Proposal for OSU Extension New Team Projects
Title: Interactive Crop Diagnostic Workshops.
Impact Statement:
The Crop Diagnostic Workshops will engage crop consultants and growers in an interactive program that will help them develop a critical thinking process for diagnosing injured crops. These skills will help participants avoid and prevent problems in crops. These workshops could easily benefit crop value in central and eastern Oregon by $2.7 million annually by improving the productivity of professional crop consultants.
Summary:
We are proposing an interactive educational program that will be conducted in four locations in central and easternOregon and will involve specialists from four disciplines: weed science, entomology, plant pathology, and soil fertility. The workshop will instruct participants with technical information needed to identify, prevent and correct problems that they encounter in crop production. The goal is to initially develop a high quality program that in the future can be sustained by fee-based and industry support. The intention is also that in subsequent years the program could be adapted to diverselocations and audiences, like Master Gardeners.
Project Team:
Project Leader:
- Richard Affeldt, Extension Instructor, JeffersonCounty.
- Area of specialization: Weed Science
Additional Team Members:
- Glenn Fisher, Extension Entomology Specialist.
- Area of specialization: Entomology
- Phil Hamm, Extension Plant Pathologist, HAREC.
- Area of specialization: Plant Pathology
- Don Horneck, Extension Agronomist, HAREC.
- Area of specialization: Soil Fertility
Project Contributors:
- Mylen Bohle, CrookCounty
- Marvin Butler, JeffersonCounty
- Brian Charleton, KlamathCounty
- Mary Corp, UmatillaCounty
- Lynn Jensen, MalheurCounty
- Larry Lutcher, MorrowCounty
- Sandy Macnab, ShermanCounty
- Jordan Maley, GilliamCounty
- Steve Norberg, MalheurCounty
- Brian Tuck, WascoCounty
- Darrin Walenta, UnionCounty
Justification:
A series of workshops conducted by Jed Colquhoun, the former Crop & Soil Science Extension Weeds Specialist, provided an interactive format that addressed crop/herbicide diagnostics. The workshops were a huge success! Two to five years after having participated in the workshops, crop consultants and growers still say those workshops were “the best extension program they’ve ever attended.” Unfortunately the workshops have not continued and no crops directed programs have built on the previous success.
A new series of workshops that utilize the interactive format of the crop/herbicide diagnostic workshops could capitalize on the previous success. The new workshops should include expertise from local, regional, and statewide personnel and broaden the scope of disciplines: entomology, plant pathology, and plant nutrition.
Professional crop consultants are a high impact audience for Extension to reach. These individuals make recommendations to growers on most of the crop acres in the state regarding pest and fertility management. High value crops draw more involvement from professional crop consultants. Because of their technical expertise and familiarity with growers’ crops, crop consultants are often involved in diagnosing problems with unhealthy or injured crops. The task of diagnosing problems in crops can be incredibly complex and proper treatment of this task requires a multi-discipline approach. Incorrect diagnosis of problems in crop fields can have negative financial and environmental implications for Oregon agriculture.
In 2004, the value of crops grown in central and eastern Oregon was $800 million. The value of crop production in this region has more than doubled in the last 25 years and continues to increase. The proposed workshops could easily reach one-third of the crop consultants for this region. If the workshops help crop consultants improve their productivity by 1% through critical thinking and prevention of crop injury; the economic benefit to eastern and central Oregon would be $2.7 million annually. A subsequent series of workshops conducted in the WillametteValley could result in a $5.7 million benefit annually. In all likelihood, these figures are very conservative.
Project Plan:
The program will consist of three sections.
1) Section one will develop concepts that are necessary for diagnostics. In this section participants will be shown how to recognize patterns of injury and how to differentiate various factors that influence plant health.
2) Section two will help participants apply the concepts from section one. This section will consist of at least four stations where participants in small groups will be presented with an example problem that they will diagnose and the specialist or local agent will play the role of the concerned grower/crop consultant. Each example problem station will have live plant samples and/or poster-format photographs to develop the problem scenario.
3) Section three will further refine the concepts developed in section one. In this section at least two of the specialists will analyze specific plant injury symptoms and try to convince participants that their diagnosis is correct. Participants will then vote on which specialist they believe has the correct diagnosis.
Sections two and three present participants with the opportunity to interact with specialists and influence the delivery of the program. The example problems in section two will be developed with input from the project contributors listed above. Development of the sections two and three will require two planning meetings.
Goals and Objectives:
The primary goal of this program will work toward OSU Extension’s first goal: to improve access to high-quality learner services. The program will be built in such a way to work toward OSU Extension’s second goal: to invest for excellence and impact.
The objective of the Interactive Diagnostic Workshop is to expose participants to technical information necessary to develop a critical thinking process regarding crop diagnostics. This will prevent problems in field crops.
Evaluation Plan:
The project will be evaluated by asking participants to complete a survey either during the program in an electronic format or at the conclusion of the program with paper. The survey will gather participants’ reaction to the program and try to assess their learning and development of a critical thinking process. The survey will help define the audience and assess the economic impact of the program will have. The survey will also assess the level of fee-based support that could be expected for similar programming.
Budget:
Item
/Description
/Cost
Project Leader (Richard Affeldt)
Personnel
/Salary $4,827 / OPE $2,098
/6,925
Travel
/For prep meetings and program delivery at 4 locations
/850
Materials and Preparation
/Greenhouse space and materials, poster printing, computer supplies, other supplies
/1,225
Sub total
/$9,000
Project Team Members
Materials and Preparation
/Greenhouse space and materials, poster printing, computer supplies, other supplies
/1,150
Travel
/For prep meetings and program delivery at 4 locations
/850
Sub total
/2,000
3 Team Members
/2,000*3
/$6,000
Total
/$15,000