, is simply not available to them; for instance, assessment of crop varaities for the mycorrhizal dependancy. As a result, she is founding a new company, Ag Ninjas, to make this kind of testing, as well as other research services, available to farmers.

Dr. Taheri's work has been featured in John Deere's Furrow, The Farm Journal, Acres USA, Prairie Hearth, Corn & Soybean Digest, and other publications.