Keeping Extension Relevant: What Might the Future of Extension Look Like?

Chris Proctor Weed Science Extension Educator, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Author

06/06/2023 Added

15 Plays

Description

As extension audiences change how can we continue to help provide relevant solutions to stakeholder challenge? This seminar will explore things we are doing well in extension and how we may need to adapt to meet stakeholder needs both now and in the future.

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[00:00:00.750]The following presentation
[00:00:02.220]is part of the Agronomy and Horticulture Seminar Series
[00:00:05.820]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:00:08.910]Thank you, everyone,
[00:00:09.840]for joining the Friday Seminar Series.
[00:00:13.470]And today, it's my great honor to introduce today's speaker,
[00:00:17.220]Dr. Chris Proctor.
[00:00:19.170]So, Dr. Proctor and I have known each other
[00:00:22.050]for 10 years by now. Yeah.
[00:00:23.940]We used to work
[00:00:25.500]in the same graduate student office over there.
[00:00:27.780]We'd sit side by side.
[00:00:29.190]And I learned so much from him over the years.
[00:00:32.160]Thank you, Chris. Thanks, Luqi
[00:00:33.863]So, Dr. Proctor is a Associate Extension Educator
[00:00:37.320]here at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:00:39.960]He received his bachelor in Master in Science
[00:00:42.600]of Crop Science from the Washington State University,
[00:00:46.920]and he received his PhD degree in Agronomy
[00:00:49.410]from University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:00:52.140]Dr. Proctor
[00:00:55.140]extension interest focus on herbicide-resistant weed,
[00:00:59.317]integrated pest management,
[00:01:01.680]and the development of new IPM tools
[00:01:04.290]for managing the Nebraska's weed
[00:01:06.270]and helping farmers to implement this tool effectively.
[00:01:10.620]Without further ado, I'll turn it to Dr. Proctor.
[00:01:13.860]Yeah. Thanks, Luqi.
[00:01:16.110]Somehow along the way, I got less hair up top
[00:01:19.650]and more gray on my beard since the day Luqi and I met.
[00:01:22.800]But yeah, we spent a number of years together in the same,
[00:01:27.030]the turf office, as it was called in those days.
[00:01:29.640]I don't know if it's still true anymore,
[00:01:31.020]but, yeah, I enjoyed that time.
[00:01:33.150]So there's something about having to write a title
[00:01:36.120]three months before you give a talk
[00:01:37.650]that you back yourself into a corner some, I would say,
[00:01:41.810]so this is an ambitious title to say the least.
[00:01:46.260]So it's not one that I have the answer to.
[00:01:48.540]I can't claim that I can answer this question.
[00:01:51.750]My hope is that we can have a conversation around it,
[00:01:55.020]at the minimum, and, you know,
[00:01:57.210]it's a question that I'm certainly interested
[00:01:59.460]in seeing that we could answer collectively.
[00:02:02.100]And so I think that was kind of the motivation
[00:02:03.960]for putting it down.
[00:02:09.630]See if I can get this guy to wake up.
[00:02:18.120]There we go.
[00:02:19.920]All right, so I'll give you the outline.
[00:02:22.350]So I really wanted to highlight,
[00:02:26.520]you know, what's the focus of extension?
[00:02:29.130]Why do we do what we do?
[00:02:30.180]What's driving us?
[00:02:32.910]And think a little bit about this idea of,
[00:02:34.950]you know, what leads to new adopt,
[00:02:38.520]the adoption of new practices?
[00:02:39.958]What's behind that? How do we get at that?
[00:02:44.190]I'm gonna highlight just some different
[00:02:45.450]extension approaches, so this by no means is comprehensive.
[00:02:49.207]It's gonna be coming from my perspective,
[00:02:51.210]so just highlight some things that I've been a part of,
[00:02:54.750]hopefully to maybe spark some ideas or some conversation,
[00:02:58.710]talk a little bit about what I would see,
[00:03:00.780]and I think others would agree in conversations I've had,
[00:03:04.560]or what are some of the challenges that we see?
[00:03:07.200]And where do we go from here?
[00:03:09.210]So I almost hesitate to put this slide up,
[00:03:11.880]not because I don't think it's important,
[00:03:13.380]but because it gets used a lot.
[00:03:15.780]There's a lot of grants that this is the opening line.
[00:03:18.480]But I think it's the right place to start.
[00:03:21.420]You know, why do we do what we do?
[00:03:24.120]It's one of the grand challenges
[00:03:26.370]or the global challenges that we face is,
[00:03:28.260]how are we gonna feed our growing population?
[00:03:31.200]And I think we're well positioned in agronomy
[00:03:34.290]and the work that we're doing to answer this question.
[00:03:38.130]I think extension's gonna play a significant part in that.
[00:03:42.120]And so, let me start with this question.
[00:03:46.081]What drives extension?
[00:03:49.320]So I mean, that could be from like a personal motivation
[00:03:52.260]point of view, but also,
[00:03:54.150]how else would you answer it in terms of,
[00:03:58.740]what are we after with extension?
[00:04:00.930]What are we trying to do?
[00:04:02.850]So being in extension now,
[00:04:04.410]I'm not gonna answer the question.
[00:04:05.730]I'd be more curious what you have to say.
[00:04:09.690]What are some of the things that we're interested in?
[00:04:14.751](audience member faintly speaking)
[00:04:17.310]Yeah, so science-based.
[00:04:19.110]I mean, that's one of the things that we hang our hat on
[00:04:21.960]is we want our information to be science-based.
[00:04:28.470]What else?
[00:04:30.780]Feedback from clientele.
[00:04:31.990]Yeah, so relevant to clientele,
[00:04:33.900]so based on clientele feedback or need.
[00:04:36.660]I would agree with that. Yep, absolutely.
[00:04:39.780]Anything else?
[00:04:43.530]You guys have probably seen these floating around,
[00:04:46.500]the big three.
[00:04:49.650]And so I think there's a lot in here that we can follow.
[00:04:52.890]But you know, you look at,
[00:04:54.480]what do we put down on our website in terms of our values?
[00:04:58.460]And I think we can hone in a lot.
[00:05:00.150]So research-based is one that I've pulled from here.
[00:05:03.090]Relevant or applied.
[00:05:04.650]We want it to be meaningful to the folks that are using it.
