Northwest Research-Extension Center - Colby, Kansas.
Save the Flag Leaf Field Day
Colby, Kansas – Joins us on May 14th for “Save the Flag Leaf” field day. The field day will begin at 8 AM, and include topics such as identifying leaf and stripe rust, wheat varieties and resistance, management options, and sprayer setup for fungicides.
The flag leaf is responsible for 75% of nutrients used to create wheat seed. So please join us to “save the flag leaf” from leaf and stripe rust!
The research program addresses agricultural production challenges specific to the region. Those include rainfed and irrigated cultural methods and management for most of the major crops grown in Kansas plus mitigating the effects of weed, insect, and disease pests associated with those crops. Irrigation is a major production input in northwest Kansas and development of new technology to improve irrigation efficiency is an important goal of the Center. The research agenda is coordinated with other KAES units to assure allocation of resources to priority issues, standardization of methods, and elimination of unwarranted redundancy.
The Center’s primary region of focus are the northwest Kansas counties of Cheyenne, Sherman, Wallace, Rawlins, Thomas, Logan, Decatur, Sheridan, and Gove, with extensions into Norton, Graham, and Trego. This area is located in two of the crop reporting districts (NW, WC) defined by Kansas Agricultural Statistics. Target clientele include crop producers and county agricultural extension agents.
There are 2 research faculty located at Colby. Faculty expertise is complemented by 11 full-time support staff including clerical, maintenance, and crop technician classifications. Student workers are hired for the summer field season.
The research facilities at Colby includes 22 buildings. Both dryland and irrigated land resources are used for field crops research and production of foundation seed wheat or grain, hay, and silage.
|
Class
|
Owned
|
Leased
|
Total
|
|
Cropland
|
491
|
0
|
491
|
|
Rangeland
|
204
|
0
|
204
|
|
B-R-W <1>
|
32
|
0
|
32
|
|
Acres
|
727
|
0
|
727
|
| <1> B-R-W=Buildings, Roads, Waterways |
Funding comes from a variety of sources including state appropriations (salaries and wages, operating, supplemental allocations for equipment and maintenance), crop sales (fees), grants, and gifts.
The Colby Branch of the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station was established in 1914 with the purchase of 314 acres plus improvements located adjacent to the southwest corner of the City of Colby. Later, the research land base was expanded to 727 acres. In 1987, the station was given its current name, Northwest Research-Extension Center, when the Northwest Area Extension office was moved onto the station.