Category: Laurens

Over the last few years, Health Extension for Diabetes has grown. We are so excited to have in-person classes offered in additional counties. As of October 2022, Health Extension for Diabetes is now offered in person in Laurens County. Our first cohort in the county was offered at the Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy and we are so excited to work with them as we bring Health Extension for Diabetes to Laurens. We will begin our second in-person cohort for Laurens County on February 20^th at the Clinton Family YMCA. We are so excited to continue to expand our reach for this program and help as many individuals with diabetes as we can.

Melissa Bales, Health Extension Agent

Representatives from the Rural Health and Nutrition (RHN) Team, including the Greenville County RHN agent, and individuals from the horticulture and 4H teams, attended the Extension Appalachian Region Health Summit in Roanoke, Virginia in November. The summit was an opportunity to showcase what the Clemson RHN team is doing to address the health of South Carolinians as well as learn more about the different health and family consumer sciences teams from Extension services across the Appalachian region.  The summit opened up opportunities for additional collaboration between Extension services for how we can best serve our stakeholders.

Melissa Bales, Health Extension Agent

Melissa Bales, Rural Health and Nutrition Extension Agent 

Know Diabetes by Heart (KDBH) and Health Extension for Diabetes (HED) offer classes in English and Spanish. Eight percent of individuals living in Greenville County speak Spanish. Through the delivery of HED and KDBH in English, we identified a need for these programs in Spanish. Statewide Rural Health and Nutrition agent, Camden Bryan, and Greenville Rural Health and Nutrition agent, Melissa Bales, collaborated with program team leaders to translate and culturally adapt the two programs for the Spanish-speaking population.

HED had its first Spanish cohorts in 2022 and is starting additional cohorts in February of this year. KDBH had its first Spanish groups in early 2022 and will offer many program dates in 2023. The first KDBH offered in English and Spanish for Greenville County was offered in January. For more information about KDBH and HED in Spanish, contact Camden Bryan at cnpatse@clemson.edu or 843-504-0299.

There are five online cohorts for English HED enrolling in February for Greenville County and one in-person English HED enrolling in February for Laurens County. KDBH was offered in both languages in January both in-person and online. For more information about KDBH and HED in English, contact Melissa Bales at mbales@clemson.edu or 864-365-0635.

Mary Vargo, Horticulture Agent

Start Your Own Vegetable and Flower Seeds This Year

Want to learn how to start your own vegetable and flower seeds this year? Join Greenville County Horticulture Agent Mary Vargo and the Greenville Master Gardeners for a seed-starting workshop on February 25, 2023, from 11 AM to 12:30 PM at the Greenville State Farmers Market. Participants will receive a seed starting tray with a humidity dome and learn new techniques and methods to start their own seeds at home successfully. There will be lots of show and tell, as well as vegetable and flower seeds to share! The cost is 12.00, and registration is required for this event. Contact Mary Vargo with any questions: mavargo@clemson.edu

Registration: https://tinyurl.com/tsu8ysav

Carolina Yards Online Course

Registration is now open for the Carolina Yards Online Course.

This asynchronous online class will provide information and techniques to help you create and maintain a more environmentally friendly landscape. Participants are encouraged to complete at least 18 action items from the Carolina Yards Scorecard in order to receive Carolina Yard Certification although yard certification is not mandatory. The course is organized into modules. Each of the 12 content modules contains five parts: Action Guide, Presentation(s), Resources, Discussion, and Measure Up. Modules must be completed in chronological order.

An optional field day will be offered the week of May 8 in the Columbia area. This is an un-graded course. A digital Certificate of Completion will be issued for completing all coursework. A digital badge will be issued for completion of coursework and a minimum of 80% on each module’s Measure Up.

Stay in the Loop

Be on the lookout for additional local gardening programs this spring and summer on various topics taught by Horticulture Agent Mary Vargo and the Greenville County Master Gardeners. Use the Clemson Extension Event Calendar to stay in the loop!

Master Gardener Course Postponed

The Greenville County Master Gardener Course was postponed due to difficulty securing a new location to host the class and is now slated to begin in the fall of 2023.  Complete this form, and we will let you know when pre-registration is available.