[00:05:08.700]But the one that didn't make the list explicitly,
[00:05:11.880]but I think it's implied in all of this,
[00:05:13.560]is how do we ultimately influence behavior change
[00:05:18.000]of the folks we're working with?
[00:05:21.420]I mean, some of the questions we answered,
[00:05:23.760]folks want answered, and it aligns,
[00:05:25.710]but sometimes we wanna tell 'em to stop doing something
[00:05:27.960]because of the implications broadly
[00:05:30.990]that might have a direct influence
[00:05:32.610]in what they're doing today.
[00:05:33.443]And so then, how do you have those conversations?
[00:05:36.420]And what does that look like?
[00:05:39.166]And so I think this idea of, you know,
[00:05:41.880]how do we influence behavior change?
[00:05:43.200]'Cause I think that's a piece of what we wanna do.
[00:05:46.170]So running with that theme of adoption,
[00:05:50.940]what are some of the barriers to adoption?
[00:05:53.280]What do you think are the hangups
[00:05:54.930]getting people to adopt new or different practices?
[00:05:59.322](audience member faintly speaking)
[00:06:01.140]Yeah, so economics is a big driver for sure.
[00:06:04.170]Absolutely.
[00:06:05.910]What other barriers?
[00:06:11.640]Yeah, you just say, "I've always done it this way.
[00:06:13.357]"Why would I?" Yeah, absolutely.
[00:06:15.000]You just kinda get stuck in the lane.
[00:06:18.720]What else?
[00:06:22.260]Yeah, so family. That's what grandpa does.
[00:06:25.770]I agree with that. I hear that.
[00:06:28.710]I mean, data could be one.
[00:06:29.790]Yeah, I don't have the data, the information I need,
[00:06:33.630]so economics.
[00:06:35.430]Access to technology. I don't know.
[00:06:37.380]I think, at times, we might not have access
[00:06:39.750]to the right technology.
[00:06:42.840]So I'm gonna transition here, but before I go on,
[00:06:46.320]I need to highlight my team.
[00:06:47.400]They don't get enough credit.
[00:06:48.630]And a lot of what I'm gonna talk about,
[00:06:51.870]they're responsible for.
[00:06:53.400]So I might have my name on the title slide today,
[00:06:57.330]but it's not because I'm the one doing all the work.
[00:07:00.150]So, sorry, Anna, you got stuck on the side
[00:07:03.018]'cause she just joined our team
[00:07:05.040]before this picture was taken.
[00:07:07.680]She's definitely part of the team.
[00:07:08.513]So this is the group that I work with.
[00:07:10.260]I'm gonna highlight some of the stuff
[00:07:11.550]that we've been been doing
[00:07:13.710]and stuff that I'm pretty excited about.
[00:07:16.020]I put that picture in the upper left
[00:07:17.760]just because I think, for me,
[00:07:19.140]that's a lot of what drives me.
[00:07:21.870]That's what it is, the work in Nebraska,
[00:07:23.333]and you get to see sunsets like that.
[00:07:25.350]And so it's enjoyable to do the work that we get to do.
[00:07:30.750]So here, I'm gonna walk through a couple of studies.
[00:07:33.870]I'm not gonna talk about these exhaustively,
[00:07:35.400]and I'm not gonna necessarily do it
[00:07:37.230]from a heavy science perspective, but more,
[00:07:40.770]how are we using some of these concepts
[00:07:43.050]and trying to infuse 'em into an extension context?
[00:07:46.380]And so this first project is really focused
[00:07:50.640]on using on-farm research to answer questions.
[00:07:54.270]So again, these aren't concepts that nobody else is doing
[00:07:57.840]or that are novel in that sense.
[00:07:59.910]But here's a question that we're trying to answer on-farm
[00:08:04.200]is how do you interseed cover crops into a standing crop?
[00:08:08.400]'Cause in Nebraska, we got a short season.
[00:08:10.290]We need a longer growing season to increase biomass.
[00:08:13.650]So here's a machine that we're working with
[00:08:15.420]that is drilling those cover crops,
[00:08:18.330]in this case, at corn V3 stage.
[00:08:22.050]So that's one of the things we're after,
[00:08:23.400]one of the things we're trying to explore with growers.
[00:08:26.370]In this case, you know,
[00:08:27.203]you need specialized equipment to do it,
[00:08:28.800]so that adds a challenge.
[00:08:31.230]But one of the things we ran into as we were doing this work
[00:08:33.360]is, well, if you're gonna interseed at V3,
[00:08:37.200]now you're putting a crop in the ground
[00:08:38.730]when you have an herbicide
[00:08:39.750]that you still want to be effective for controlling weeds,
[00:08:42.417]and so now there's an interface there
[00:08:44.100]that we're gonna have to address.
[00:08:46.110]And so one of the interesting pieces
[00:08:48.270]about this on-farm research piece is it almost,
[00:08:53.520]I think, if you're doing it well,
[00:08:55.530]you're gonna end up with more questions
[00:08:56.850]than you started with.
[00:08:58.680]So that happened here.
[00:08:59.513]So what we did is we said, how do we answer that question
[00:09:01.590]of herbicide interaction with these interseeded cover crops?
[00:09:05.580]And so we took it into the greenhouse.
[00:09:07.260]So this is a lot of Victor's work.
[00:09:09.090]I should say right now. I'm gonna butcher this.
[00:09:12.000]If you really wanna hear how this works,
[00:09:13.410]come back on April 19th.
[00:09:15.390]He's gonna defend his thesis, and you'll hear.
[00:09:17.940]You'll get a better idea of what this is about.
[00:09:20.340]We did this in the greenhouse looking from two questions.
[00:09:24.090]How long do we have to wait after applying that herbicide
[00:09:27.870]for these cover crops to be safe?
[00:09:29.850]And then we did it as a dose response.
[00:09:31.800]So if we applied different doses of those herbicides,
[00:09:34.620]can we understand what that concentration of herbicide
[00:09:36.960]might be that affects the cover crop?
[00:09:38.520]So we tested three common corn herbicides,
[00:09:43.549]Acuron, Resicore, Verdict.
[00:09:45.120]So those are commonly used premixes in corn.
[00:09:49.650]And then we tested both crops,
[00:09:51.390]cover crops and a couple of weed species
[00:09:53.700]to see how those might affect,
[00:09:56.130]be influenced by those herbicides.
