VERONA, Miss. -- Each year, producers come to the North Mississippi Producer Advisory Council meeting to share their research and educational needs with agricultural faculty and specialists at Mississippi State University, and of all the commodity group sessions, the one on beef cattle usually has the highest attendance.

Held Feb. 20 at the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center, or NMREC, in Verona, the meeting provided more than 100 producers in 22 of the state’s northern counties from 11 commodity groups an opportunity to meet with representatives from the MSU Extension Service and Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

Kelsey Harvey, scientist at the MAFES Prairie Research Unit and assistant professor in the MSU Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, co-led the beef cattle discussion. It provided an opportunity to update producers on Extension programs available in their field of agriculture as well as research projects in progress. Likewise, producers asked questions related to those projects and provided feedback on future needs.

“We have a couple of projects where we’re looking at some different grazing management strategies specifically to address some of the things that were brought up a few years ago from a Producer Advisory Council meeting,” Harvey said.

“We have such a great Extension program in beef cattle because [MSU Extension beef cattle specialist] Brandi Karisch does a fantastic job of reaching out and keeping everybody involved,” she added, “so I think our producers know we respond to them, and when we ask for their input, they know they are heard.”

After separating into breakout sessions, each commodity group presented reports in a general session on what they want to see MSU Extension and MAFES focus on in the next year.

MSU Extension bee specialist Jeff Harris reported beekeepers’ interest in creating an in-service Extension agent training platform to develop and establish apiculture groups in local areas, learning pest management techniques for varroa mites and continuing to develop the Mississippi Master Beekeeper program.

“We had some major losses in this country this winter in honeybees, with a 60% to 70% loss across the United States, and the loss is most likely related to management of varroa mites and other common stressors,” Harris said.  “This is probably the worst year in winter mortality in over a decade, so beekeepers want better understanding and maybe new methods of managing the mite.”

Other commodities represented included agronomic crops, equine, forestry, horticulture, poultry, sweet potatoes and swine.

NMREC head Jane Parish encouraged producers to tour any of MSU’s four research and Extension centers to see agricultural research projects in person.

“A lot of times, it not only helps you but it helps us as well, because you’ll ask a question that maybe we don’t have the answer to yet and it gives us an idea for a new project,” Parish said. “Or maybe you’re doing something in a different way than we are and we can incorporate it into our production and research systems to test it out and have good data that we can share with everyone.”

MSU Extension director Angus Catchot thanked attendees for their support and emphasized the necessity of their input in steering research and developing educational programming.

“On the Extension side, what we do is try to work hand in hand with the research side. We take scientific data and break it down and we carry it out to the citizens of the state,” he said. “When our feet hit the floor in the mornings, we are thinking about ways of helping you answer your questions backed up by research-based data.”