Field days, grower meetings, and agricultural conferences are public events where farmers, crop consultants, pest control advisers, and anybody interested in learning about what’s new in agriculture can come listen to presentations, view demonstrations and converse with researchers. The University of California Cooperative Extension plays the role of coordinating many of these meetings and often collaborates with other organizations to put them on. This article will cover some recent extension events and direct readers to websites where they can find presentations and writings from those events.

In September of 2024, the annual Kearney Forage and Field Crops Day took place at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, CA. At this field day, attendees got a chance to tour the research farm and visit with researchers at their trial sites to learn about results, view plots and the effects of various treatments like new varieties of blackeye beans and watch a sprayer calibration demonstration.

Then visitors came indoors mid-morning until lunch to view a few slideshow presentations and discuss the shared information with researchers in open question and answer sessions. Registration was free to attendees thanks to generous sponsors from the ag industry. Each year, the presentations and handouts given at this field day are posted online. You can find the materials shared at the 2024 field day at the following webpage: https://alfalfa.ucdavis.edu/Kearney-Alfalfa-Forage-Field-Day-2024. This year, the field day is scheduled to be held on Thursday, September 18, 2025. Keep on the lookout for an agenda.

In November of 2024, the biannual UC Golden State Dairy Management Conference was held at Harvest Hall of the Stanislaus County Ag Center in Modesto, CA. At this conference, renowned economist Corey Geiger gave the keynote speech about the economic outlook for the dairy industry. Attendees then were able to choose between breakout sessions to listen to and watch slideshow presentations ranging from herd health to manure management to forage crop management. After the breakout sessions, the attendees came back together to hear presentations from Dairy Cares and the CA Dairy Research Foundation to learn about how the dairy industry’s research dollars have been put to work in specific projects. These presentations emphasized the positive impacts these projects have had or are anticipated to have for the dairy industry. Much of the same program at this conference was repeated at the 2025 Farm Show in Tulare. The next UC Golden State Dairy Management Conference is scheduled for a date to be determined in 2026. The presentations from the November conference can be found on the following webpage: https://ucanr.edu/sites/CAdairyconference/Conference_Information/2024_Agenda/index.cfm.

Covering Tulare, Kings, and Fresno Counties, you can contact me anytime by email at neclark@ucanr.edu . Don’t forget, our general farm, garden, youth, and nutrition support for you is only a phone call away. Somebody is always answering or taking messages at the Tulare County UCCE office: 559-684-3300.