{"id":807,"date":"2020-04-09T17:30:55","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T17:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/?p=807"},"modified":"2020-04-15T19:30:16","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T19:30:16","slug":"call-of-the-week-virtual-no-till-field-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/call-of-the-week-virtual-no-till-field-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Call of the Week: Virtual No-Till Field Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/anchor.fm\/utiag\/episodes\/Call-of-the-Week-Virtual-No-Till-Field-Day-ecig8k\">In this podcast<\/a>, Blake Brown, center director of the UT AgResearch and Education Center at Milan, discusses the upcoming No-Till Field Day, which will be offered as an online event in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<!-- iframe plugin v.6.0 wordpress.org\/plugins\/iframe\/ -->\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/anchor.fm\/utiag\/embed\/episodes\/Call-of-the-Week-Virtual-No-Till-Field-Day-ecig8k\" height=\"102px\" width=\"400px\" frameborder=\"0\" 0=\"scrolling=&quot;no\u201d\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n\n<p>TRANSCRIPT:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ginger Rowsey:\nHi there, and thanks for listening to Call of the Week. I\u2019m Ginger Rowsey with\nthe UT Institute of Agriculture today my guest is Dr. Blake Brown who is the\nCenter Director at the UT AgResearch and Education Center at Milan. How are you\ndoing, Blake?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Blake Brown: I\u2019m\ngood. How are you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: Good.\nBlake and I are practicing social distancing. He\u2019s in Milan and I\u2019m in Jackson,\nso definitely more than six feet apart. But we brought Blake in today to talk\nabout a big announcement that was made last week concerning the Milan No-Till\nField Day. This is a Milan No-Till Field Day year, but with all the concerns\nabout what\u2019s going on in our world right now and all the uncertainty, Blake,\nyou made the decision to go ahead and make Milan No-Till Field Day a virtual\nfield day. So, just tell us what\u2019s that going to entail? What does that mean\nwhen you say virtual field day? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown: Well,\nfirst of all, I didn\u2019t make the decision, I made a proposal. There were several\nfolks involved in the decision, because this thing was started in 1981, so this\nwould have been our 40<sup>th<\/sup> year. It\u2019s going to be our 40<sup>th<\/sup>\nyear. So, we were looking forward to that, but with things going on, we had to\nre-evaluate and see if we could continue the way we\u2019ve been doing with people\nneeding to social distance and not gather in big groups. So, we did make the\ndecision to try to do a virtual field day. When this first came up, we were\nthinking about different ways. You know we have numerous research tours. We\ntypically have 15-18 tours and each tour will have 3-4 presentations that are\ngenerally 18-20 minutes in length. So, you have a lot of different tour topics\nthat are being covered, and the thought was we could video these because we\nhave a great Marketing and Communications group that you\u2019re a part of and you\nhelp us tremendously throughout the year. So, we knew you could do it and do a\ngood job. That\u2019s the main part of our field day, the research tours, so we\ncould record those, post them on our website and people could listen from their\nhome or their office, or the cab of their tractor, wherever they\u2019ve got\ninternet connection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then we got to\nthinking\u2026what else do we do with our field day? One of the things we\u2019ve always\noffered is a station overview tour. I was just talking with my guys about some possibilities\nfor that. We\u2019re actually going to shoot some drone video in the field and we\ncan show parts of the station that we can\u2019t show on the other because we have\nfour different tracts of property, and we only utilize one for the field day. So,\nwe hope we can show some of the other things we\u2019re doing across the Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: That\u2019s\na good point, because if you\u2019ve ever been to the No-Till Field Day, like you\nmentioned, there are 15-16 tours, but there are only so many hours in the day.\nThere\u2019s no way you can ever see everything that is on the program. But it\nsounds like the virtual format is going to provide the flexibility where people\ncould do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown: Sure. We\u2019re\nnot open enough hours through the day to see all the tours. And that\u2019s a\ndecision we had to make years ago. Do we want to offer people their options and\nlet them select, or do we want to narrow it down? And we decided to leave it\nwide open and let the visitors select what they want to do. In this scenario,\nthey can actually take advantage of every tour if they would like. So that\u2019s\ngoing to be a good thing. Another thing, a lot of people are interested in\ngetting their points for pesticide recertification and CCA points. We\u2019ve been\nin contact with some of our people and believe we have a plan in place to do\nthat. Again, the advantage is they can ultimately get all the points. In the\npast, they probably couldn\u2019t get to all the tours to get all the points\navailable. So, there\u2019s definitely some advantages to it. I think we have the\npotential to reach a lot more people from other states\u2014even though we typically\nhad people from about 20 states participate\u2014but there\u2019s the potential to reach\na lot more people. From a Research and Extension faculty standpoint, I told\nthem they can show information from various locations, include photos and\nvideos, so there\u2019s a lot of opportunities for things who couldn\u2019t do when you\u2019re\nstanding in front of the posters on the fourth Thursday in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The big\ndisadvantage is not having folks on site. We\u2019re going to miss having everyone\nhere this year, but things are different this year and we\u2019re trying to adjust\nthe best we can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: You did\nwant to make that clear that this is not in addition to the traditional field\nday, this is the field day. It\u2019s all online, and nothing is actually going to\nbe taking place at the Research Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown: Right.\nWe will not being doing tours here that day, we will not have researchers here\ntalking about their plots. It will all be online. Our plan is for it to go live\non July 23, which is the fourth Thursday in July, which has been our date since\nthe very beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: Ok. Your\nmaterial will go online July 23, you\u2019re still using that as your kickoff date.