06/25/07 Biofuels and precision farming topics at field days

June 25, 2007 Biofuels will be a focus of the University of Idaho's Plant, Soil and Entomological Sciences Field Day being held tomorrow at the Parker Farm east of Moscow. The field day begins at 8 a.m. and will wrap up with a hosted lunch. U of I crop management specialist Stephen Guy will be reviewing camelina, an oilseed crop that has been getting plenty of attention lately. Guy: "This is a brassica crop so it is in the cabbage family along with canola, rapeseed and mustards that we are already raising here in the Pacific Northwest." Also making a presentation on camelina will be Duane Johnson a vice president of Great Plains Oil and Exploration Co., which bills itself as "the camelina company." There will also be a presentation on the Northwest's developing biodiesel industry. Other topics for the field day include cereal and pulse variety suitability for not-till and breeding herbicide resistant wheat cultivars. Coming up this Thursday June 28th is the Precision Farming and Direct Seed Field Day a the Cook Agronomy Farm, formerly known as the Cunningham farm north of Pullman. Tours begin at 8 a.m. and there will be a complementary lunch where the program will celebrate the naming of the farm in honor of Dr. R. James Cook. Speakers include former WSU president Sam Smith and Dr. Richard Smiley of the Columbia Basin Ag Research Center at Pendleton who was a doctoral student of Cook's. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.