[00:09:58.200]Sprayed it, and then about every seven days
[00:10:01.360]from the time we sprayed it out to 70 days,
[00:10:04.410]which we were estimating is about the time
[00:10:06.180]when corn would tassel, what effect does that have?
[00:10:11.730]And then we also came back
[00:10:12.720]and did this as the dose response,
[00:10:14.010]so the same herbicide, same products,
[00:10:17.250]but looking at from the full-label dose
[00:10:21.000]down to about 20% of the full-label dose.
[00:10:24.060]And so, here, I'm gonna show you two graphs.
[00:10:26.940]One is for Acuron, the second one for Verdict,
[00:10:29.160]so I won't go too in depth here.
[00:10:31.830]But on the left hand side,
[00:10:33.480]so that's the biomass reduction
[00:10:36.330]that we saw of those plants in the greenhouse.
[00:10:39.390]So the left graph, that's the planting time.
[00:10:41.100]So you can see time progressing across the x-axis.
[00:10:44.820]That line across, that vertical,
[00:10:47.070]or excuse me, horizontal line across the graph,
[00:10:48.900]that's a 30% biomass reduction.
[00:10:52.050]So if you read some of the literature,
[00:10:53.880]that's semi agreed upon acceptable level of injury.
[00:10:58.710]So we can argue how acceptable that is,
[00:11:00.300]but that just gives you a reference point.
[00:11:01.860]That would be 30% biomass reduction.
[00:11:04.410]Then, on the right, you can see the doses
[00:11:06.420]increasing across the x-axis and, again, biomass reduction.
[00:11:09.570]So what's interesting here is there was only,
[00:11:14.790]what is it, two grass species
[00:11:19.080]that showed any level of tolerance to Acuron.
[00:11:21.750]So this is wheat and cereal rye.
[00:11:24.330]But even at the highest doses, we're still looking
[00:11:26.310]at 75 to 80% biomass reduction.
[00:11:30.570]But as you delay time,
[00:11:32.760]I'll turn around, looking here, as you delay time.
[00:11:34.920]So once we get to about, oh, this 21 to 28 days,
[00:11:39.210]that's that V3 stage of corn.
[00:11:41.460]So this is when we'd like to be interseeding.
[00:11:44.910]And you can see, you know, even with cereal rye,
[00:11:46.950]we're still 50% reduction.
[00:11:48.690]So that's some of the challenge we have
[00:11:50.820]with a product like Acuron.
[00:11:54.000]I will say, if you look across the top,
[00:11:56.910]in the greenhouse, these are best-case scenario,
[00:11:59.490]but you can see even out to 70 days,
[00:12:00.990]we still had excellent control of palmer.
[00:12:03.750]So I wouldn't say this is a one-to-one for field,
[00:12:06.420]but you can see there is a separation in terms of the effect
[00:12:09.990]on cover crops versus weeds.
[00:12:11.400]So that was something that we thought was interesting.
[00:12:13.470]Then, if you look at Verdict,
[00:12:14.460]you can see Verdict behaves a lot differently
[00:12:16.830]in terms of how it influences cover crops.
[00:12:19.230]So I would say the biggest takeaway
[00:12:21.270]from this being in the greenhouse
[00:12:22.860]is that there are differences in products.
[00:12:25.170]I think we can hone in on products
[00:12:28.380]that we can recommend for growers
[00:12:29.373]that are wanting to do this interseeding practice,
[00:12:32.790]where we can have a certain level of safety
[00:12:34.710]on some of our cover crop species
[00:12:37.440]but still have relatively good weed control
[00:12:39.930]in that early part of the season.
[00:12:41.100]So this was some of the outcome
[00:12:43.596]of kind of the on-farm research.
[00:12:45.690]New question came up, took it into the greenhouse,
[00:12:48.570]and now I think we can move it back
[00:12:51.330]into a grower recommendation.
[00:12:53.340]One of the interesting outcomes is now
[00:12:55.470]we have an opportunity to work with Bayer Crop Science
[00:12:57.960]and do a field-based study on the same concept
[00:13:01.110]and try to extend a little bit further the work.
[00:13:05.400]Here's another kind of a study that I'll highlight.
[00:13:09.360]And so this, to me, this kinda highlights the interface
[00:13:12.060]between a research project and a demonstration project.
[00:13:16.410]And so this is a high...
[00:13:19.740]I don't know.
[00:13:20.573]I'm not gonna take credit for this acronym
[00:13:22.290]unless you think it's good.
[00:13:24.131]Then I'll take credit for it.
[00:13:26.310]But it's the High-Clearance Cover Crop Interseeding Project
[00:13:28.560]is what we call it, so, you know,
[00:13:30.983]this is a collaboration across UNL, NRDs in our state,
[00:13:36.060]and the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy.
[00:13:39.090]We started in '21,
[00:13:41.460]and really this was launched by funds
[00:13:44.070]from the section 319, the EPA funds,
[00:13:47.670]and then, after initiating it,
[00:13:48.960]we were successful with the USDA CARE grant to expand it.
[00:13:54.930]Really what this was after is we wanted to see
[00:13:57.090]could we take innovative technology?
[00:13:59.100]So this is a high-clearance interseeder for cover crops
[00:14:02.460]at a later stage than what I showed before.
[00:14:05.580]And can we use it to reduce nitrate leaching
[00:14:08.040]in the groundwater?
[00:14:08.873]So that was kind of the big question
[00:14:10.890]that we were trying to get after.
[00:14:11.967]And so the grant initially was able to purchase
[00:14:15.030]the interseeder through those funds,
[00:14:17.580]and then we were able to use that now
[00:14:20.460]to go and work with growers across the state.
[00:14:23.340]And so we targeted these areas of concern,
[00:14:27.660]groundwater, you know, areas of concern
[00:14:30.030]in terms of groundwater quality across the state.
[00:14:32.520]And so these were the target areas that we went after.
[00:14:36.060]So last year, we ended up interfacing with 29 farmers.
[00:14:40.620]You can kind of see how they were scattered
[00:14:42.060]across these priority areas.
[00:14:45.330]About 2,000 acres were interseeded.
[00:14:47.160]And so I think that's one thing
[00:14:48.600]that makes this project unique
[00:14:50.340]is we're able to cover a lot of ground.
[00:14:51.870]So a lot of times our research work, our on-farm work
[00:14:55.470]is relatively small scale,
[00:14:56.730]and so we were able to scale it up quite a bit.
