A Few Format Changes to the 23rd Annual Joint Commodity Conference

One of the most anticipated events at the Joint Commodity Conference is the yield and performance awards given for each of the four commodities involved in the conference; corn, soybean, small grains and cotton. Dr. Jim Dunphy, Extension soybean specialist with NC State:

“We’ll have a little different format in terms of the programming this year compared to what they’ve had in past years. The one thing that the growers are always interested in are the production and efficiency awards, and yield contest. And those will be close to the same time; 2:30 on Thursday afternoon, and that’s when we’ll give out the awards for the small grain, corn and soybean contests.”

But, there will be a bit of a format change at this year’s Conference according to Dunphy:

“This year will be concurrent sessions with the four production specialist with updates on the various crops, Randy Weisz, Keith Edmiston, Ron Heineger, and myself. In the past those have been on Friday morning, this time they’re on Thursday afternoon starting at 3:45.”

Which means, producers with more than one crop will have to choose which research results they want to hear about.  Dunphy explains the thinking behind trying a different format this year:

“Planning committee wanted to try this year and see how it worked out, there’s always a difference of opinion of how much production information they want at this meeting, and a lot of this comes from various counties don’t have the same programming within the county. We’ve got some counties that have quite a few ag meetings and they’re less interested in what production information is available at this grower meeting than the growers in the counties that don’t have as many. That’s nto a good or bad thing in the counties, that’s just the difference, and it leaves a difference of opinion amongst the growers. So, they’re trying to see what appeals to the most growers, so trying something different this year.”

As to the soybean yield and performance contest winners, among the participants, average yields got the job done according to Dunphy:

“No big ones, really. If you look at the weather we had during the summer, you’d say east of Raleigh was hotter and dryer than west of Raleigh. Which would leave some of these long-term no0-till fields west of Raleigh in relatively good shape in terms of likelihood of having a high yield for the high yield contest. That would be an educated guess, and that will probably hold up alright. The other commodities, I haven’t seen the results on them, I don’t know how those will come out. The southeast probably had the roughest weather in terms of soybeans, both hot and dry. So did the southern coastal plain, they didn’t even have any entered this year.”

The performance and yield contest presentation for all four commodities, cotton, corn, soybean and small grain takes place Thursday afternoon at the 23rd Annual Joint Commodity Conference in Durham.  For complete coverage of the Joint Commodities Conference, click here…