Pre-Register for Grain Conference by next Monday

Farmers planning to attend the third annual Middle Tennessee Grain Conference scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 31, at the Coffee County Fairgrounds in Manchester can save money by pre-registering at their local UT Extension office by Monday, Jan. 28. Pre- registration cost for the conference is five dollars per person, which includes program, materials, refreshments, lunch and a grain conference cap. The price at the door will be ten dollars per person.

Farmers can certainly attest to rising costs as they have seen their crop production cost per acre sky rocket over the last two seasons. The cost of education has also increased substantially and to help address both issues, UT Extension Agents, Specialists, farmers, and agricultural suppliers have put together an educational conference to help farmers with a number of profitability issues for the upcoming crop season. By pulling our resources together we can provide a much more effective educational program for our farmers.

An excellent slate of speakers on planting, managing, harvesting, and marketing strategies for corn, wheat and soybean production in 2008 has been planned in addition to a keynote speaker from World Weather Inc.

Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. is an agricultural climatologist who studies the weather and weather patterns and how they relate to agricultural production. Drought conditions for the past two seasons has drastically affected the profitability of many middle Tennessee farms and has most wondering will it happen again. Mr. Lerner has a reputation of accurately predicting weather patterns and how they relate to production agriculture.

The Middle Tennessee Grain conference begins with registration at 7:30 a.m. Trade show opens at 8 a.m., topic presentations begin at 9 a.m. concluding with keynote speaker after a catered lunch. A re-certification class for private pesticide applicator certification will be offered after the conclusion of the conference to renew certifications which expire Oct. 21, 2008. The cost of re-certification is fifteen dollars. This program, like all UT Extension programs, is open to all eligible persons regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, disability or veteran status.

For more details on topics and pre-registration contact me here at the Extension office (473-8484) or at home (668-3197).