Paul Szmal: And welcome back to FLX Morning. It's 816. Happy to be joined by Frank Clark from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cayuga County. We have a lot to talk about this morning. Good morning, Frank.
Frank Clarke: Yes, we do. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, and I want to get right into it here because there are a ton of activities, one of which is actually happening tonight. This is the Beef Producers Cayuga Shop Meeting in Auburn.
Frank Clarke: Yep. So we're having our Beef Producers Shop Meeting tonight at 6 p.m. That'll be in Auburn. Our beef farmers are going to meet the new Beef Cattle Extension Specialist with Pro Livestock Cornell. Dr. Adam Murray is going to be there and he's going to be there, give a presentation and just chat with our local beef farmers, answer all the questions they have as he is our new local expert who will be working with our beef producers here. So it should be a great event.
Paul Szmal: And that event, by the way, happening at the Mintern Farms of 5607 Sevier Road from 6 until 8 tonight. Dr. Murray is going to be out during the day visiting some farms today, right?
Frank Clarke: Yep, that is correct.
Paul Szmal: All right. And there are 4-H public presentations that are coming up this week from this Saturday, February the 22nd. Can you tell me what these public presentations are about?
Frank Clarke: So these presentations could really be about anything. It is up to the 4-H youth to decide and choose their own subject matter and it's up to them to create their own presentation. The goal of this is to have youth learn how to express themselves clearly and convincingly organize their ideas, present them in a logical order, do some research and work on their problem solving skills, and most importantly, develop their self-confidence as they grow up and go into more professional things. It's a great opportunity.
Paul Szmal: Registration is due by the 17th for anybody who is interested in participating. And that's going to be at our new office on Grant Ave, 248 Grant Ave in Auburn. We finally got into our new office.
Frank Clarke: Oh, I know. You've been working on that for a while, haven't you?
Paul Szmal: Oh, tell me about it. Fantastic.
Paul Szmal: The next event we want to touch on here is actually running from February 25th through April 17th. We've actually run some advertisements for this as well, which is the tractor safety certification class for youth.
Frank Clarke: Yep. So we're doing our tractor safety again every year. We had a great group of kids. It's usually for kids 14 and up, and that's to learn all the safety stuff involved with operating a tractor on a farm, learn how to operate it, how to work it, all the safety stuff involved with it. It's a multi-week course, some classroom stuff. A lot of times we go out to a farm, we learn hands on. The classes are from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The deadline to register for any youth interested is February 18th, and it's $45, but that $45 includes the student manual needed for the class.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Frank Clark from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cayuga County here on FLX Morning. This next one is a big one. On Wednesday, February the 26th, it is officially Cayuga County Dairy Day.
Frank Clarke: Yep. So this is a new event that we're holding this year at Potter's Farm to Fork restaurant in Port Byron. So this is going to be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and we're just really going to hammer on all the topics needed for this upcoming growing season for our dairy farmers here in Cayuga County. We're going to cover topics like how many dairy replacements do you need, how to improve your corn silage, which is the forage most farms feed here, how much land do you need, how much forage do you need for your stock, how to storage and manage that forage, and then we're going to talk about managing your homegrown grains, the economics of that, and how that fits into your system as the margins can be tight. So it's important to get this stuff right. We're really excited for it. We should have some continuing education credits available as well. It's $25 to sign up. You can go to our website to register for that.
Paul Szmal: The $25 includes lunch. It's a great lunch. I've eaten there before many times, and it'll include all the program material needed.
Frank Clarke: And for the program material, is that material that you've generated from your offices?
Paul Szmal: So that's going to be stuff from our office. We're going to have some representatives from Cornell Pro Dairy. We'll have a representative from our regional team. So this is all going to be Cornell-based materials, Cornell Extension materials, all very reputable stuff, a lot of good information.
Paul Szmal: And then the final item that we have on the list here for this morning is on March 17th and 18th. It's another CCE shop meeting. What's the topic for this one?
Frank Clarke: So this one is going to be about understanding the licensing and legal aspects of agricultural transportation, as it can be quite different for operating large ag machinery on public roads. That's going to be Monday and Tuesday, March 17th and 18th, like you said, from 1230 to 3 p.m. in Moravia at Raymond Donaldson Sons Farm and Preferred Grain Systems in Cato. We're going to have a representative from the DOT who is there just to answer all the questions our producers have. Just hammer away whatever you got on your mind, whatever questions you need clarified. He's there to answer those questions, to keep everything legal, keep everything safe on the roads.
Paul Szmal: All right, and to recap, the beef producers meeting is happening today from six until eight o'clock. Registration still open for that?
Frank Clarke: Yep, you can register for that. You can either contact myself or Ron. You can get our contact information off our website ccekiuga.org.
Paul Szmal: Okay, and I know we have the public presentations coming up on the 22nd. And again, the deadline to register if you want to do that tractor safety certification class for youth is February 18th. That's $45 to register, including the student manual. And again, same website for registration for that, Frank?
Frank Clarke: Yep, going to be the same thing. All this stuff is available on our website. Go to our events page, click on the event, and it's going to have all the information you need for how to register, what it's about, what you need to know.
Paul Szmal: All right, Frank, thanks so much for filling us in this morning. We appreciate it.
Frank Clarke: I appreciate you having me. Thank you.
Paul Szmal: All right, it is 8.23 on FLX morning.
