Newton First Baptist Triple L met Thursday March 3, a beautiful spring-like day. As we entered the Family Life Building we were greeted with Diane Rives’ gorgeous spring bouquets of daffodils and forsythia stems on each of our tables. Thirty-four members, including several new faces, and our special guest speaker, one of our own, Dr. Brett Rushing, Facility Coordinator at the Coastal Plain Branch of Mississippi State Experiment Station. We celebrated four birthdays before enjoying our delicious potluck luncheon.
After lunch Dr. Rushing shared a little history of the establishment of land-grant agricultural and mechanical colleges in every state by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1862. Later the passage of the Hatch Act of 1887 by Congress provided annual funding to support state agricultural stations in each state in conjunction with the land-grant universities. There are 16 off-campus agricultural experiment stations within the state with on-going agricultural research. Coastal Plain Experiment Station was established in 1946 with emphasis on dairy and swine production. The 1,100-plus acre Station now supports an integrated research and education directed at adults, children and natural-resource professionals. It includes several demonstration areas - agriculture, wildlife management, backyard habitat, and a nature trail and pond. A small beef cattle herd replaced the dairy herd, and soybean fields are part of the station’s agriculture research. They also have test plots of peanuts, cotton and wild- flowers native to our state. Rushing studies the use of native grasses for forage, conservation and biomass crop production. His research concentrates on sustainable production and use of forages for livestock producers, which involves managing soil fertility, increasing forage utilization, and diversifying forages in a producer’s grazing system, ultimately improving soil health, reducing feeding costs and improving wildlife habitat.
We enjoyed Rushing’s informative program and learned more about the research data which benefits local farmers and agricultural suppliers.