[00:14:59.280]And then the one thing I'll highlight
[00:15:00.480]that I thought was interesting about this is we took,
[00:15:04.380]I wouldn't say a unique or a new spin,
[00:15:06.240]but we took a slightly different approach.
[00:15:08.370]Instead of doing a big, well-organized,
[00:15:11.970]well-planned-out field day,
[00:15:14.070]we called it a field-side chat.
[00:15:15.960]So we showed up with the interseeder,
[00:15:17.940]stuck a sign in the ground,
[00:15:19.830]invited the grower cooperator there,
[00:15:22.110]and then the NRD folks invited some of the neighbors.
[00:15:26.130]We had about 30 people there,
[00:15:28.680]highlighted the project,
[00:15:29.760]gave people rides in the interseeder,
[00:15:31.560]kinda talked about what we saw, and that was that.
[00:15:34.020]So there was kind of a smaller relationship there.
[00:15:39.990]You know, you talk about how do you engage,
[00:15:43.500]or how do you take what you're learning
[00:15:45.240]and put it in the hands of more people?
[00:15:47.275]You know, in this case, the team
[00:15:50.790]took the field-side chat concept
[00:15:52.530]and made a YouTube video out of it.
[00:15:54.300]And so now you're accessing,
[00:15:56.670]you're making it accessible to more folks.
[00:16:00.810]If you wanna see what Katie has to say,
[00:16:03.450]now is your chance to scan the QR code.
[00:16:05.580]Otherwise, you can chase it down
[00:16:07.314]on the Water Center website.
[00:16:10.050]But this would give you a better picture of that project.
[00:16:15.540]So for this coming year,
[00:16:17.910]I should've put this first,
[00:16:18.870]but here's the picture of that interseeder.
[00:16:20.460]So it's a full-scale machine. It's 100-foot boom.
[00:16:23.550]You can see it has drop tubes
[00:16:25.740]that put the seed down below the canopy
[00:16:27.960]so it doesn't get hung up in the canopy,
[00:16:30.229]and it has an air seeder unit to it.
[00:16:32.310]So now, we're gonna have both two research sites
[00:16:35.010]that are West Central and ENREC research sites,
[00:16:40.683]and then we're gonna have six multi-year on-farm sites
[00:16:43.290]that use this machine, so we can try to understand over time
[00:16:46.980]how effective interseeding at that stage is
[00:16:49.710]on capturing extra excess nitrogen,
[00:16:53.730]and then pretty close collaboration with the local educators
[00:16:57.000]who are gonna continue these,
[00:16:58.800]the field-side chat demonstration model.
[00:17:02.160]And so, again, this is just another way
[00:17:05.010]that we've been involved
[00:17:06.784]in trying to take research information
[00:17:09.750]and put it in the hands of folks.
[00:17:11.970]Here's another example that I'll put in front of you.
[00:17:15.150]And so this one's more of an industry collaboration.
[00:17:18.660]And I know there's multiple versions of this.
[00:17:21.753]Amit I think has spoken about this,
[00:17:23.640]and he's got a collaboration similar, I would say.
[00:17:28.139]You know, this is one of the spot spray technologies.
[00:17:31.290]This one happens to be with BASF Bosch.
[00:17:34.680]And so I've had the opportunity to work with him
[00:17:37.710]last year, now again this year,
[00:17:39.150]and so this is one of their smart sprayers.
[00:17:42.570]And so I think what's interesting about this, you know,
[00:17:45.630]is here you have opportunity to use technology
[00:17:50.820]to try to apply for, you know,
[00:17:54.000]think about site-specific weed management.
[00:17:55.650]So it's only spraying where the weeds are,
[00:17:57.390]not spraying where the weeds are not.
[00:17:59.820]On the front end, one of the challenges
[00:18:01.230]is this is pretty expensive equipment.
[00:18:04.200]It's not accessible to every grower, every acre.
[00:18:07.500]It's kind of a unique technology on the front end.
[00:18:10.320]But it certainly has potential to reduce the amount
[00:18:11.870]of herbicide applied.
[00:18:13.560]That has both economic and environmental potential.
[00:18:19.320]But it starts to move you into this arena
[00:18:21.330]where you're now thinking about what's the dose per plant
[00:18:23.760]that I'm applying as opposed to a dose per acre area.
[00:18:29.760]So the challenge is, you know,
[00:18:31.190]in extension, how do we, at the university level,
[00:18:34.470]we're not necessarily developing these technologies.
[00:18:36.780]A lot of these technologies
[00:18:37.740]are now being developed by industry.
[00:18:39.870]So, how do we interface with industry
[00:18:42.900]so that we can have meaningful conversations
[00:18:45.540]about adopting these technologies
[00:18:47.400]and using these technologies with growers?
[00:18:49.800]And I think it's a challenge
[00:18:52.293]that we need to pay attention to and think about.
[00:18:55.630]How should that look? How does that need to look?
[00:19:00.750]Ideally, I think we'd like to be able to say,
[00:19:02.880]here's all the technologies.
[00:19:05.010]Here's where they work well,
[00:19:06.030]here's where they don't work well,
[00:19:07.560]and make broad recommendations.
[00:19:09.630]But when you're interfacing with industry,
[00:19:12.060]they wanna sell their product.
[00:19:13.410]And so, if I'm putting product A versus B
[00:19:16.200]from different companies side by side,
[00:19:18.450]that makes for challenging conversations sometimes.
[00:19:21.870]And so these are some of the things
[00:19:23.640]I think we gotta figure out how to navigate
[00:19:25.230]in extension going forward.
[00:19:27.030]But the power of what these technologies can do is notable.
[00:19:30.780]And so I think for us to be
[00:19:31.830]in the conversation is important.
[00:19:33.210]So you can see on the left, those cameras on the boom,
[00:19:36.180]and this is the weeds that were mapped from those cameras.
[00:19:39.360]Then you can see how that machine
[00:19:42.240]made an application on the right
[00:19:45.390]relative to where those weeds were.
[00:19:46.800]And so, based on this map, their software would calculate
[00:19:50.280]there was about almost a 70% saving or reduction
[00:19:53.490]in herbicide applied.
[00:19:55.650]This doesn't fit every field, every place.
[00:19:57.360]We need to understand that.
[00:19:58.260]But that's an interesting technology.
[00:20:01.740]How do we capture that within the context of extension?
