Winter Meetings and Master Gardener Classes for 2018

University of Missouri Extension offers a variety of programs each winter for livestock producers, row crop farmers, and horticultural crop growers. These meetings are designed to help farmers become better producers, and deal with problems that undoubtedly will arise each year.

Beef producers will be interested in the annual Three-State Beef Conference, which will be held in Albany. It will be taking place on Wednesday, January 17, 2018, starting at 5:30 PM. For more information, call Shawn Deering, 660-726-5610.

For those interested in crops, there is the Certified Crop Advisor’s meeting in St. Joseph, to be held on January 16-17, 2018. This will give an opportunity to earn 17 CEU’s over the two days. For more information, call Randa Doty, 660-582-8101.

Horticulture producers will be interested in the annual Great Plains Growers Conference, held in St. Joseph. I will outline our plans for that meeting in my next two columns. The conference will be held on January 11-13, 2018. For more information call Tom Fowler at 816-279-1691, or Tim Baker at 660-663-3232.

No matter what type of farming you practice, you may be interested in our annual Ag Updates. These meetings provide a good opportunity to obtain or renew your private applicators license. If you intend to purchase and apply restricted use agricultural chemicals to your land, you will need this license. These meetings are held in most of the counties in our Northwest Extension Region. Many of these meetings include agricultural specialists to update you on timely issues of concern, in addition to getting your pesticide license. This may include Agronomy Specialists, Livestock Specialists, Ag Engineering Specialists, Agriculture Business Specialists, and Horticulture Specialists. The meetings are typically held in January or February. Please contact your local Extension Center for more information.

Another meeting that will appeal to landowners who may be looking for ideas for a farming enterprise is our annual S.A.L.E. Conference. S.A.L.E. stands for Small Acreage & Land Entrepreneurs. Our fifth annual meeting will be held in St. Joseph on March 10, 2018. For more information, call Randa Doty, 660-582-8101.

There are many more opportunities to attend Extension meetings. The best way to keep up to date on all Extension meetings is on our calendar at our regional web site. The Northwest Extension Region web page can be found at: http://extension.missouri.edu/nwregion/

Before I close, I would like to mention our Master Gardener classes. These are held every spring in the Northwest Extension Region. They will run in the evenings for 12 sessions, starting in March. If you are interested in this in-depth training on all aspects of horticulture, keep the classes in mind, and watch my future columns for details.

University of Missouri Extension programs are open to all.