TWO GROUPS OF FARMERS TOURING REGION THIS WEEK

Two groups of farmers are in Southeast Missouri this week.

Soybean growers from a half-dozen states will be looking at more than soybeans during a three-day visit in the Bootheel Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The visit was arranged by the American Soybean Association (ASA) and FMC Corp.

Farmers and growers from a number of states, Australia and Canada, will wind up three days of farm tours and soil quality seminars at Sikeston today. The events are presented by Neal Kinsey of Kinsey's Agricultural Services at Charleston.

Farmers on the ASA tour will visit a rice and popcorn production farm, a feed plant, cotton gin, grain elevator, a watermelon farm and a soybean farm in the Bootheel, and Westvaco, a major manufacturer of paper products, at Wickliffe, Ky.

The farmers, from Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and Mid-Atlantic region, will fly into St. Louis and travel to Cape Girardeau via vans.

The group will also visit the University of Missouri's Delta Research Center, which is noted for its soybean research.

Following three days of tours, the group will fly out of Memphis.

During the same period, a group from the Mid-South-Southwest states, including a Missouri representative, will be on a PIE tour in Ohio. The tours are a part of the 1997 Producer Information Exchange. The tours are made possible through a grant to the ASA by FMC Corp., a manufacturer of herbicides and insecticides used in soybean production.

This marks the sixth year of the PIE program, said tour spokesman Richard Keller.

"This year there is more of an emphasis on one-on-one interactions between participating out-of-state and local host farmers," said Keller. "We believe growers can ask more specific crop-production questions in a one-on-one situation."

The group will have a big opportunity for one-on-talk Thursday evening at the Joe Sorrell farm near East Prairie. The farmers will tour the farm and be guests at a barbecue.

The Friday schedule includes visits to Asgrow Feed Plant, Big Oak Tree State Park, Peach Orchard Cotton Gin, Baker Equipment Co., Bunge Grain and the Delta Center at Portageville, and a visit to the Pemiscot County Port Authority at Caruthersville.

The tour will wind up Friday following a visit to a watermelon farm in the Black Island area. The group will then fly out of Memphis, Tenn.

The final seminar by Kinsey's Agriculture Services will be held today at the Coach House Inn at Sikeston.

Farmers participating in the Kinsey tours and seminars grow a variety of crops.

Kinsey is a soil fertility specialist and author of the book "Hands on Agronomy," which deals with fertilizer use for achieving top yields and quality in crop production.