[00:20:05.490]Here's another one that I'll highlight.
[00:20:07.110]This one is an interesting project to me
[00:20:10.007]'cause I think there's a scale to it.
[00:20:12.657]And so the question is,
[00:20:14.591]how do we think about scaling some of these opportunities?
[00:20:18.480]So this is a multi-state collaboration.
[00:20:23.730]Let me get down here.
[00:20:25.290]So this is really an interdisciplinary.
[00:20:27.180]There's data scientists.
[00:20:29.760]We brought some agronomists along for the ride,
[00:20:31.680]but really it's engineers
[00:20:34.140]that are driving a lot of this material development.
[00:20:39.300]It's a NSF grant is what drove it.
[00:20:44.670]What I want you to see
[00:20:45.630]is this was trying to take locally-sourced material,
[00:20:48.330]so in our case, chicken feathers.
[00:20:49.770]They're digesting 'em,
[00:20:51.780]and they're turning 'em into a biofilm.
[00:20:53.580]And one of the big questions they wanna know is,
[00:20:55.110]if we put that biofilm on the soil, does it suppress weeds?
[00:20:58.740]And then what other impacts might that have
[00:21:00.750]on the soil environment?
[00:21:01.770]So, how do we understand those things?
[00:21:05.340]It's interesting in the sense
[00:21:07.200]that it's not ready for prime time.
[00:21:09.450]I wouldn't go tomorrow and hand a jug of this to a farmer
[00:21:12.180]and say, "I think you ought to apply this on your field."
[00:21:15.090]But I think, how do we use products like this
[00:21:19.140]that are being developed
[00:21:20.760]and move them into extension spaces?
[00:21:23.310]And so here's a little picture
[00:21:24.930]of what this stuff looks like.
[00:21:26.580]It's kind of goop.
[00:21:28.320]Camille and Anna can talk a lot more about
[00:21:32.790]how it is to work with and what it smells like.
[00:21:37.170]It's an interesting product for sure.
[00:21:39.990]There's keratin, glycerol, cornstarch.
[00:21:42.840]It's just a non,
[00:21:44.760]in a traditional sense, it's a non-herbicide mechanism.
[00:21:49.200]So we started in the greenhouse just to see
[00:21:51.900]if we apply this stuff at different rates
[00:21:55.170]and at different timings relative to crop emergence
[00:21:58.440]across both a couple of weed species
[00:22:00.810]and a couple of crop species,
[00:22:03.240]what effect does this stuff have?
[00:22:05.190]And I think what becomes clear is that,
[00:22:11.100]you know, at the lower rates,
[00:22:13.110]it doesn't seem to have a strong effect on the crop,
[00:22:15.780]but at higher rates, it actually burns
[00:22:18.630]and suppresses even the crop species.
[00:22:21.840]But the weeds were much more impacted than the crops.
[00:22:24.750]And so, again, I think that's an interesting takeaway.
[00:22:26.460]So I think there's potential here to use it.
[00:22:28.620]There's almost a selectivity to it in one sense.
[00:22:31.800]It's probably more due to weed seed size or seed size
[00:22:34.560]than it is to do about a chemical selection.
[00:22:37.050]So you have some smaller seeded weeds
[00:22:39.360]relative to larger seeded crops,
[00:22:40.830]and the smaller seeded weeds are suppressed more.
[00:22:46.380]The other opportunity we have with this project is,
[00:22:49.470]like I mentioned, not just how do we suppress weeds,
[00:22:52.710]but what are the impacts on the soil environment?
[00:22:55.137]And so, again, the students are gonna have opportunity
[00:22:57.900]to work with greenhouse gas,
[00:23:00.870]measuring equipment from LI-COR, water infiltration rates,
[00:23:05.820]soil temperatures, evapotranspiration.
[00:23:09.330]How might this affect irrigation scheduling and so on?
[00:23:13.020]So I think there's some interesting things
[00:23:14.520]that we'll be able to pursue as part of this.
[00:23:18.060]But the other piece that became interesting to me
[00:23:20.160]is I just had a chance to visit the country Uganda
[00:23:23.430]and see some of the agriculture they're doing there.
[00:23:26.310]And in a lot of ways, I feel like it has a better fit
[00:23:29.580]in a place like Uganda because of their cropping systems
[00:23:32.160]than it probably does for Nebraska.
[00:23:33.540]So if you go back and see these rates that we're using,
[00:23:36.660]so that's eight liters per meter squared.
[00:23:41.880]And so, if you try to put that on a per-hector
[00:23:44.040]or per-acre basis, that's like 80,000 liters per hector.
[00:23:47.910]That's a lot of product.
[00:23:49.140]We don't spray herbicides at those kinds of rates.
[00:23:52.530]That's one pass, and you gotta refill up.
[00:23:54.270]And so, right now, you know,
[00:23:56.610]the grant was written on this concept
[00:23:58.050]that maybe this will fit within row crop agriculture
[00:24:00.720]in the Midwest.
[00:24:02.700]Like I said, they kind of brought agronomists
[00:24:04.320]along for the ride, and so once we got this,
[00:24:06.300]ah, we might need to talk about that.
[00:24:10.440]But if you go to a context like Uganda,
[00:24:13.680]where now there's a lot more fruit
[00:24:16.020]and vegetable crop productions.
[00:24:17.280]On the right, that's pineapple.
[00:24:18.870]And if you can see between the rows, those are holes,
[00:24:23.160]or it's kind of the fruiting body of coffee.
[00:24:26.730]So that's the byproduct of cleaning those coffee beans.
[00:24:30.750]And now, they're using that as a mulch
[00:24:33.450]to grow those pineapples.
[00:24:34.380]And so that might be an interesting place
[00:24:36.420]for this biofilm to be applied.
[00:24:38.880]Or that center one, that's passion fruit.
[00:24:40.410]And you can see they kinda cultivate around the stalk,
[00:24:44.407]where the tree or the vine roots into the soil,
[00:24:49.560]but the rest they manage as grass.
[00:24:50.970]So maybe you wanna manage the water movement
[00:24:53.850]or weed suppression just around where that plant's growing,
[00:24:56.700]or banana would be another one.
[00:24:59.280]You look at some of the runoff that are happening
[00:25:02.310]on these farming operations.
[00:25:05.760]Is there opportunity to use a product like this
[00:25:07.860]to try to manage how that water runs off, or capture,
[00:25:12.900]you know, kinda clean up that water?
