[Music is playing]
>>Stanley Culpepper, Professor & Extension Specialist, Crop & Soil Sciences: You have soybeans and cotton
tolerant to a herbicide called Dicamba.
The herbicide is not new at all.
In fact, it's older than I am but the system
is new for cotton and
soybeans where you can actually go in
the crop, over top the crop as long as
this tolerant to this herbicide and you
can use that herbicide so it's a new tool.
>>Tommy Gray, Plant Industry Director, Georgia
Dept. of Agriculture: This technology was
very exciting
news to particularly our cotton and
soybean producers.
They have battled with
glyphosate resistant weeds for a long time.
In particular Palmer Amaranth or
pigweed.
Fortunately Dr. Stanley Culpepper
came to us and and just wanted to
make sure we understood just how serious
it was going to be using these auxin
herbicides in crop when temperatures,
other conditions are favorable for drift
or off-target movement of these materials.
>> John Strickland, Strickland Farms: We were
excited about the new technology but we were
concerned because
so many of our fields are bordered with
yards, and pecan trees, blueberries,
you know, other crops that's very sensitive
to this technology.
>>Tommy Gray: He convinced us that it was
very serious and we needed to consider doing
things on a
regulatory basis to to make sure that we
didn't have problems here in Georgia and
and that's kind of how the the training
discussion started.
>>John Strickland: The Dicamba trainings that
we went to during the winter, they were very
beneficial for the new technology that
was coming.
>>Tommy Gray : The whole plan that that Dr.
Culpepper
came up with where we had the
classroom training and then we had the
one-on-one training is very, very
critical.
>>James Jacobs, Agriculture & Natural Resources
Agent, Pierce County: The one on one trainings were
of course something new, it gives us an
opportunity to connect with and work
with some producers and see some folks
we don't or may not for some reason see
throughout the season but it
also allowed us to reestablish
a connection with those folks.
>>John Strickland: The second part of it was
the on-farm training
by my local County agent and
with him coming out to our farm and
being there with my employees and an
open atmosphere where they could ask
questions and interact with the county
agent, I thought it was a win-win.
Tommy Gray: We were ahead of the game, we
had the right people there, Dr. Culpepper
and certainly others the county agents that all do a
fabulous job.
We feel like we have good
people on staff here at the
Department of Agriculture and we can all
say that it was very successful
here in Georgia and we hope to continue that success.
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