\nHow long will people be able to access that information?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown: It will\nbe there indefinitely at this point. You won\u2019t have to catch it all that date. The\nquestion came up, will the speakers be live. No, they won\u2019t be live, but we\nplan to provide their contact information, so you can reach out to them if you\nhave questions. Like I said, it\u2019s going to be a little different. We\u2019re working\non an online tradeshow as well. That\u2019s been a big part of this for many years.\nWe\u2019re still working on some details on that. One other thing I\u2019ll mention, you\u2019ve\nalready helped us with some virtual tours of the West Tennessee Ag Museum. That\u2019s\nsomething we started working on before this decision was made, but we think we\u2019re\ngoing to kick that off that day because the museum tour has been a big part of\nthis since it opened in the mid-80s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kinda going to\nhave everything we\u2019ve been having, just going to be a different format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: It\u2019s\ngoing to be different. What questions are you getting? This information went\nout to the public Friday. Since the announcement what sort of questions have\nyou been getting from the community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown: One\nquestion initially was are the speakers going to be there. No, they won\u2019t be\nhere. Like I said, there will be no activities here at the AgResearch and\nEducation Center at Milan on that date. They will be pre-recorded. That\u2019s been\nthe biggest question. Questions about points are always there. What are the\ntopics? We\u2019re still developing the program. Hopefully we\u2019ll have our program up\nand posted in the next month or so. You\u2019ll be able to see the topics prior to\nthe event as you always have. They will be there for you to look at at your\nleisure. I\u2019ve told people if you want to go in your office and turn the heat up\nto 95 degrees as you watch it will be just like being here in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: I don\u2019t\nknow that anyone is going to take you up on that, but it is a good suggestion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(laughter)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: One of\nthe things you and I had talked about is that you really see this as an\nopportunity. You\u2019re not necessarily looking at this as a bad thing, even though\nit\u2019s a change that we weren\u2019t expecting. So how could this be an opportunity\nfor this field day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown: We\nsometimes get in a rut. We\u2019ve been doing this a long time. You and I had talked\nfor the past several years about a way to capture the talks that were going on\nat the field day so we could access them later in the year. And there was\nalways a question of how many video cameras would we need to get everyone there\non that date, and it was just a logistical issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This happened. We\nmade a decision, we\u2019re going to try it. We\u2019re trying to get everything together\nfor the event that\u2019s still three and a half months out, and there are a lot of\nthings that are going to happen to make that a success. It\u2019s going to have its\nchallenges. We\u2019re going to stump our toe somewhere along the way, but we\u2019ve\nmade our mind up, we\u2019re moving forward and we\u2019re not looking back. Someone\nasked is this the way you\u2019re going to do it from now on? I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll\nsee how it goes and we\u2019ll evaluate after that. We\u2019ll worry about that down the\nroad. For the time being our ultimate goal is to continue to get the information\nthat we\u2019re producing on this Center and Centers across the state into the hands\nof the people who need it in a timely manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: Well, I\nknow more information will be forthcoming, and I\u2019m sure people are looking\nforward to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown:\nEverybody that we have talked to has been really supportive. Most people initially\nare like I hate that we\u2019re having to do this\u2014and we are too. But in light of\nthe situation we are in, this is probably a pretty good option. We hope it\nworks out well, and we hope people enjoy it and find value in it. They may like\nit better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: Well,\nthank you very much for your time. I know you\u2019re a busy guy because you have a\nlot of tours to plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown: Yes, we\u2019re\nworking on them. It\u2019s all going to be ok. Thank you for your help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rowsey: I know\nwe\u2019ll have more information about the Milan No-Till Field Day\u2014the Virtual Milan\nNo-Till Field Day as it approaches on July 23. Still going live on July 23, but\nyou can watch if from wherever you choose to be. As Blake said, that information\nwill be up indefinitely after July 23. Blake, again, thank you, and thank you\nout there for listening to Call of the Week. We\u2019ll talk next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this podcast, Blake Brown, center director of the UT AgResearch and Education Center at Milan, discusses the upcoming No-Till Field Day, which will be offered as an online event\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":808,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[199,201],"articletype":[19],"institute":[],"topics":[138,160,130,177,195],"entities":[10,61,11,28,12,13,26,50,17,40,37],"class_list":["post-807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-field-day","tag-no-till","articletype-podcast","topics-agri-business-economics-and-entrepreneurship","topics-crop-production","topics-natural-resources-general","topics-timber-sales-and-landowner-relations","topics-weed-management","entities-agresearch","entities-agresearch-and-education-center-at-milan","entities-animal-science","entities-biosystems-engineering-soil-science","entities-entomology-and-plant-pathology","entities-extension","entities-forestry-wildlife-fisheries","entities-herbert-college-of-agriculture","entities-plant-sciences","entities-utia","entities-west-tennessee-agresearch-and-education-center"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 02:46:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"articletype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articletype?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"institute","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institute?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"entities","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entities?post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}