NDSU Sets Fruit, Hemp, Vegetable and Woody Plants Field Day

Aug 21, 2024

The North Dakota State University Department of Plant Sciences will host a fruit, hemp, vegetable and woody plants field day on Thursday, Sept. 5, at the NDSU Horticulture Research Farm and Arboretum near Amenia and Absaraka, North Dakota. The field day will begin at 4 p.m.

“This event will showcase some of the exciting research being conducted in our horticulture department at NDSU and give field day participants a chance to see how some of the projects we are working on might be suitable for their gardens, orchards or farms,” says Harlene Hatterman-Valenti, NDSU Department of Plant Sciences professor and field day organizer.

The field day will include presentations on caterpillar tunnel grapes, high tunnel tomatoes, apples for fresh eating and hard ciders, hydro-mulching for weed control, evaluating new brassica cultivars for yield and stress tolerance, evaluating garlic cultivars, floral hemp research, grape and juneberry breeding research, and woody plant breeding research.

Source : ndsu.edu

Video: How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Across the open plains of North Dakota and South Dakota, sunflower fields turn the American landscape into a sea of gold. In this farming documentary, we go inside modern sunflower farming to see how farmers plant, grow, harvest, clean, dry, process, and transform sunflower seeds into valuable products used every day.

In 2024, American farmers harvested about 1.15 billion pounds of sunflowers. This video follows the full journey from warm spring planting to combine harvesting, seed cleaning, storage, oil extraction, refining, roasting, packaging, and animal feed production.

You will see how sunflower seeds are processed into cooking oil, roasted snacks, bakery ingredients, birdseed, livestock feed, and useful byproducts. From golden fields to modern processing plants, this is the story of how a beautiful flower becomes one of America’s important oilseed crops.

Watch until the end to discover how sunflower farming connects farmers, machines, factories, food production, and sustainable agriculture.