Farmers from across the region gathered Tuesday at Clemson University’s Pee Dee Research and Education Center to learn the latest methods for farming in the Pee Dee.
The event, called Pee Dee Farm Field Day, had something for every farmer. A variety of tours were planned for the farmers to either walk or ride through fields while hearing the tour guides talk about new developments in turfgrasses, cotton and soybeans, muscadine grapes, corn, peanuts and tobacco and some new information about biofuels and the work the extension is doing with switchgrass in that area.
Dr. Bruce Fortnum, extension pathologist and interim director of the center, said the day offers farmers a chance to learn how to make their crops produce more and grow better.
“It’s an all crops field day,” he said. “The Pee Dee Research and Education Center has been here for almost a hundred years now with the main task of increasing the economic well-being of this part of the state.
“The programs out here are first-class and they’re all aimed at improving the economic well being of the citizens of the Pee Dee region,” Fortnum said.
He said the tours were the main event of the day, with people clamoring to get a seat on the wagon tour of their choice.
“We’ve actually got four tours,” Fortnum said. “Agriculture is bigger than corn and soybeans. It also includes turf and ornamentals.”
The first turfgrass tour was focused on people running golf courses and how they can keep the greens green. The second turfgrass tour was all about sod. The tour guide told visitors on the walking tour how to avoid common diseases, and how to fight insects and weeds.
Fortnum said the biofuels tour also is a popular tour because many people, especially farmers, are concerned about fuel prices despite the recent drop in the price of oil.
“One area that we are looking at is soybean oil,” he said. “We’re working on biofuels to include oil crops.”
But, Fortnum said, the program’s goal, regardless of what the focus is on a particular day, always has been to make the Pee Dee a better place to live.
“Clemson really integrates its programs,” he said. “We’re trying to link the programs at Clemson right to the Pee Dee and out to the farming community.”
S.C. Department of Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers was one of the guest speakers at the event. He used his time at the podium to extol the virtues of eating locally for one day.
“It’s one day that we’re trying to focus South Carolina attention on what agriculture in the state brings to their grocery shelf, to the restaurant table,” Weathers said. “It just reinforces what they should be thinking about agriculture.”
If people ate local food, he said, it would increase the revenue coming into the Pee Dee.
“We want to influence their buying decisions so that South Carolina farmers have a greater market share of what we pay for food,” Weathers said.
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