Looking back at a crazy year

By DAVE DUGAN

dugan.46@osu.edu

The year 2012 has been a crazy year to say the least. We have seen weather that has taken a toll on our crops from one extreme to the next. Parts of the three coun­ties that I serve saw tor­nado dam­age in March in which lives, live­stock and build­ings were lost, an extremely dry sum­mer that caused some crops to suf­fer yield losses while some areas had enough rain for out­stand­ing crops.

New Rule for Livestock

On Dec. 20 the USDA Issued the Final Rule for Ani­mal Dis­ease Trace­abil­ity. This deals with live­stock cross­ing state lines. The rule is designed to help trace ani­mals should a dis­ease break­out occur. There is a need to be able to trace where ani­mals are and where they have been quickly.

Beef cat­tle under 18 months of age, unless they are moved inter­state for shows, exhi­bi­tions, rodeos, or recre­ational events, are exempt from the offi­cial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ment in this rule. These spe­cific trace­abil­ity require­ments for this group will be addressed in sep­a­rate rule­mak­ing, allow­ing APHIS to work closely with indus­try to ensure the effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion requirements.

For more spe­cific details about the reg­u­la­tion and how it will affect pro­duc­ers, visit www.aphis.usda.gov/traceability.

Cal­en­dar for Programs

As you can see below, there are sev­eral pro­grams sched­uled for the upcom­ing months. There are oth­ers in the plan­ning stages like a graz­ing school, and train­ing meet­ings for writ­ing busi­ness plans among oth­ers. There is not enough space for all of the pro­grams offered through OSU Exten­sion, so you may want to check out the county web pages. Each county can be found by sim­ply typ­ing in the name of the county.osu.edu.

There is another link for those who might want to attend some agron­omy meet­ings through­out the area or the state. This link can be found in the CORN newslet­ter at http://corn.osu.edu in the most recent edi­tion. The OSU Beef Team also has a cal­en­dar that you can find each Wednes­day in the Beef Cat­tle Let­ter. Go to http://beef.osu.edu for this infor­ma­tion. In many cases, this pat­tern will hold true for find­ing infor­ma­tion on other sub­jects, like dairy.osu.edu or sheep.osu.edu.

Dates to Remember

• Small Farm Col­lege: The pro­gram starts in Jan­u­ary with two loca­tions to choose from. The Wednes­day night pro­gram will be held in Pick­away County at the Cir­cleville Fire Depart­ment and the Thurs­day night pro­gram will be in the Cler­mont County Exten­sion Office in Owensville. Classes begin on Jan. 9 and 10. Details about the class were in my arti­cle the last week of October/first week of Novem­ber. Reg­is­tra­tion is avail­able at http://adams.osu.edu or insert Brown or Highland.

• SOACDF Schol­ar­ship Edu­ca­tional Excel­lence Com­pet­i­tive Grant: Appli­ca­tion period is Jan. 1 through Jan. 31. Con­tact the South­ern Ohio Agri­cul­ture and Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Foun­da­tion for more details at (937) 393‑2700 or http://soacdf.net.

• The Corn Col­lege: Wednes­day, Jan. 16, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Clin­ton County Exten­sion Office Com­mu­nity room, 111 S. Nel­son Ave., Wilm­ing­ton. For more infor­ma­tion about the Corn Col­lege, con­tact OSU-Extension Clin­ton County Edu­ca­tor Tony Nye at (937) 382‑0901 or email nye.1@osu.edu.

• Pri­vate Appli­ca­tor Re-cert Pes­ti­cide re-certification will be offered at South­ern State Com­mu­nity College’s South Cam­pus in Fin­cas­tle on Mon­day Feb. 4 at 5:30 p.m., on Wednes­day, Feb. 13, at noon, and again on Mon­day, Feb. 25, at noon. All three pro­grams will offer a light meal and mate­ri­als. Pre-registration is required. Space is absolutely lim­ited this year. Con­tact Cindy at the Brown County Exten­sion Office at (937) 378‑6716. These classes will fill-up and be closed when full.

• Pes­ti­cide License Test­ing: Pri­vate and com­mer­cial test­ing for appli­ca­tor license will be offered on Feb. 11, March 11 and April 8 at the Old Y Restau­rant. You are required to pre-register by call­ing the Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture at 800–282-1955 or online at http://pested.osu.edu. Space is lim­ited so reg­is­ter soon. Study mate­ri­als are also avail­able at the same address or phone number.

• Ohio River Val­ley Agron­omy Day: Mason County Exten­sion Office in Maysville, Ky., on Feb. 6 at 9 a.m. Call to reg­is­ter at (606) 564‑6808.

• Annual Tobacco Grower Meet­ing: North Adams High School in Sea­man on Wednes­day, Feb. 6, in the evening. Details about reg­is­tra­tion for this free pro­gram will be avail­able soon.

• Mas­ter Gar­dener Class: Class begins to train vol­un­teers on Feb. 20 at the Brown County Exten­sion Office. Con­tact the Adams County Exten­sion Office to reg­is­ter at 544‑2339 or my cell at (937) 515‑2314. The cost is $150 for the 13 week class that will be from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesdays.

• Small Farm Con­fer­ence: Wilm­ing­ton Col­lege on March 8 and 9. Go to http://adams.osu.edu,http://brown.osu.edu or http://highland.osu.edu for the print­able flyer or call for details.

• Farm and Fam­ily Night: Maysville Com­mu­nity and Tech­ni­cal Col­lege on Tues­day, March 12.

(David Dugan in an OSU Exten­sion Edu­ca­tor, ANR, Ohio Val­ley EERA.)

Posted by Tina Murdock on Jan 10 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.