Eye On Ag - NCREC Lab Results

It s a new age or research at the North Central Research Extension Center South of Minot The new Agronomy Laboratory and Greenhouse is now outfitted and up and running Brian Jenks a weed scientist has been behind much of the work Brian Jenks NCREC Weed Scientist The working conditions are just so much better Then on the other hand for as far as the research goes it will do a lot more things than we were able to do in the past Work made possible with a new state of the art research lab A lab that includes equipment to do plant pathology work and a one that isolates chemicals from the rest of the research environment Brian Jenks NCREC Weed Scientist This is one of the areas where we have moved in This is our work room where in the spring we ll be packaging our seed for going out to the field In the fall we ll be looking at different aspects seed quality And to supplement that work a soils room prepares samples for a growth chamber that closely examines the environment to research crop production and pest control Brian Jenks NCREC Weed Scientist We also have spray chamber where we can look at the affect of different chemicals on plants weeds specifically or also on crops As we enter the greenhouse this is one of the things we re most excited about because we ll be able to grow a lot of plants for a lot of our workshops for plant ID weed ID excreta We ll be able to grow plants in here under certain conditions to look at plant pathology just an unlimited number of research topics we can address with the green house It s here the quality of crops grown in field trials is analyzed for different properties like oil and protein We now in the seed cleaning room Once the samples are brought out of the field they need to be cleaned to get proper estimate of test weight and seed yield So the samples are put in the clipper cleaned and put on the scale and data goes into the computer The facility also has a computer lab for data work and it all aims to develop better crops and knowledge about chemicals weeds and insects so it can be passed on to farmers in North Dakota With Your Eye On Agriculture Shaun Sipma KX News