PULLMAN, Wash. — The 3rd Northwest Direct Seed Cropping Systems Conference and Trade Show will be held January 4-6, at the Pendleton Convention Center and Red Lion Inn in Pendleton, Ore.
Over 26 speakers include researchers, industry and agency representatives, and growers from across the Pacific Northwest and Australia. Four session focus on residue management, economics, pest management, drills and equipment.
Bill Crabtree, with the Western Australian No-Tillage Farmers Association, will discuss how Australian farmers have expanded no-till production to more than 10 million acres in the past decade — compared to the Pacific Northwest’s one-half million acres.
No-till is being used on 50 percent of Australian cropland, compared with 7 percent in the Pacific Northwest.
Northwest speakers include R. James Cook, Bill Schillinger, Kim Kidwell, Tim Fiez and Doug Young, Washington State University; Dan Ball and Carol Mallory-Smith, Oregon State University; Jack Brown, University of Idaho; and David Huggins, Ron Rickman, Dale Wilkins and Mark Siemens, USDA-Agriculture Research Service. Chuck Findley, deputy regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Region 10, and David Shertz, national agronomist, USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service also will speak.
Commercial and educational exhibits during the trade show provide opportunities for growers, industry representatives and researchers to share new innovations in equipment, products and technologies. A Tuesday evening program offers grower-driven roundtable sessions divided by precipitation zones.
The meetings are sponsored by the PNW Solutions To Environmental and Economic Problems, Monsanto and other companies in cooperation with a number of grower organizations, conservation district associations and other agencies. STEEP is a cooperative research and educational effort on conservation tillage systems through the UI, OSU, WSU, and USDA-ARS.
To request a conference brochure or trade show/sponsorship prospectus, contact the conference office at (509) 547-5538, fax (509) 547- 5563, or e-mail maurer@owt.com. A conference web site also provides access to all information and registration forms. The URL is: http://pnwsteep.wsu.edu. For other information, contact Don Wysocki, OSU extension soil scientist, at (541) 278-4396, fax (541) 278- 4188, or e-mail to Donald.Wysocki@orst.edu.
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