Vegetable and Wheat Spring Field Day slated for May 8 in Uvalde

Texas A&M AgriLife Research will host the Vegetable and Wheat Spring Field Day on May 8 in Uvalde.

The free event will take place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Uvalde, 1619 Garner Field Road. Online registration is required by May 1 and is available at https://tx.ag/VegWheatSFD. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. 

Three Texas Department of Agriculture continuing education units, two general and one integrated pest management, will be available. 

Topics and speakers

The event will include the following topics:

• High tunnel: tomato varieties, grafting, rootstocks, Daniel Leskovar, Ph.D., director of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Centers at Dallas and Uvalde, and professor, Texas A&M Department of Horticultural Sciences, Uvalde; Joshua Harvey, graduate student and research associate, Department of Horticultural Sciences.
• Hydroponics: systems, nutrition and crops, Seunghyun Choi, Ph.D., AgriLife Research postdoctoral research associate, Uvalde; Harvey.
• Drought tolerance and irrigation: onions, Subas Malla, Ph.D., AgriLife Research vegetable breeder and associate professor, Department of Horticultural Sciences, Uvalde; Xeujun Dong, Ph.D., AgriLife Research crop physiologist and associate professor, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Uvalde. 
• Drought tolerance and irrigation: watermelons, Goitseone Malambane, Ph.D., AgriLife Research visiting scholar and senior lecturer, Uvalde. 
• Organic pepper/cucumber varieties, Asmita Nagila, Ph.D., graduate assistant-research, vegetable physiology, Department of Horticultural Sciences, Uvalde; Leskovar.
• Tomato stress tolerance, Charlie Lee, Ph.D., graduate assistant-research, vegetable physiology, Department of Horticultural Sciences, Uvalde.
• Pepper, melon and tomato breeding, Kevin Crosby, Ph.D., AgriLife Research vegetable breeder and professor, Department of Horticultural Sciences, Bryan-College Station.
• IPM strategies and biocontrol of tomato pests, Arash Kheirodin, Ph.D., AgriLife Research controlled environment entomologist and assistant professor, Department of Entomology, Dallas. 
• Wheat and cotton varieties, Dong; Shuyu Liu, Ph.D., AgriLife Research wheat breeder and professor; Brandon Gerrish, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension statewide small grains specialist and assistant professor, both in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Bryan-College Station.
• Specialty crops: guayule, Del Craig, strategy director, , Bridgestone Americas, Westpoint, Indiana. 
• No-till grain drill demonstration, Kevin Ballowe, territory manager, Landoll Corporation, Beebe, Arkansas. 

There will also be a hands-on tomato grafting workshop presented by Leskovar and his vegetable lab team that is limited to 20 participants.