Saturday was a fine day to have a gathering. The weather wasn’t too hot and the rain held off until the very end.
MSU and USDA-ARS worked together to put on the event
The first speaker was Dr. Sam Chang, who came all the way from Starkville to give an update on the Food Science department at MSU and what kind of research they hope to do with muscadine grapes in the future.
Dr. Sam Chang
Dr. Chang was followed by Dr. Donna Marshall who encouraged everyone to eat the skins and seeds of the muscadine for maximum nutritional benefit.
Dr. Donna Marshall
Dr. Barbara Smith was next to address the crowd. She explained the effect of fungicide applications on muscadines — to control fungal diseases, but also the effect on other compounds in the plant.
Dr. Barbara Smith
From diseases we went to insects, where Dr. Blair Sampson explained about bees, wasps, and other insects in muscadine vineyards.
Dr. Blair Sampson
We ended with Dr. Stephen Stringer talking about cultivars and the vineyard set-up at the McNeill Experiment Station.
Dr. Stephen Stringer
- Most attendees heard about the field day from their county extension agent (40%) or another source (radio, market bulletin, neighbor, etc.) (46%). Only 7% got the info from the newspaper or the internet (7%).
- Overall the attendees said they learned A Lot (50-100% knowledge gain) (86%) or Some (25-50%) (14%).
The 2013 Muscadine Field Day was a great success and we look forward to doing it again next year. If you attended this year and have some comments do so here. Also, you can find the handouts here: http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is1445.pdf and here: http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2290.pdf.
If you were not able to attend, we hope to see you next year!