Travis Mitchell
Livestock and Forages Agent for Newberry & Saluda Counties
Director for The South Carolina Cattlemen’s Association

The spring season is in full swing across the Carolina’s. It is a joy and relief to see pastures greening up and cattle grazing. Spring always brings optimism which was evident in the “beef cattle market outlook” presentation Dr. Andrew Griffith gave at the South Carolina Cattlemen’s Association Annual Meeting. Cattle producers from across the state met at the T. Ed Garrison Cattle Complex on February 3rd for this event. Dr. Griffith, an Extension Livestock Economist with the University of Tennessee, presented to the group a favorable market outlook report indicating higher cattle prices for the next two years. Producers also enjoyed a presentation from State veterinarian Dr. Michael Neault. Dr. Neault presented on the Asia Longhorn Tick, educating producers regarding control measures and identification strategies. The meeting concluded with a joint awards banquet with the Clemson Bull Test.

Be on the lookout in next month’s issue of the Carolina Cattle Connection for photos and awards of excellence winners. I want to thank each of our Prime, Choice, and Select members for putting on an outstanding trade show and for their financial support in making the 2023 Annual Meeting a huge success.

Adam Petty
Laurens County 4-H Youth Development Agent

On Saturday, January 14^th Laurens County 4-H hosted the 2023 SC 4-H Showcase at Clinton High School. The Showcase (formerly the Miss 4-H Pageant) is a unique event that is meant to highlight the achievements of 4-H’ers across the state. The goal of this long-running fundraising program is to assist contestants in developing confidence, building public speaking skills, and encouraging 4-H’ers to step out of their comfort zone to try something new. This year’s program included eleven contestants ranging in age from 7 to 18.

Our contestants competed in three onstage categories: business wear, 4-H project wear, and formal wear. In addition to these categories, our 4-H Teen and 4-H Queen contestants participated in an interview with the judges earlier in the day. This was a great opportunity for them to practice public speaking skills and gain self-confidence.

Members of the local community were chosen as judges:

Finica Floyd – Michelin Tire, Mountville

Peden Styles – Running G Farm and Arena and South Greenville Fair

Courtney Stonell – Keep Laurens County Beautiful

Matthew Brownlee with Allen Tate Realtors served as our Master of Ceremonies.

The winners of the 2023 SC 4-H Showcase were:

Little Miss Cloverbud – Eden Reece Lindsey

Little Miss Cloverleaf – Shelby Birkenstock

Miss 4-H Teen – Ellen Rose Shaw

Miss 4-H Queen – Mya Chapman

Mr. Adam Petty accepted the Laurens 4-H and Youth Development Agent position this fall and began working in Laurens on October 5, 2022.

Adam is excited to make connections in the community and to develop engaging programs to serve our youth. With a degree from Clemson, he has four years of experience in education, teaching middle and high school math in a private school. Most recently, he served as the school’s administrator in addition to his teaching responsibilities. Adam also operates a small vegetable farm in Union County with his wife, children, and their growing number of animals. He is active in his local community and church.

His goal is to make a positive impact on the youth in Laurens County and empower them to be outstanding citizens through the many programs, projects, and events offered through 4-H.

Adam can be reached by phone at 864-705-1102 or by email at akpetty@clemson.edu .

Reid Miller
Area Livestock & Forages Agent

Rainfall has been a big topic of conversation over the last year. Six months ago, we would have taken any drop we could get. Now, it’s a much different story. With all this rain and feeding hay comes mud….and lots of it. Too much mud can drastically affect cattle performance and pasture conditions. A study from the University of Nebraska gives us a range for loss of gain due to mud from 7% at dewclaw deep to 35% at belly deep with shin deep coming in at 14%. So how do we manage against this?

