EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University (MSU) Extension Field Crops team has just produced a new CD designed to help producers learn more about preventing and controlling weeds, insects and diseases in their field crops, and to provide information on corn and soybean research as well.

The CD is designed to be a “one-stop-shopping” experience for producers, said Dennis Pennington, an MSU Extension agriculture and natural resources educator for Barry and Kent Counties.

Pennington was involved in the collection of materials, organizational layout and design of the CD.

The CD will be updated with new bulletins added to it every year.

“When growers are choosing varieties to plant for the following year, it’s important to review multiple-year data from locations with similar growing conditions,” Pennington said.

“Corn, soybean, wheat, dry bean and forage variety trials from all across Michigan have been compiled on this CD.”

According to Pennington, this should make it easier for a grower to locate the data they are looking for to compare different varieties they are interested in.

The information in the CD is exclusively the product of work done by MSU through Extension, the Ag Experiment Station along with other organizations.

The CD is organized by crop on the left-hand column of the page. The user places the pointer over a crop and a menu pops up to give access to weed, insect, disease, soil fertility and general management bulletins for that crop.

The disk also contains results of farm research conducted across the state by field crop educators in each county.

For example, results are published from a three-county corn silage variety trial. Growers can use this data to evaluate yield and forage quality of several varieties of corn.

The CD project was funded by GREEEN, Michigan’s plant agriculture initiative at MSU.

The CD costs $25 and can be purchased by calling Leah Worthington at the KBS Land and Water Programs at 269-671-2412.

This farm news was published in the February 8, 2006 issue of Farm World.