WSU Extension Beef Conference

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Entitled "Tools & Techniques for the Future" the first annual WSU Beef Production Conference will be June 13 & 14 at the State Fair Park in Yakima. The two day event will offer workshops and demonstrations that have been designed for all types of beef producers and others within the Pacific Northwest beef industry. WSU Extension Okanogan County Director Curtis Beus expounds.

BEUS: We're going to have a couple of outdoor programs with some live cattle. Friday morning we will have a low stress livestock handling demonstration, which has become a topic that's of great interest to cattlemen. The more we learn about stress the more we realize stressed animals do not perform very well and it's pretty important to minimize stress in our livestock operations.

After that Beus says they will move indoors.

BEUS: There will be a series of concurrent sessions. There will be two different workshops that people will get to choose from that will be 45 minutes apiece, and we have a total over the two days of 18 different workshops - most of which are taught by University faculty.

These workshops cover such topics as herd health and understanding vaccines, improving grazing management, and genetics.

BEUS: We've got several sessions with some of the nation's very top geneticists talking about the advances in genomic mapping and genomic markers and how we're able to assess the genes that these animals have and be able to predict their performance and different traits - everything from marbling and growth potential and fertility.

Tomorrow Beus will talk about the three national and internationally known leaders in the beef industry that will be attending the event as keynote speakers. To register for the conference visit www.beefconference.wsu.edu.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray on the Ag Information Network.