New Topics Added to Central Dakota Ag Day program

Dec 01, 2023

By Elizabeth Cronin

There is something for everyone at this year’s Central Dakota Ag Day.

The annual event will be Friday, Dec. 15 at North Dakota State University’s Carrington Research Extension Center.

The daylong program includes opportunities to learn about crop production, weed management, veterinary issues, and crop and livestock market outlooks. This year, the event has expanded to include topics of general interest related to agricultural life, including a behind-the-scenes look at operating a custom combining business, home garden variety trial results, an exploration of North Dakota’s food traditions and more.

Certified crop advisors can receive continuing education units for many of the seminars.

“Central Dakota Ag Day has provided a wealth of educational information to farmers and ranchers for many years, and we believe this year’s program will do the same,” says Jeff Gale, Extension agent, agriculture and natural resources in Foster County. “This year, we’ve extended the program content to include topics related to horticulture, food and culture.”

The event begins with coffee and doughnuts at 9:30 a.m. The opening keynote address, “Life Left-Handed” will begin at 10 a.m., when rancher Doug Bichler of Linton, North Dakota, will share about his experience following a traumatic farm injury.

NDSU Extension crops economist Frayne Olson will conclude the program with a one-hour general session titled, “Now What? 2023-2024 Crop Market Outlook” at 2:30 p.m.

For the full line up of concurrent sessions, visit ndsu.ag/ag-day.

No registration is required. Lunch will be provided.

Central Dakota Ag Day is hosted by Extension agents and specialists in Foster, Barnes, Eddy, Griggs, Sheridan, Stutsman and Wells counties, as well as the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center.

Sponsors of Central Dakota Ag Day include the North Dakota Corn Utilization Council, the North Dakota Soybean Council, North Dakota Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, and crop improvement associations in the organizing counties.

Source : ndsu.edu

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.