UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI DELTA CENTER HOSTS ANNUAL FIELD DAY SEPT. 2

PORTAGEVILLE -- The 1992 field day at the University of Missouri's Delta Center will feature root growth, ways to protect cotton from insects and the environment, soybean varieties and disease and weed control.

Jake Fisher, Delta Center superintendent, says the field day, slated for Sept. 3, will include four tours to cater the special interests of visitors.

Paul Tracy, crop production specialist, plans to talk about the importance of roots.

"Roots are usually out of sight, so they're more often out of mind, but they're at least as important as shoot growth," said Tracy. "Moreover there's about the same weight of plants below ground as above."

Graduate student Pat Turman will show videos of growing roots, soybean cyst nematodes invading roots, forming cysts and hatching out.

She shot these using a mini-rhizotron. The rhizotron consists of a plastic tube buried in the ground and connected to a video camera by a fiber optic cable.

"Using this equipment, we can return to study the same roots time and time again without disturbing them," she said.

Steve Hefner plans to give visitors the results of a statewide experiment on sulfur nutrition of plants. He has looked at giving extra sulfur fertilizer to plants growing at 30 sites throughout Missouri. Five of these sites are in the Bootheel.

The cotton tour will feature attempts to modify the seedling environment to get cotton away to an early start in spring.

David Albers, MU cotton agronomist, will show trials where he's sown wheat in fall, killed off the plants in spring and direct drilled cotton into the wheat seedbed. The dead wheat plants protect the seedling cotton plants and help them off to a flying start.

"Like most innovations this has advantages and disadvantages. I'm hoping farmers will see for themselves and discuss the costs and returns of the systems," he said.

Also featured is a comparison of thrip control using furrow-applied insecticide as an alternative to conventional spraying.

Diseases of soybeans will also be featured at the field day. MU plant breeder Sam Anand will demonstrate the new soybean variety Hartwig.

Anand said "Hartwig is the culmination of a world-wide search for a soybean variety resistant to all five major races of soybean cyst nematode found in Missouri."

There will also be other soybean varieties of different maturity groups and race resistances on show.

Plant pathologist Al Wrather will talk about the second most serious disease of soybeans in the state: charcoal rot. Rotation and tillage trials are attempting to identify management techniques to reduce the $22 million annual cost of the disease.

Andy Kendig, MU weed scientist, plans to talk about new developments in herbicide technology. He'll feature corn tolerant to Pursuit herbicide, and cotton treated with thiamet insecticide to make it more tolerant to Command herbicide.

There'll also be demonstrations of alternative tillage systems and the types of weed that goes with them.

A free barbecue lunch is planned for the field day, but for those who can't do without the smell of French fries, there are five tractors at the center powered by soydiesel, said Fisher. They'll be used to carry visitors on the various tours.