[00:25:14.070]'Cause they have a lot of issues with silting
[00:25:15.720]into their holding ponds that they irrigate out of.
[00:25:18.450]And so other things you could use like that.
[00:25:21.750]And then we visited a university,
[00:25:23.310]and some of the students brought over
[00:25:25.027]were looking at these biodigesters.
[00:25:26.580]So in some ways, they're more set up
[00:25:29.730]to even produce the BioWRAP kind of in-house
[00:25:33.360]or on small scale and then maybe utilize it. (indistinct)
[00:25:36.150]And so this idea of, what does extension look like
[00:25:39.570]to move it even into an international context?
[00:25:41.610]So we might develop a product
[00:25:43.140]or have opportunity to look at it here,
[00:25:44.640]but I think there might be other contexts
[00:25:46.440]that we could think about it as well.
[00:25:49.590]Here's the last concept I'll highlight.
[00:25:52.530]And for me, this has become a bigger part of my thinking
[00:25:56.190]around extension is this idea of,
[00:25:58.410]how do we take the principles of adult learning
[00:26:00.840]and apply 'em to extension?
[00:26:02.760]So I think this is,
[00:26:05.970]by no means am I an expert.
[00:26:08.609]I mean, I start reading some of the words
[00:26:10.050]and I get over my head in terms of how do you describe this.
[00:26:12.720]But the idea of,
[00:26:15.540]how do we structure and build our educational model
[00:26:20.340]and thinking of extension in a way
[00:26:22.860]that meets our clientele needs
[00:26:25.140]and fits within what we understand
[00:26:27.210]from the social science side of things?
[00:26:28.830]How do people learn?
[00:26:30.270]Especially, how do adults learn?
[00:26:32.820]So it was two years ago or three years ago,
[00:26:36.390]I met Nathan Conner who floats around the university.
[00:26:41.310]We've both been here probably about the same amount of time,
[00:26:43.290]but I didn't know he worked here,
[00:26:44.430]and he didn't know that I worked here.
[00:26:45.957]And so I think there's some of these opportunities
[00:26:48.750]that you find along the way.
[00:26:50.310]But I mean, this is what he does.
[00:26:52.710]He focuses on adult education in extension.
[00:26:55.890]So I've been trying to learn from him.
[00:26:58.590]But this idea that,
[00:26:59.820]how do we better build our extension programming?
[00:27:04.170]Not just around the science,
[00:27:07.560]not just around the agronomic science
[00:27:10.020]that we all understand,
[00:27:11.580]but around some of the social science as well.
[00:27:15.210]Notice things like, you know,
[00:27:16.876]when you think about adult education,
[00:27:18.360]adults need to be involved in the planning
[00:27:21.240]and the evaluation of their instruction, right?
[00:27:24.030]When you hear it, it makes sense,
[00:27:25.620]but I don't always go and build an extension program
[00:27:28.350]around that idea, but I think shifting my thought
[00:27:31.410]around that has been helpful.
[00:27:34.500]So I have a student working with me in her program,
[00:27:37.380]and she's really designed her master's degree
[00:27:39.330]around this idea.
[00:27:40.920]And so half of her program
[00:27:42.360]is now working with Dr. Conner
[00:27:44.580]and thinking about the social science side of extension,
[00:27:47.550]and the other half is trying to focus
[00:27:49.020]on the field side of extension
[00:27:50.787]and how does she merge those together?
[00:27:52.337]'Cause in the end, she wants to find her way
[00:27:54.330]into working in extension.
[00:27:56.280]So I think she's gonna be the next generation of expert
[00:28:00.270]in some of these realms, right?
[00:28:02.097]And so I think to be thinking about extension these ways
[00:28:04.680]is interesting and important.
[00:28:07.500]All right, so let me,
[00:28:08.460]I'm gonna shift gears just a little bit and go more,
[00:28:12.840]I don't know, philosophical on you, I suppose you could say.
[00:28:17.610]So I was at the agronomy meetings
[00:28:19.380]this last fall in Baltimore,
[00:28:22.260]and I happened to come across a talk given by Tamar Haspel.
[00:28:28.617]And so she's a columnist for the Washington Post.
[00:28:32.280]And so it was about as unrelated a talk
[00:28:35.460]from an agronomic perspective as I could have attended,
[00:28:39.720]but it was probably my favorite talk
[00:28:41.010]that I went to while at the meeting.
[00:28:45.064]So that link there will take.
[00:28:46.860]So she actually has a YouTube video recording
[00:28:48.900]of the talk she gave at the agronomy meetings.
[00:28:51.720]And so I wanna highlight just a couple things from it,
[00:28:53.670]but it would be well worth your time to go.
[00:28:56.310]It's 30 minutes.
[00:28:57.143]It'd be well worth your time to go and watch it.
[00:28:59.400]But really she bases her talk on these two books.
[00:29:01.560]So one is "The Righteous Mind,"
[00:29:02.790]the other is "Thinking, Fast and Slow."
[00:29:05.190]And it's just a fascinating concept.
[00:29:07.950]But she bases it all on the elephant in the room.
[00:29:10.830]Why don't facts change minds, and what do we do about it?
[00:29:14.310]So this idea that we built so much of extension on this idea
[00:29:17.520]that if we provide research-based information,
[00:29:21.480]people are gonna change.
[00:29:24.840]And after you listen to Tamar's talk,
[00:29:28.380]I don't know, you might rethink,
[00:29:30.540]you might rethink a lot of things,
[00:29:31.590]but, at least, it ought to challenge us.
[00:29:33.990]So I pulled a couple of slides from the talk
[00:29:36.030]that she was giving, just to kinda highlight the concept.
[00:29:40.020]But, again, I think it would be worth your time to go
[00:29:41.910]and engage with it yourself.
[00:29:43.830]But this idea of confirmation bias
[00:29:47.940]kinda rules the human psyche.
[00:29:50.310]As much as we like to think that we're objective
[00:29:52.230]in the way we make decisions,
[00:29:54.120]the reality is we're more driven by kinda what we believe,
[00:29:59.340]what's at the core of what we believe,
[00:30:01.050]and then we find ways to justify that.
[00:30:02.790]So we seek information that aligns with our values,
[00:30:08.220]or we find ways to reject facts that we don't agree with.
[00:30:10.980]I mean, that would be kind of the concept.
