Upcoming Webinars to Help Row Crop Growers Manage Operating Costs in Tough Economic Climate

Oct 14, 2025

By Tracy Courage

With high input costs and low commodity prices, the 2025 growing season left many row crop growers in the red. Amid a tough economic climate, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture is offering two online webinars to discuss topics that could help them manage operating costs for the upcoming crop year.

The free webinars are planned for Oct. 28 and Nov. 4 via Zoom, beginning at 9 a.m. both days.

“Eleven of our Division of Agriculture extension specialists are coming together to offer this two-part webinar series to discuss topics that could help with operating costs for this upcoming crop year,” said Shane Gadberry, assistant vice president for agriculture and natural resources with the Division of Agriculture. “This series covers topics including fall herbicide applications, using soil moisture sensors for irrigation management, pest control, seeding rates, and farm financial decision aids.”

Oct. 28 — Managing Row Crop Operating Expenses: Part 1

Topics include weed management, nematode management and cost-effective crop management decisions in major crops. Speakers from the Cooperative Extension Service include:

Tom Barber — extension weed specialist
Travis Faske — extension plant pathologist
Jeremy Ross — extension soybean agronomist
Jason Kelley — extension feed grains and wheat agronomist
Zachary Treadway — extension cotton and peanut agronomist
Jarrod Hardke — extension rice agronomist

Source : uada.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.