With a nearly 600-acre farm, it’s fitting that Northeast Community College hosts an annual Agronomy Field Day.
The Chuck Pohlman Ag Complex, Acklie Family College Farm and Urban Farm were used for the fifth such event on Tuesday, September 16, enabling students to learn about some of the latest technological and other advancements in agriculture.
Industry representatives and government officials presented information at seven sites spread out across the college land, with students spending about 35 minutes at each site before hopping on trolleys and rotating to the next station.
“It’s an event where we expect all of our agriculture students to attend,” said Jill Heemstra, director of the Northeast Ag program. “We have roughly 220 students here today, interacting with our industry collaborators. A lot of the people who run each of the stations work with us throughout the year to present a learning opportunity in each station.”
Some of the fields, for example, had an area that had been treated next to an area that wasn’t treated. Or it might have been that various planting depths or plant populations were tried.
The vendors taking part this year were AKRS Equipment (John Deere), Nebraska Harvest Center (CLAAS), Helena Agri-Enterprises, QLF Agronomy, Sandramere Seed (Pioneer), Farmers Pride Coop, Urban Ag with USDA and NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) and McKeon Ag Solutions. Some of the vendors combined presentations at a station.
Many companies that take part are interested in having interns, so the students and companies get to learn a little about one another. Along with interns, they even employ graduates or introduce themselves to future customers by getting in front of the students and describing their products.
The wide-open space enabled students to see field experiments, Precision Agriculture demonstrations, visit an urban farm and ask questions from industry representatives outside of a classroom.
“Not many community colleges are fortunate to have this type of land base (almost 600 acres.) They might have a few acres or be a 20-minute van drive to their land base,” Heemstra said. “We are fortunate to have this land and to have the students right here where we can have the collaborators. Just about every field we have has a collaborator to work on the field so there is some type of activity for our students.”
Agronomy Field Day
One of seven groups of Northeast Community College Ag students watch a short video before learning about AKRS and new technology to provide grain producers with precise information about yields from their combines on every part of a field, even smaller than an acre. (Northeast Community College)
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