[00:30:12.270]And so, more often than not,
[00:30:14.490]that's just kinda how we're wired as humans.
[00:30:17.760]And she makes this point from another paper.
[00:30:20.700]But this idea that the reality is the more educated you are,
[00:30:24.660]the worse that tends to get, right?
[00:30:27.030]And so all this was showing is that the science,
[00:30:33.120]so the statement is that the science has evidence
[00:30:36.570]that global warming is due to human activity.
[00:30:40.140]And so then, if you poll people
[00:30:42.270]and you record their level of education,
[00:30:45.780]as their education increased,
[00:30:47.520]they tend to drift towards their respective camps.
[00:30:51.450]So whatever their previously held views were,
[00:30:54.158]that's what they tended to think about that topic.
[00:30:56.640]And so we're probably at most risk
[00:30:59.040]of anybody sitting in this room, as being highly educated
[00:31:03.480]or at least spent a lot of time sitting in a classroom.
[00:31:07.380]So it's interesting.
[00:31:08.280]And so I should have made this bigger, apologize,
[00:31:11.340]but this, again, is from her talk.
[00:31:12.810]So her question is, knowing that that's true,
[00:31:17.760]how do we check our own bias, or how do we handle that?
[00:31:21.540]'Cause I think, in some ways,
[00:31:23.640]that's true of the people we're talking to,
[00:31:25.380]but it's true of us too.
[00:31:26.400]And so we probably need to start thinking about it
[00:31:29.160]for ourselves first.
[00:31:30.120]And so here is her nine points.
[00:31:33.030]I'll just read 'em quickly, and then again, I think,
[00:31:35.160]I think for you to go take time and maybe think through it,
[00:31:37.560]whether you agree or disagree, in the end, you know,
[00:31:40.350]I think is up for debate.
[00:31:42.300]But she says you at least got to believe
[00:31:43.860]that you have a bias, which I think is interesting.
[00:31:46.740]Assume good faith.
[00:31:47.573]So the person across the aisle you don't disagree with,
[00:31:50.310]they're probably well-intentioned.
[00:31:52.350]So most people aren't out to disagree with you
[00:31:54.660]just 'cause they're terrible people.
[00:31:57.270]Working from common ground,
[00:31:58.530]so what are things you can agree on?
[00:32:00.390]You start there before you start the conversation
[00:32:02.624]about the things you disagree on.
[00:32:05.460]These next two I think were helpful for me.
[00:32:08.010]How do you find the smartest person who disagrees with you?
[00:32:11.430]And then at least hear their argument,
[00:32:13.110]hear what they have to say.
[00:32:15.240]Identify the other side's strongest points.
[00:32:17.670]So that's a related thing.
[00:32:20.490]Understand and, at least, if you disagree with somebody
[00:32:23.640]or an idea, what are the good arguments counter to your own?
[00:32:29.580]Where do you go for your information?
[00:32:31.590]That certainly potentially increases your level of bias
[00:32:34.980]if you're only going to one source over and over again.
[00:32:39.750]I think this was one that's more meaningful for her,
[00:32:43.590]but this idea that sometimes we'll call the other side
[00:32:47.100]as anti-scientific.
[00:32:48.300]So we have the science. We know what's right.
[00:32:50.670]We're gonna label people that disagree with us
[00:32:52.830]as anti-science.
[00:32:54.180]That doesn't tend to foster collaboration or communication.
[00:32:59.430]Police your side.
[00:33:00.300]So if and when the science disagrees with your stance,
[00:33:07.560]you know, let's call each other out within our own circle,
[00:33:11.250]not just point outside our circle,
[00:33:13.320]and then reach across the aisle is the last one.
[00:33:15.060]So these are interesting ideas.
[00:33:17.310]I know that, like I said, it becomes kind of philosophical.
[00:33:20.700]But my question is, all right, how do we take this idea,
[00:33:25.110]and how do you put that in the context of extension?
[00:33:28.320]What does that look like for us now to do good extension
[00:33:32.460]when a lot of what we try to do
[00:33:34.110]is how do we be science-based?
[00:33:37.140]How do we use data to present what's important?
[00:33:42.060]How do we encourage people to change their behaviors?
[00:33:45.390]What does that look like to do that?
[00:33:48.780]Knowing that the way a lot of people operate
[00:33:52.410]doesn't always align easily with that.
[00:33:55.650]So, if anything,
[00:33:58.710]I think these are some of my own thought process
[00:34:02.580]that have kinda led to at least the question of,
[00:34:06.540]I'd never given much thought to that,
[00:34:08.550]so now what do I do with it?
[00:34:09.900]So, if nothing else, it's just caused me to pause
[00:34:12.930]and think about, how do I use adult education?
[00:34:15.180]How do I use some of the social science
[00:34:18.390]describing just how people make decisions?
[00:34:20.940]And how do I use that to improve my extension?
[00:34:27.600]So here's where she ended, and I thought this was helpful.
[00:34:30.660]She would say facts don't persuade people,
[00:34:32.430]people persuade people,
[00:34:34.710]and in the end, we should be persuadable.
[00:34:36.237]And so this idea that, I think a lot of extension
[00:34:39.870]is relationship-based for that reason, right?
[00:34:42.510]Where you see some of the more effective extension
[00:34:46.050]is because those relationships exist, right?
[00:34:48.240]There's that connectivity and that dialogue
[00:34:51.450]that's allowed to happen.
[00:34:53.190]And so it's not just facts on a screen
[00:34:55.650]that are gonna change people's minds.
[00:34:58.200]All right, so this is the last slide that I have.
[00:35:04.620]Probably moving through this too fast, but that's all right.
[00:35:07.800]We'll leave lots of time for you guys
[00:35:09.150]to tell me what you think as well.
[00:35:11.760]So, where do we go from here?
[00:35:12.660]So some of the things that I think are true of extension.
[00:35:15.000]So we certainly have well-educated clientele,
[00:35:18.450]and that's only becoming more and more true.
[00:35:22.170]We certainly have easy access to information.
[00:35:24.180]So most often it's not a lack of information
[00:35:28.290]that's the issue.
[00:35:29.700]There's plenty of information to go around,
[00:35:31.410]and it's not that hard to get to it.
[00:35:34.980]I think folks more and more tend to have less time
[00:35:38.400]or less interest to go and sit
[00:35:41.850]in a seven-hour extension meeting.
