TORRINGTON, Wyo. – Production methods, management strategies and more will be up for discussion at the first-ever High Plains Crop Convention slated for later this month here.

The convention is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 21, at the Rendezvous Center on the Goshen County Fairgrounds campus off West Hwy. 26/85 in Torrington. Cost of the event is $10, which includes all seminars plus lunch and a trade show.

Co-hosted by the University of Wyoming Extension and the James C. Hageman Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Lingle, the High Plains Crop Convention is the brain-child of Goshen County Extension Educator Caleb Carter, who wanted to offer something for crop producers to compliment the biennial Beef Production Convention the Extension Service has offered for several years.

“We’ve been doing the Beef Convention every other year, typically on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, alternating with the Beef Cow Symposium which is in Cheyenne this year at the end of November,” Carter said. “There wasn’t anything happening in the alternate years and I though let’s start a crop-focused convention. That way, we’re doing a program every year, just with a different emphasis.”

Presentation topics run the full gamut of concerns on the production side of the agriculture industry today, from the economics of installing and utilizing pivot irrigation to the use of drones to how families manage multiple generations on the same farming operation. Other topics will include managing the alfalfa weevil, an update alert on bacterial leaf streak in corn and alternative forage options for southeastern Wyoming.

A full schedule is available at the UW Extension website, www.uwyoextension.org/highplainscropsite/high-plains-crop-convention/. To register, contact Carter at (307) 532-2436 or via email to ccarte13@uwyo.edu. Online registration is also available via the EventBright website, at bit.ly/registerHPCC.

“This really is for the producer – hay producers, folks growing corn or dry beans and such in the area,” Carter said. “We look at this as an opportunity to share the current research efforts going on at the university that would be relevant to our producers in eastern Wyoming.

It’s also an opportunity to update people on new pest concerns and new management strategies that might help people.”

A big part of the program will focus on what producers can do with planning for the future, he said. Minimizing cost of inputs is becoming a necessary aspect of running a successful farming operation today and will certainly be woven into the various discussions throughout the day, Carter said.

“A big component if this will be a market outlook, a big part of the Beef Convention, what people think beef prices are going to do,” he said. “We’re looking to do the same thing with the crop convention, market outlooks on different crops, to give people an idea what the potential outlook is.

“It’s certainly going to be a theme throughout all of it,” Carter said. “We’ll be helping people make informed decisions on their management strategies, deciding if something is a necessariy input or if they can get by without it.