Author: wsmth

The last weekend in August was a busy time in Laurens County for the youth!  The Laurens County Cattlemen’s Association and Laurens County 4-H partnered to host the Laurens County Livestock show. Youth from all over the state traveled to Laurens County to participate in the event.  Local and Area Sponsors provided funding for the prizes for the event.

Thursday night both a rabbit show and a dog show we offered. The dog show had 10 participants that showed their dogs in agility, obedience, and rally classes. The Rabbit show had 28 rabbits compete in breed classes and 13 youth participated in the showmanship class.

Friday evening the event hosted the Beef Show with a total of 28 youth and 49 head of cattle.  Saturday started the day with the Dairy Show, with 13 youth showing 26 animals of different breeds, included Holstein, Guernsey, Jersey, and Brown Swiss.  The event concluded Saturday with the Meat Goat Show, with 25 youth and 54 meat goats participating.

Awards and Premiums were given to the respective winners for each show. A big thank you goes out to the Laurens County Cattlemen’s Association and our many sponsors for helping make this show happen!

All SC Confined Animal Facility Growers are required by State Regulation R.61-43 to attend the Confined Animal Manure Manager (CAMM) certification training provided by Clemson Extension, USDA-NRCS, and SCDHEC.  They are then required to obtain 10 hours of recertification credit each 5 years.  These recertification credits are offered around the State on a variety of topics.

The CAMM program team worked diligently to offer live, on-line Zoom recertification trainings beginning in the summer of 2020.  Since that time the team has offered more than 30 on-line recertification trainings for CAMM- certified growers.  The intent is not to replace in-person trainings, but to offer another option for growers to attend the trainings.

Approximately 20% of CAMM-certified growers have attended one or more on-line trainings during the current 5 year period, which ends June 30, 2025.

For more information about the Confined Animal Manure Training Program visit https://www.clemson.edu/extension/camm/ .

The Laurens County Extension Office is currently hosting an in-person Master Gardener course.  The Master Gardener course began on August 16, 2022 and will meet each Tuesday through December 6.  This year’s course has 10 students.

Students in the course will complete 16 three-classes on subjects including lawn care, vegetable gardening, urban tree care, soils and plant nutrition, tree fruits and small fruits, and many more.  Each class is presented by an Extension Agent or a Master Gardener graduate that has experience in the subject matter, which allows them to provide practical experience along with research-based information.

After completing the course the students will provide 40 hours of community service over the next 12 months to become Certified Master Gardeners.

For more information about the program visit https://www.clemson.edu/extension/mg/ .

There has been an increasing interest in recent years for pollinators of all types.  There has also been an increase in beekeepers and those interested in providing plantings specifically for honey bees.

There are a number of plants that are frequented by many types of pollinators, but some of those are used little if at all by honey bees.  To help local residents specifically plant to feed honey bees Bryan Smith developed a Honey Bee Pollen Timing Chart.  The chart not only lists over 70 plants frequented regularly by honey bees, but also provides a tabular graph to show when each plant’s pollen will be available to honey bees.  This chart will help local residents to plant a varied field or bed for honey bees that can provide a food source for them almost all year.

The fact sheet explaining the chart may be found here:

https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/honey-bee-pollen-timing-chart/

The link to the actual chart is in the fact sheet, but may be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vh3iSLHF3Tl-BR8pWS8cu3hXd-HvhuYA/view

Laurens Extension is pleased to announce that Mr. Reid Miller will be our new Livestock and Forages Agent.  Reid will be based in Greenwood County, and will cover Greenwood, Laurens and McCormick Counties.  Reid comes to Clemson Extension from the University of Georgia Extension Service, where he served as the Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent in Hart County.  Reid received his Bachelor of Science from Clemson University in Animal and Veterinary Sciences and also has a Master’s of Science in Plant and Environmental Sciences from Clemson University.  Reid has worked in Georgia Extension since 2018 and brings a great set of skills and knowledge to our team.  He has family that farms in Edgefield County and has a good knowledge base for the counties that he will be covering. We are excited to have him join us in Laurens County.

