Extension faculty to share expertise at Northwest Arkansas Homesteading and Gardening Expo April 18-20

By Rebekah Hall
U of A System Division of Agriculture

SHARING KNOWLEDGE — Extension faculty and agents will lead classes and presentations at the Northwest Arkansas Homesteading and Gardening Expo, held April 18-20 at the Benton County Fairgrounds in Bentonville. Organized by longtime Northwest Arkansas residents Barry and Mechel Wall, the pair said they wanted to share knowledge about sustainable living with attendees of all experience and skill levels. (NWA Homesteading and Gardening Expo graphic.) 

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Many young adults and families are interested in living a sustainable lifestyle — such as growing their own food or raising animals — but don’t know where to start. Barry and Mechel Wall, longtime residents of Northwest Arkansas, said they saw this knowledge gap and decided to organize the Northwest Arkansas Homesteading and Gardening Expo, which will take place April 18-20 at the Benton County Fairgrounds in Bentonville.

Mechel Wall said she and her husband wanted the expo to include classes for the homesteading-curious at different levels of experience and access to land. 

“Many people in the young professional age group live in apartments, so some classes are designed specifically for them, such as growing microgreens, window and patio gardens and becoming a farmer’s market chef — that’s what apartment dwellers need,” Wall said. “For those who have some space in their yard, there are classes on planning a garden, succession planning and canning, drying and freezing to preserve the harvest.”

Wall said she knew it was critical for the agenda to feature University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture faculty and agents, both from the Cooperative Extension Service and the Agricultural Experiment Station.

“There is a well-respected level of expertise coming from extension agents, and we are very appreciative,” Wall said. “We can all Google questions, but having someone explain things in a way we understand, that is specific to our region, is essential. The information presented by extension agents lends credibility to the processes and techniques. They are also able to connect learners with additional resources that they provide throughout the year.”

Extension faculty and agents will lead classes and presentations on Canning 101, the 4-H youth development program, organic food production, electric fencing and other methods of fencing and long and short-term food storage. The agenda also includes classes and workshops on seed starting, building raised beds, crop rotation, composting and more.

Extension expertise

Trudy McManus, Benton County extension family and consumer sciences agent for the Division of Agriculture, will lead a class on Canning 101. McManus said her presentation will include an overview of different forms of food preservation, such water bath canning and pressure canning, as well as discussion of proper canning procedures and canning supplies.

“We will be looking closely at the research-based science and food safety that every food preserver needs to know and practice,” McManus said.

McManus said that over the past 10-15 years, interest in home food preservation has increased, but a particular resurgence took place after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The empty grocery stores during COVID stressed the need for home food preservation for many people,” McManus said. “Although this push has slowed somewhat in the last year, there is still a lot of interest. There are also a lot of people moving to Northwest Arkansas with a goal to homestead, many of whom have not grown up with that lifestyle.”

Kenny Simon, extension forages instructor for the Division of Agriculture, said his presentation will focus on the fundamentals of controlled grazing utilizing electric fencing. He will discuss the importance of controlled grazing, its benefits and the advantages of electric fence over traditional fencing.

Simon said that with modern internet access, it’s easy for people to find answers to their homesteading questions, but the validity of those answers is cause for concern.  

“Just because a person reads something online, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true,” Simon said. “Producers and homeowners depend on extension to provide them with non-biased, research-based information. We’re active in the community; the general public gets to know us on a personal level. They know they can count on us to give them an honest answer.

“Extension employees practice what we preach,” Simon said. “We have the formal training to provide expert advice, along with the experience to know how to apply it.”

Joe Hannan, Agricultural Experiment Station horticulture instructor for the Division of Agriculture, will lead a class on organic food production at the expo. He said the discussion will include a brief history of organic production, “why someone may want to get certified,” the basic certification process and highlight the difference between organic certification and Certified Naturally Grown.

“We will wrap up the session by looking at profitability of organic agriculture versus conventional production,” he said.

Hannan said he has seen a lot of interest among students and potential students in homesteading. “This is an ongoing trend I have seen, not just in Northwest Arkansas but around the country for the past several years.”

In addition to dubious internet search results, Hannan noted that the influence of social media content about homesteading may not contain accurate information that’s relevant to Northwest Arkansas’s specific climate.

“Northwest Arkansas is very different than other regions,” Hannan said. “People can go online and watch videos or TikToks, visit Instagram or other social media, but that content may not always be relevant and correct for this region. If someone wants to start a small business, especially one so dependent on local environmental conditions, they really need to have access to local support and locally derived information.”

By presenting at the expo, Hannan said he’s doing what extension does best: helping meet Arkansans — and their needs — where they are.

“It’s important for extension faculty and agents to go to the people,” he said. “Sometimes, that’s supporting them at events we host, sometimes that’s through digital media, and sometimes that’s by participating in partnered or third-party events. People consume information through a variety of channels, and we have to meet them there.”

Darryl Holliday, executive director of the Arkansas Food Innovation Center at Market Center of the Ozarks for the Division of Agriculture, will share information on food safety and proper protocol for curing, salting and drying fish and other meats. He said all recommended recipes and procedures have been tested for safety, as well as user ease, to “ensure adherence resulting in safe products to make and consume at home.”

Sharing extension resources at events that aren’t organized by the Division of Agriculture helps spread the word about all that extension offers, Holliday said.

