2012 In-Depth Sorghum Schools: A Public-Private Partnership to Deliver Effective Extension Programming.

A central objective of Agronomy Extension activities is to educate producers, crop advisors, and other agri-business professionals about the latest best management practices for crop production and cropping systems. A series of sorghum production schools was planned to provide in-depth training targeted for sorghum producers and crop advisors. Topics included relative profitability of sorghum and corn, weed control, disease and insect management, planting practices, and fertility management. Six schools were scheduled with two each in the Southeast and Southwest and one each in the Northeast and Northwest Extension Areas. Several components of this programming effort helped make it a success. A base level of funding was obtained from the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission via their annual request for proposals. This funding supported school materials, meals for attendees, and some of the travel expenses for presenters. Previous funding from the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission had supported applied research that developed some of the core content presented at the schools. KFRM Radio, a farm radio station covering most of Kansas, southwest Nebraska, and north-central Oklahoma, became an important private partner by soliciting and obtaining private sponsorship from Huskie®, Bayer CropScience, to support radio spots promoting the schools and provided a live and archived broadcast of part of the program on their Website. The schools reached 283 producers and consultants who make management decisions for roughly 78,000 acres of grain sorghum. Another 353 individuals participated in parts of the school via the live web stream. For all six schools, 90% indicated that the information they received was either valuable or very valuable. These schools illustrate the impact that can be made when Extension works cooperatively with private entities to conduct applied research and targeted programs to disseminate the results of that research.