We are wrapping up another very successful year for the department. The list of highlights is quite long:
Message from the Department Head
Agronomy’s Crops Team: Two More Championships in 2014!
1. K-State Crops Team Claims Sixth Straight National Championship
The Collegiate Crops Team recently captured the title of national champion for the sixth year in a row. K-State teams have now won the collegiate crops contest championship in 13 of the past 16 years. To win the 2014 national title, the team won both the Kansas City American Royal Collegiate Crops Contest on Nov. 18 and the Chicago Collegiate Crops Contest on Nov. 22.
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Graduate Students Develop “Wheat Yield Calculator” App
You can now use a simple Android or Apple smart phone app to estimate the yield potential of your wheat, thanks in part to K-State Agronomy graduate student Ray Asebedo. The app, called the Wheat Yield Calculator, was released this summer by Kansas Wheat Alliance (KWA).
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Making Foods Safer When Grown on Contaminated Soils
Gardening on vacant lots in urban and suburban areas is becoming more and more popular. There are many benefits to this, provided some basic precautions are taken, says Ganga Hettiarachchi, Associate Professor of Agronomy, Soil and Environmental Chemistry.
“Anyone who raises food on these soils should have the soil tested for potentially harmful contaminants,” Hettiarachchi says. Continue reading “Making Foods Safer When Grown on Contaminated Soils”
New Hires in Agronomy
The Department of Agronomy has made three key new hires since September 2014: Andrew Esser, Agronomist-in-Charge, North Central Experiment Field; Kim Kerschen, Academic Coordinator; and Colby Moorberg, Soils Teaching and Research. Each of them is working hard for you!
Andrew Esser
Andrew Esser has been hired as the new Agronomist-in-Charge at the North Central Experiment Field in Belleville and Irrigation Experiment Field in Scandia. He began his duties at the fields on Dec. 1, 2014. Continue reading “New Hires in Agronomy”
Brief Departmental Updates
1. Agronomy Education Center
The Department of Agronomy is still raising funds for our proposed new Agronomy Education Center to be built on the Agronomy Farm just north of the main K-State campus.
Kansas Mesonet on Agronomy’s Weather Data Library Site
The Kansas Mesonet, available on Agronomy’s Weather Data Library (WDL) web site, provides a detailed, near real-time look at weather and soil conditions in Kansas. Each site reports a set of automated data, some of which are similar to data reported by the National Weather Service. But the Mesonet adds additional sites to what’s in the NWS full-service network, and more sites are being added. This fills in many areas of Kansas otherwise unserved.
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Agronomy’s Student Teams Keep Winning and Winning!
The Department of Agronomy’s Crops, Weeds, and Soil Judging Teams have made a truly amazing tradition of winning national and regional contests. Teams from other states look to the K-State teams as the ones to beat every year, but our K-State teams have stayed on top. Here’s a wrap-up of the winning teams from the past four years.
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Steve Thien, University Distinguished Teaching Scholar and Professor of Agronomy, retires
After 44 years of teaching a wide range of soils courses in the Department of Agronomy at K-State, Dr. Steve Thien has retired. Literally thousands of students, and all who received their B.S. degree in agronomy from K-State, started their academic journey by taking Dr. Thien’s “Introduction to Soils” course.
Long-Time Extension Wheat Specialist Jim Shroyer Retires
For more than 30 years, the face of wheat in Kansas has been Jim Shroyer, K-State Research and Extension crop production specialist. He has informed and entertained his “family” of producers in the state at wheat tours, field days, and meetings since he started at K-State in 1980. Shroyer retired on July 3, 2014.
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