In the last six months there has been an increase in forestry and pond related calls, especially after the staff returned to the offices. I have been answering a wide assortment of questions including several about managing timber and harvesting timber stands. The usual questions are about dying pine trees with bark beetle issues, and about controlling pond weeds.  As fall approaches, questions about buying seedlings and planting trees have increased.  I continue to visit sites on request and walk over timberland properties and provide advice about those properties.  We are continuing our virtual programs, and announcements are sent to my clients as the program information is available.  There was another occurrence of an unusual pest affecting trees in the area.  As if on cue, a number of calls came in about elm trees dying.  It turns out there has been a larger than usual population of Larger Elm Leaf Beetles this late summer.  The larva of these beetles eat the green from the leaves of elm trees and cause what remains to turn brown and fall off.  Many are concerned the trees have died, but they should be fine and leaf out again next spring, though some may try to re-leaf now.   The beetles sometime out pace their natural predators, and their populations explode for a year or two, until the predator populations catch up with them.

I remain in contact with the Laurens County Forest Landowners Association Board members concerning their quarterly meetings and what their plans for these meetings would be.  It is good to say the Association has met in-person twice now and plans to meet for a third time in November.

SC State Regulation R.61-43 requires all confined animal facility operators to attend the Confined Animal Manure Manager (CAMM) certification program provided by Clemson Extension.  The CAMM team has worked hard to provide trainings for South Carolina’s confined animal facility operators this year.  Bryan Smith (Laurens), Brian Beer (Lancaster), Lee van Vlake (Florence), and Amber Starnes (Chesterfield) worked together to offer four initial, full day trainings and 39 recertification trainings, with four more recertification trainings yet to go this fall.

The team offered 18 two-hour Zoom online recertification trainings on various topics from January 21, 2021 through March 30. 2021, with 384 growers attending.  Dr. Julie Helm with Clemson Livestock Poultry Health in Columbia offered another three classes on Animal Biosecurity, with another 32 growers attending those classes.  Presenters included Bryan Smith, Dr. Julie Helm Dr. John Chastain (Clemson University), Dr. Sean Eastman (Livestock Poultry Health), Lee van Vlake, and Tonya O’Cain (SCDHEC).  Topics included “Getting Producers Ready for Emergency Disease Outbreaks,” “Setbacks and Filter Strips: What is really needed to protect surface water?,” “Crop Utilization of Manure Nutrients and Soil Fertility,” and “Energy from Poultry Manure: A Comparison of Anaerobic Digestion & Combustion” as well as several others.

From July 19, 2021 through August 31, 2021 the team offered 15 two-hour in-person recertification trainings around the State, with 189 growers attending those trainings.  Dr. Helm also offered another two Biosecurity trainings to 9 growers.  The team has another four Zoom online trainings planned for September 2021.

During June and July the team also offered four full-day initial training classes to provide certification to new growers and growers that may have allowed their certification to lapse.  74 growers attended these full-day trainings.  Since January 2021 the CAMM team has offered a total of 41 trainings to 683 growers around the State.

The team plans to offer two more initial, full-day trainings in February 2022 and another slate of recertification trainings for our growers from January through March 2022.  More information about the training program may be found at www.clemson.edu/camm .

Laurens County 4-H Agent, Kendall Winn, has been very busy meeting and networking with the community of Laurens County. During this, she was able to connect with the staff of United Way Laurens County including Alesia Carter, Executive Director, and Aryele Redmond, Resources Manager. Kendall Winn and the United Way staff met together on multiple occasions to explore the opportunities of collaboration between United Way and Laurens County 4-H Program. After discussion, we realized this was an opportunity to not only collaborate on volunteer events, but to educate a broader, more diverse audience on Laurens County 4-H and engage youth of Laurens County in our joint mission of serving others. It was at this time United Way of Laurens County graciously offered Laurens County 4-H Agent, Kendall Winn, to become a Board member of United Way Laurens County.

United Way of Laurens County strives to create long-lasting community change by addressing the underlying causes of the most significant local issues. Common focus areas include helping children and youth achieve their potential, promoting financial stability and independence, and improving people’s health. To find more information on United Way of Laurens County, please visit https://www.uwlc-online.org/.