There is no silver bullet, but here are some tips to help you mitigate mud accumulation on your operation:

1. Choose your feeding areas wisely. Feed hay in pastures that are well drained (higher ground), and maybe a pasture that could use a fertility boost. Waste hay and manure can provide needed fertility for the upcoming growing season (mostly beneficial for summer grasses). Updated soil tests can help with proper feeding placement. This works best in a temporary situation where the animals are not there long enough to dismantle the soil structure. Some type of drag to help evenly distribute manure and hay can help as well.
2. Rotate between multiple feeding or sacrifice areas if possible. If one area begins to have an excess of mud, give it a rest, and use a different area for a while. Temporary fencing can help for those with electric fence.
3. Avoid feeding near streams, ponds, or other water sources to prevent contamination and added potential for a muddy situation. Also, while feeding on a slope or hill can assist with drainage, consider the effects of runoff.
4. For high traffic or heavy use areas such as dirt roads, feed bunks, water troughs, and hay storage, it may be worth installing either concrete or packed gravel. Your local NRCS office should have information about their EQIP programs that can help with these issues.

Bryan Smith
Area Extension Agent-Agricultural Engineer

We do not often see sub-20 degree weather in the Piedmont, but when we do many people immediately become concerned about pipes freezing in their home.  Several sources recommend allowing a faucet in the house to run continuously to help prevent freezing, with a pencil-lead-thick stream of water flowing from the faucet.

We measured the flow rate of this pencil-lead-thick stream of water flow in our Extension Office to see how much water would actually be used in this practice.  The stream filled a 12 ounce cup in 1.8 minutes.  There are 128 ounces in a gallon, so using this conversion we were able to calculate the flow rate from the faucet of approximately 3 gallons per hour.  Now let’s talk about homes using wells and homes using city or county water.

If a home has a standard well with a 40 gallon bladder tank, the actual “drawdown” amount (the amount of water that leaves the tank from the time the pump turns off until it turns on again) for the tank is about 13 gallons of water.  If the homeowner left one faucet running with a pencil-lead-thick water stream, the well pump will probably turn on once every 4.3 hours (with no other water use).  Typical pump run times to refill a pressure tank are in the 2 to 3 minute range, so the electricity use would be minimal.  Quite frankly the homeowner may want the pump to turn on a bit more often than every 4 hours.

If a home uses city or county water the concern will be about the increased water bill.  3 gallons per hour from one faucet translates into 72 gallons of water per day.  For comparison, a normal SC household uses about 120 to 150 gallons of water per day per person.  So a single running faucet may add 12% more water cost per day used for the home, which is very minimal since the intense cold front may only last two or three days.

Regardless of the home water source it will be fine to leave one or two faucets running during a sub-20 degree cold snap.  The moving water will help prevent freezing, and the amount of water or electricity used will certainly not break the bank.  Homeowners may find that allowing two faucets to flow in this manner will more adequately prevent pipes from freezing.

Jeff Fellers
Area Forestry & Wildlife Agent

In January, I always look forward to judging the 4-H Wildlife Food Plots that were planted by 4-H’ers in the fall of the year.  This year I visited Newberry, Laurens, and Saluda Counties to judge six different food plots.  The 4-H Wildlife Food Plot Project gives participants a bag of seed to plant a certain size food plot.  The participants then monitor that food plot through a specified time frame and complete a record book with their findings.  Many participants set up game cameras, bird houses, and blinds to monitor the wildlife that visit their plot.  They also monitor rainfall and document nutrients added to soil to help the pot grow.    If you know of youth between the ages of 5 and 19 that maybe interested in the 4-H Wildlife Food Plot Project have them contact their local 4-H Agent at Clemson Extension.

The Laurens Forest Landowners Association and the Newberry Forestry Association both hosted meetings in November of 2022.  The Laurens Forest Landowners Association meeting focused on vegetation management for the landowner, while the Newberry Forestry Association learned how to calculate and measure seedling survival on a newly planted stand.

Wood Magic Forest Fair is a program hosted by the South Carolina Forestry Commission.  This is a great program that teaches fifth graders from across the state about forestry.  This year I had the opportunity to present at the gifts stations during the Harbison Wood Magic Forest Fair.  For more information this program please visit: https://www.scfc.gov/education/wood-magic/.

October is always a busy time in Union, because the Clemson Extension Office is actively involved in the local fair.  We manage the livestock shows, home economics department, agronomy department and the poultry department.  On Thursday of the fair, we invite all the 5K classes throughout the county to visit the fair and to come learn about agriculture in Union County.  Through this field trip, the students get a tour through the barn and learn about crops, bees, horses, dairy cows, beef cows, pigs, and chickens.