“Most extension individuals are subject matter experts, but many Arkansans do not know how to access them,” Holliday said. “Therefore, participating in events such as this, which are not sponsored by the Division of Agriculture, allows us to provide this key information to people we might not reach.”

Teaching today, sustaining tomorrow

Wall and her husband have lived in Northwest Arkansas for 30 years. She said they were inspired to organize the expo because they noticed more young people desired the kind of skills that they taught their eight children growing up.

“No one needs to be hungry in a region of the world where they can forage, grow succession crops of food, barter for items and have protein produced in their back yard,” she said. “We are in a position to help people from any walk of life to start now and set something aside for a time of need. We never know when that day will come, or whether it will be loss of employment, a supply chain disruption, tornado or ice storm.

“Our goal is to teach the skills of setting aside something for that rainy day, because it will come at some point into each of our lives,” Wall said. “To be prepared is to not be afraid when those times come.”

To learn more about or register for the Northwest Arkansas Homesteading and Gardening Expo, visit novaterranwa.com. To contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent, visit uaex.uada.edu/counties/.

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on X and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. 

After a disappointing first cutting, Arkansas pasture managers cross fingers for the second

By Ryan McGeeney
U of A System Division of Agriculture 

LITTLE ROCK — Pasture managers across Arkansas are reporting extraordinarily low yields from first cuttings.

Kenny Simon, instructor and extension forage specialist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said growers are seeing yields from first cuttings of ryegrass and other forage grasses reduced anywhere from 25 to 75 percent of expectations.

PASTURELANDS — Pasture managers across Arkansas are reporting extraordinarily low yields from first cuttings, seeing yields from first cuttings of ryegrass and other forage grasses reduced anywhere from 25 to 75 percent of expectations. (Division of Agriculture photo.)

According to the July 10 Crop Progress report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, 81 percent of non-alfalfa hay was in good or fair condition, with 11 percent rated poor or very poor. The same report showed 24 percent at a second cutting of hay, compared to 50 percent last year. Ninety-eight percent had completed a first cutting of hay, just short of last year’s 100 percent.

Simon said that with record-high fertilizer prices last year — doubling and nearly tripling in some cases — many growers chose to put out less fertilizer in fields than they typically would.

“Or perhaps none at all,” he said.

“But this low fertility issue is not something that’s come about overnight,” Simon added. “It’s an accumulation of several years.”

Simon said that despite outreach efforts by the Cooperative Extension Service and other farming resources, there persists a widespread misunderstanding of soils’ true nutritional needs.

“It’s typical that a producer will fertilize a field with a complete fertilizer early in the season, then only come back with nitrogen as needed,” he said. “We’ve been doing our best to educate growers about the importance of soil fertility and the correct fertilizer applications.

“Of course, sometimes it’s simply the case that the producers understand what they need to be doing, but it’s just not economically feasible,” he said.

Other issues have conspired to affect the year’s hay crop as well. Les Walz, extension agriculture and natural resources educator, said the first cutting in the state fell victim to the “perfect storm.”

“Last year, we had the drought across a large portion of the state,” Walz said. “Nobody wanted to fertilize during a drought, especially given the high prices, so we had low-fertility fields going into the winter.

“Then we had that freeze the week of Christmas, where we had single-digit temperatures, and we got a lot of winterkill on some of our warm season perennial grasses, like Bermuda and bahia, as well as turfgrass and some ornamentals” he said.

This year’s notably wet spring was then capped off by an unusually cool May, with overnight temperatures consistently in the 50s in the northern part of the state. The southern portion of the state saw those cool temperatures during the first week of May, which Walz said delayed their growth.

“With 50-degree nights, the warm season grasses really didn’t take off,” Walz said. “All those things fell in line to add up to a really bad first cutting.”

Most cattle and hay producers in Arkansas tend to let cattle graze those pastures for much of the first half of the year, Simon said, executing a first cutting in the early summer and a second cutting three to five weeks later, depending on the grass variety. Producers who maintain dedicated hay fields may take as many as four or even five cuttings in a season.

For the majority of Arkansas producers, however, much is riding on this year’s second cutting. Simon said that the ongoing rainfall throughout much of the state will likely benefit most growers, provided they can harvest their grasses at the right moment.

“The nutrient value is largely tied to the maturity stage of the plant,” Simon said. “It’s the No. 1 thing that influences forage quality. In areas where we’re getting rain, grass is maturing quickly.”

In 2022, many cattle producers in Arkansas and elsewhere were forced to deeply cull their herds, selling off more than they preferred, as the year’s widespread drought made forage scarce. Simon said that despite a disappointing first cutting, cattle producers may yet be able to harvest and stockpile enough forage to avoid a second year of drastic culling.

Greener in 2023

“We’re a lot greener now than we were this time last year,” Simon said. “We might have a really good second cutting, or even a third.”

Going forward, Simon said that soil testing — and adhering to appropriate fertilizer recommendations in response — will be key for pasture managers hoping for a more reliable first cutting in 2024 and beyond. Additionally, managing the canopy height of grasses will also be essential to success, he said.

“When doing a hay cutting, we need to raise our mower to a 2 to 3-inch height,” he said. “A common thread I’ve seen in damaged fields is that they were scalped to the ground, cut at 1-1.5 inches, and cut late in the season.

“With the forage top growth, the root system is a mirror image of the canopy,” he said. “If you have 1-2 inches of top growth, your roots are going to be really shallow in the soil.”

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu/. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.