New Mexico farmers will have the chance to learn about a variety of agricultural topics and sustainable farming practices at this year’s field day at New Mexico State University’s Sustainable Agriculture Science Center in Alcalde, New Mexico.
The field day will begin with registration at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 9, at the science center, 371 Country Road 40 in Alcalde. Lunch will be provided, and the event will conclude at 1 p.m. To register early, visit https://rsvp.nmsu.edu/rsvp/alcalde.
The field day will provide farming information relevant to north-central New Mexico. Research on sustainable soil health through cover cropping, weed management, alfalfa production, jujube production, lavender selection and fruit species and selection, among other topics, will be presented.
After welcoming remarks at 8:30 a.m., the field day will offer wagon and walking tours at 9 a.m. and then 10:30 a.m.
The wagon tour will include presentations from NMSU Extension Agronomy Specialist John Idowu, building and sustaining soil health through cover cropping; NMSU Associate Research Scientist Robert Heyduck, lavender selection, acequia and water research update, high tunnel stone fruit production, and table grape trial; NMSU Superintendent and Forage Crop Management Scientist at NMSU’s Tucumcari Center Leonard Lauriault, alfalfa variety selection and planting date; and NMSU Extension Weed Specialist Leslie Beck, principles of weed identification and management.
The walking tour will focus on fruit production and will include presentations from NMSU Extension Fruit Specialist Shengrui Yao, fruit species and cultivar selection in northern New Mexico, apple rootstock trial in tall spindle training system, jujube cultivar trial, and jujube cultivar selection through open pollinated progenies, jujube genotyping; and NMSU Extension Entomology Specialist Joanie King, fruit tree common pests and IPM.
“I think this will be an exciting field day as we welcome our new research director Dr. Saeid Zehtab Salmasi,” Heyduck said. “We also welcome David Archuleta as farm manager. We will highlight our current projects in fruit, forage and herb research. We will have some great visiting faculty and booth presenters from the Bureau of Land Management – Taos Field Office, the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and the Institute for Applied Ecology.”
Zehtab Salmasi joined the NMSU Sustainable Agriculture Science Center in mid-July after working as an agronomy professor at the University of Tabriz in Iran. His research focus include field crops production ecology and farming systems sustainability. Zehtab Salmasi is interested in integrating medicinal plants, especially essential oil-bearing plants into farming systems to enhance diversity of food and forage cropping systems, and reduce chemical drug usage in animal industries, which could bolster organic production of animal products in the United States.
People with a disability who are in need of an auxiliary aid or service to participate may contact Amanda Greco at 217-979-4131 or agreco@nmsu.edu. For more information, visit https://alcaldesc.nmsu.edu/.