2015 Wheat Academy

Want to better understand what is happening in your wheat fields? I might be time for you to enroll in the Wheat Academy. Drew Lyon with WSU discusses how it got started.

LYON: The inaugural Wheat Academy was conducted last December and it was a pretty good success. We had 60 participants involved and they rated it quite highly so we're doing version two this year . We have different speakers but a slightly different format but it's basically an attempt to get more at the science behind the recommendations we make to winter wheat growers.

Lyon says they delve deeper into the subject matter than in a typical extension meeting.

LYON: It gives them some better ideas why the recommendations we make are made and hoe we go about making some recommendations. Some of the logic behind developing this was there's a lot of places growers can go for information out there today on how to produce crops. The unique aspect of extension is that we're research based and we work closely with researchers here at Washington State University. Our information is taken directly from research conducted by these individuals.

He says that helps make the information more unbiased. This year's wheat academy has been sold out for quite some time.

LYON: We do have a waiting list if you want to be put on the waiting list you can do that. We have a lot of incentive to grow this program and next year maybe see if we can get some more slots, repeat the program.

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.