OSU Extension is offering the New and Small Farm College in Miami County this year. This eight-week program is designed to teach new farmers how to set goals, plan, budget, and where to find resources available for starting a small farming operation.

This will be held at the First Baptist Church in Troy on Mondays, Jan. 25 through March 14. Classes will be from 6:30 -9 p.m. each week. Class size is limited to 40 registrants. The cost of the course is $150 per person, $100 for each additional family member. Participants will receive a notebook (per each $150 registration) of all resource materials, a soil test, refreshments, and a bus tour. Registrations are now being accepted. Individuals interested in the program may contact the Miami County Extension office at (937) 440-3945. Registration brochures for the program can also be found http://miami.osu.edu.

The Southwestern Ohio Fruit, Vegetable and Specialty Crop Conference will be held on February 2nd at the Oasis Conference Center in Loveland. Some of the class options will include sessions on fruit, vegetables, greenhouses, specialty crops, and marketing. In addition, pesticide applicator credits will be available for CORE, Categories 3 and 5, and a FertCert class focused on fruit and vegetable production will also be offered.

The early registration deadline is Jan. 23 and the cost is $50, which includes breakfast, lunch, and USB memory stick with handouts. The event website with class descriptions can be found at http://go.osu.edu/swohfvsc. Questions can be directed to Greg Meyer at [email protected] or (513)695-1311.

West Ohio Agronomy Day is next Monday, Jan. 11, in Fort Loramie. Woody’s Fertilizer Dealer Supply from Anna has signed on once again to help sponsor this great event! Speakers at this daytime meeting (8:30a-4p) include a marketing update from John Leighty (Trupointe) and Jerry Meyer (Cargill); Drs. Bob Nielsen (corn production) and Fred Whitford (sprayer clean-out) from Purdue; Drs. Pierce Paul (crop diseases) and John Fulton (technology) from OSU; Aurea Rivera, PE (drones); Jim Hoorman (cover crops); and Jason Bruns, SWCD (SB1 update).

I’d like to give a big “Thank You” to additional West Ohio Agronomy Day sponsors: Dallas Ag LLC from Urbana, Otte Ag LLC out of Maria Stein, and Cargill Incorporated. We have also added another speaker to our line-up on Monday, Jan. 11, at Fort Loramie: Professional Engineer Aurea Rivera will be presenting on “Unmanned Aerial Systems: An Overview and Application Opportunities.” This promises to be a very full and interesting day!

We have Private Pesticide Applicator Credits for CORE and Categories 1, 2, and 6; CEUs for CCAs; Commercial Pesticide Applicator Credits in 2A and 2C; and will be providing the two-hour FertCert Training. If you haven’t registered, yet, HURRY! By next week this time, it’ll be over!

Of course, there are other opportunities to get your Private Pesticide Recert Credits: Tuesday, Jan. 19, will be the evening portion of West Ohio Agronomy Day. This will be held at the Days Inn (old Holiday Inn) behind Bob Evans here in Sidney (SR 47 at I-75). There will be a light supper and market update at 5p with the program to begin at 5:30p. Pesticide Recert will be done by 8:30p with the two-hour FertCert from 8:45p-11p. This training will be done by OSU Extension Educators from the area.

Thursday, Jan. 21, will be the Auglaize County program at St. Joe’s Church Hall in downtown Wapak: 10a-12n is FertCert; 1p-4p, PestRecert. Mercer County’s programs will be on Tuesday, January 26th at the Celina Eagles, 9a-3p. Logan county will be holding a “Pesticide Recertification program only” on Monday, February 1st, 6p-9p at their office in Bellefontaine.

The Ohio Beef Cattle School series begins Tuesday, January 19th. The series will continue on February 2nd and conclude on Feb. 16. This year’s focus will be on the markets and marketing outlook as well as risk management.

The nearest program this year is at the Hardin County Extension: Lima Street, Kenton. Each session will begin at 7p and last about two hours. Contact Mark Badertscher (419.674.2297) for more information.

A quick update: For those of you who need to get your private pesticide applicator’s license renewed this year, or just want to attend a program to get your credits, the “RegOnline” system is working!! Due to technical problems in Columbus, it was available later than usual this year, but it’s up now! Just go to pested.osu.edu, then under “private applicator, recertification” choose the program you want to attend. Follow the prompts to pay online with a credit card. I’m hoping you got a mailing within the last two weeks – also late this year – that showed the meetings being held in the area and that had a mail-in registration form. If not, just call us and we’ll get you on the list.

There is still time to get signed up for our Master Gardener Training Class, scheduled to start in March. If you’d like to know more, contact our office for an information/application packet.

Well, Christmas weekend was a good weekend! We spent almost all of Christmas Day (and well into the evening) in Columbus with the kids and grandkids. What a day! Food, family, gifts galore! (I think they may be a little bit spoiled!) Of course, Christmas Eve was our annual “supper in the barn”! We usually do soup and sandwiches, but this year it was a bit warm, so we did mac and cheese with a sandwich and sweet roll. That worked! It’s just nice to sit back on the hay and be with the cattle. … It’s so peaceful in the barn: no radio or TV; no phones; a chance to just relax! and reflect on the reason for the season.

Here’s hopin’ you made some great Christmas memories, too! January’s here … with a new year full of promises and more adventures! Time to get geared up!