Annual Ag field day nears

Staff Report

New Mexico State University’s new dean for the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, will give the keynote presentation on Aug. 2 during the annual field at the Agricultural Science Center in Tucumcari.

Dean Rolando Flores, is no stranger to agricultural research and production. For the past 10 years, he has served as professor and head of Food Science and Technology and director of the Food Processing Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

“We are very pleased to have our new dean give the keynote presentation and we invite the public to come out to meet the dean and learn about the research projects underway at the center,” said Leonard Lauriault, superintendent of the Agricultural Science Center at Tucumcari.

From 2001-2006, Flores worked as a research food technologist and as a research agricultural engineer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service's Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania.

Flores's career also includes serving as an associate professor in the Department of Grain Science and Industry at Kansas State University; as an associate professor and bioprocess engineer in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Iowa State University; and as an assistant professor and food engineering extension specialist in the Cooperative Extension Service's Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Kansas State University.

Flores will speak at 5:30 p.m. and a dinner will be provided at 5:45 p.m. The dinner will be sponsored by local businesses and catered by a local 4-H club. Announcements will follow at 6:30 p.m.

At 6:45 p.m., participants will begin a hay wagon tour of the center's grounds where they will receive updates on various research projects.

Marcy Ward, state livestock specialist with NMSU's Animal and Range Sciences Department, will speak on the Grow Safe Livestock Feed Efficiency Testing System.

Shengrui Yao, fruit specialist at NMSU's Sustainable Agricultural Science Center at Alcalde, will give an update on growing jujubes in Eastern New Mexico.

Lauriault, who also serves as forage crop management scientist at the Agricultural Science Center at Tucumcari, will speak about a perennial Kochia for forage.

Mark Marsalis, NMSU extension forage specialist at the Agricultural Science Center at Los Lunas, will give an update on alfalfa planting dates.

Murali Darapuneni, semi-arid cropping system specialist at the Tucumcari Center, will give an update on cropping systems and rotation crops.

Refreshments and adjournment will follow at 9 p.m.

Registration starts at 4:30 p.m., the center is 3 miles northeast of Tucumcari on U.S. 54. For additional information or directions, please call 575-461-1620 or email [email protected].