Wayne County Extension will be a host location for the 2017 Beef School Webinar Series. The webinar series will be offered the evenings of January 17, February 7 and February 28. All sessions will begin at 7:00 pm and end around 9:00 pm. The goal of the webinar series is to demonstrate how the relationships between the three primary sectors of the beef industry in Ohio – cow-calf, backgrounding/stocker, and feedlot – must work together to produce high quality beef for today’s consumer.
On January 17, Dr. Justin Rhinehart, Associate Professor, Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, University of Tennessee Department of Animal Science, will focus on key management practices that will help the cow-calf producer stay viable in the beef cattle business. He will discuss how genetics and nutrition are key components of reproduction management that will keep females productive. Dr. Amy Radunz, Associate Professor, Beef Cattle Production, University of Wisconsin – River Falls will follow with “Achieving the genetic potential of your calf crop – it starts at conception!” This presentation will cover how nutrition and management during gestation impacts the lifetime development of the resulting calf.
Dr. Francis Fluharty, Research Professor, The Ohio State University Department of Animal Sciences, will be the featured on February 7, 2017. This session will compare grazing versus confinement growing systems for feeder cattle. Dr. Fluharty will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of these two distinctly different management systems and explore how calf health and management impact the end product.
The series concludes on February 28, 2017 with Dr. Justin Sexten, Supply Development Director for Certified Angus Beef, discussing “Meeting consumer demand: Perspective from the feed yard to the consumer.” He will challenge the audience to consider questions such as: How do feeder, packer, grocer and restaurateur demands influence the decisions the cow-calf manager makes? Does an end-user focused cow herd work on the farm? What opportunities exist to capture value added processes?
Sessions will be held in the commissioner’s meeting room in the Wayne County Administration building. Please enter through the doors off of West Liberty Street, the doors closest to the Auditor’s office. Someone will be down by those doors to let participants in beginning at 6:30 pm each evening of the school.
Pre-registration is requested to attend the beef school. The cost is $15/participant and this includes handout materials and light refreshments. Pre-register by calling the Wayne County Extension office at 330-264-8722 or send an email to lewandowsk.11@osu.edu by Thursday, January 12.