K-State Center for Excellence in Dryland Agriculture

Guorong Zhang, K-State Wheat Breeder, discusses how technology aides him in selecting and improving wheat varieties, including using double haploids, genomic selection, and drone technology. These advances are speeding up development of new and more advanced wheat lines.

Rangeland wildfires in the plains may occur any time of year, but the low humidity, increasing temperatures, and dry and abundant fuel load of late winter can result in greater wildfire occurrence and severity. Information collected at the Kansas State University Agricultural Research Center–Hays shows that forage production was significantly reduced for one growing season following a 2017 wildfire event. Learn more, as Kieth Harmoney, KSU Range Scientist, discusses wildfire events from 2017 and December 2021.

K-State sorghum and millet breeder Ram Perumal talks about his research with pearl millet. Perumal wants to stress to Kansas growers that this crop can be useful in dryland systems and provide an update on pearl millet as grain and forage crop.

Eric Atkinson, Agriculture Today, interviews K-State weed scientist Vipan Kumar about a new approach to crop weed control that he's testing out in field trials in western Kansas...it utilizes a roller cage mill outfitted to the back of a combine, to crush weed seeds as they're emitted from the machine...he tells what the early results are showing

Vipan Kumar, K-State Weed Scientist, is working with new harvesting technology. Kumar’s research involves retrofitting a combine with a seed roller system that destroys weed seeds during harvest operations. Another approach would be to collect the weed seed within the crops chaff and place it in a line directly behind the combine. Both methods have potential to reduce the weed seed bank and give farmers another tool to combat resistance weeds.