The Laurens County 4-H Program has slowly been getting back into full swing post pandemic and we couldn’t be more excited. After an extremely busy summer, we rounded it out with the Laurens County 4-H Livestock Clinic. This event offered clinics for project animals such as dog, rabbit, dairy, beef, and small ruminant. The aim for this clinic was to provide the participants with information on subjects such as showing, home care, nutrition, and others. Thanks to our phenomenal volunteers and clinicians, our eleven participants were able to gain valuable knowledge. Some added on to existing knowledge and others creating base knowledge for their new project animal. We had two brave participants exploring a brand-new project area this 4-H year that especially benefited from this event. We would like to thank the people and businesses that made this event possible: Annette Bodie, Alicia Grondski, Holly Jewell, Tina Horn, Mary Walker, Ingles of Laurens, and Save-a-lot of Laurens.

This clinic was in preparation for the Laurens County Youth Livestock Show taking place on October 2^nd and October 8^th-9^th. The breakdown of shows include art, poster, dog, rabbit, dairy, beef, market lamb, and meat goat. These shows will allow 4-H and FFA members to display the skills they have perfected throughout their project and compete against fellow youth.  For more information, please click here.

Hattie Grace Terry with her Dairy Heifer Project animal

Ila Kate Stone with her Market Lamb Project animal

Clemson Extension ceased all in-person trainings and meetings last March due to COVID-19 concerns.  We realize that while we all need to take action to protect each other from the virus, our clients continue to have questions and training needs for their various enterprises.

Clemson Extension continues to respond to phone calls and emails on a daily basis, but we also have responded by creating trainings using the Zoom online video conference program.  Extension agents are able to set up a date and time in the Zoom program and simply send a link to our clients.  Clients then are able to click on the link to join the meetings.  These meetings are not recorded, but are presented live.

Since March 2020 the Laurens County Extension Office has offered live Zoom trainings that include 22 Confined Animal Manure Manager recertification trainings (with 14 more scheduled), a Small Pasture and Hayfield Irrigation training, three Master Gardener classes on residential irrigation for various online classes around the State, a Horse Manure Management training, and a training on Feeding Horses.

The Laurens 4-H Program has offered many 4-H projects on-line and continues to offer projects and interaction in a non-contact manner utilizing the Zoom program.  SC 4-H Agents also developed the “SC 4-H @ Home” program, a national award winning program that allowed them to utilize online content to hold educational events and programs for SC 4-H’ers (many 4-H’ers in other states also participated in this program as well).

Laurens County Extension is currently working with agents from Abbeville, McCormick, Greenwood, Edgefield, and Union to develop monthly residential horticulture classes held via Zoom.  These will be 60 to 90 minute classes, and will offer topics such as Basic Vegetable Gardening, Fire Ant Control, Excluding Wildlife From Your Garden, and a wide range of other topics useful to our clientele.  The classes will be held in the evening to allow more clients to attend.

The State Master Gardener Program has also responded to the need for virtual programming, creating a live, on-line Master Gardener course for the entire state since local counties are not able to offer in-person courses at this time.  78 SC residents are enrolled in the current virtual Master Gardener course.

The South Carolina Bull Test Sale has also moved to an on-line format, allowing cattle growers to buy excellent bulls for their herds without having to attend a crowded auction area to do so.

Clemson Extension continues to provide information to our clientele through phone calls, emails, Laurens Extension Facebook posts, and newspaper articles.  Laurens County Extension is also currently developing a quarterly newsletter to be shared with clients via email, which should be live in February 2021.

Laurens County Extension Agents have also been able to make one-on-one farm visits when needed, practicing social distancing and safe, masked interaction with local clients while addressing their needs.  Our Extension Agronomy Team developed a “map pinning” app, which allows row crop farmers to place a “pin” on a map noting an area that they need help with.  The row crop agent then visits the area noted by the pin and provides recommendations for the problem.  This allows them to help clients with no contact required.

Helpful links for more information:

Laurens Count Extension web page
https://www.clemson.edu/laurens

Laurens County Extension Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/LaurensCountyClemsonExtensionService

Laurens County 4-H Program Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/4Hlaurenscounty

Home and Garden Information Center
https://hgic.clemson.edu/

SC Master Gardener Program
https://www.clemson.edu/extension/mg/

Clemson Extension Livestock and Forages Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ClemsonBullTest/

SC Confined Animal Manure Manager Program
https://www.clemson.edu/camm

Bryan Smith, County Coordinator
wsmth@clemson.edu
864-705-1101