[00:35:44.880]So people want focused information,
[00:35:46.830]and they want it on the topic that they're interested in,
[00:35:48.870]and they wanna move on.
[00:35:51.060]I hear more and more of that.
[00:35:52.260]So, what does that look like to think about?
[00:35:55.710]This idea of survey fatigue.
[00:35:57.390]I've been hearing more about this.
[00:35:58.500]So we always wanna know, what do you think?
[00:36:00.930]What do you think? Are we doing a good job?
[00:36:02.850]Let us know if we're doing a good job.
[00:36:05.040]But it's getting to the point where not only is extension
[00:36:09.000]in the university asking clientele and growers,
[00:36:12.150]the industry is asking growers,
[00:36:14.310]the political parties are,
[00:36:16.170]and so you just have this bombardment
[00:36:19.972]of asking clients about what they think.
[00:36:22.410]And so I guess my question is, well,
[00:36:24.840]what should the modern needs assessment look like?
[00:36:27.810]Do we need to shift our thinking on this?
[00:36:29.582]How do we get to the way growers are thinking about issues?
[00:36:34.350]What are their greatest needs?
[00:36:35.730]And how effective are we at communicating that?
[00:36:38.610]How do we get that information back from those folks?
[00:36:43.770]And then I think the other piece that is interesting to me
[00:36:46.260]is, or a question that I have is,
[00:36:48.240]how do we effectively use technology to deliver information?
[00:36:52.830]And I think I'm not the first person to have said this,
[00:36:56.100]but, you know, the idea that COVID, I think,
[00:36:58.980]accelerated our thinking in some of this, right?
[00:37:01.140]It kind of forced us to find alternative ways
[00:37:03.720]to deliver information effectively.
[00:37:06.420]I still think there's room for us to grow there.
[00:37:09.060]One of the things I learned along the way
[00:37:11.130]is hybrid delivery stuff.
[00:37:13.560]And even today, so we have folks online, folks in the room.
[00:37:16.470]Being able to interact meaningful
[00:37:18.900]with both audiences is a real challenge.
[00:37:22.530]I can interact in one way, you know, sitting in the room,
[00:37:26.460]but I'm not having that same interaction with folks online
[00:37:28.950]versus if I was only online or only on Zoom,
[00:37:31.140]I could have a different type of interaction.
[00:37:33.090]So, what does it look like to deliver that information?
[00:37:35.310]Does it need to be real-time? Can it be recorded?
[00:37:39.900]I think there's lots of questions around that.
[00:37:43.483]But some of the things that I'm interested to explore
[00:37:45.810]and I think help answer some of these questions
[00:37:48.120]is what does it look like to develop
[00:37:49.440]these peer learning communities?
[00:37:50.850]So this idea of well-educated clientele.
[00:37:53.280]How do we engage more of a face-to-face level?
[00:37:57.180]You know, and it's simple things.
[00:37:58.470]I've tried this.
[00:38:00.600]I won't say it was an experiment, a social experiment,
[00:38:03.060]but there's times where I'll be in an extension meeting,
[00:38:06.150]and I'll grab the chair and sit down, right?
[00:38:09.933]I mean, this changed the whole relationship
[00:38:11.990]of the conversation, right?
[00:38:13.170]The fact that I'm sitting down talking to you
[00:38:15.630]versus at the front of the room standing up.
[00:38:17.430]You know, we've put chairs in a circle before.
[00:38:20.520]What does it look like to shrink the size
[00:38:23.250]of the conversation
[00:38:25.920]and to have meaningful conversations with folks
[00:38:29.250]in more of a peer learning community?
[00:38:31.410]I think there's a lot we can think about
[00:38:33.390]and learn in extension space that way.
[00:38:35.730]This idea of train the trainer or equip the influencers.
[00:38:40.440]What does it look like to build those relationships
[00:38:45.660]and engage in conversations and deliver content to folks
[00:38:50.880]that then go out and engage more broadly?
[00:38:55.260]As opposed to filling a room with 500 people
[00:38:57.360]and standing at the front of the room
[00:38:58.500]and trying to have a conversation about the data,
[00:39:01.110]what does it look like to have a conversation
[00:39:03.000]with five people
[00:39:05.550]who are gonna have a larger influence on those around them?
[00:39:10.320]And at the end, I feel like relationship matters.
[00:39:12.480]I think that's one of the biggest takeaways I would say
[00:39:15.540]from a lot of my thought process
[00:39:17.730]is we have to build extension relationships
[00:39:20.100]because that's what drives a lot of what we do.
[00:39:21.990]So the data's important.
[00:39:24.180]It's not to minimize any of those other things
[00:39:26.130]that we hold as important, but I think it all
[00:39:29.130]has to be kinda couched in this idea of relationship,
[00:39:33.510]where you build trust and that mutuality
[00:39:36.360]and that two-way conversation.
[00:39:43.140]There we go.
[00:39:44.520]Don't know how much time I left us, but that's,
[00:39:48.450]here's my go-to extension ending slide.
[00:39:53.010]So, what are your thought processes around that?
[00:39:57.000]Does it resonate with you?
[00:39:58.080]Are those ideas that you've been chewing on
[00:40:00.570]relative to extension?
[00:40:02.970]What other context does it fit, or how can we learn?
[00:40:06.630]My focus has certainly been around the extension,
[00:40:09.300]extension side of things,
[00:40:10.290]but I think the classroom experiences
[00:40:12.570]some of these same things.
[00:40:14.760]Folks engaged in research
[00:40:16.140]are faced with some of the same questions.
[00:40:20.250]What are your thoughts?
[00:40:24.510]Jeff?
[00:40:30.300]Hey, Chris, thanks for the talk.
[00:40:33.060]I do have a couple thoughts.
[00:40:34.470]Regarding survey fatigue,
[00:40:36.886]that's a real thing.
[00:40:40.320]One of the things we did with my etymology research program
[00:40:43.980]this past year is we did a survey
[00:40:45.750]and had low turnout, as they often do,
[00:40:48.540]even though we had some incentives to complete
[00:40:52.080]put in place as well.
[00:40:54.990]But what we did was, in working with a social scientist,
[00:40:59.490]blended that with focus group discussions as well
[00:41:02.610]and then overlaid that with a biological survey.
[00:41:05.910]So I think maybe that approach
[00:41:07.110]is gonna become a bit more common.
[00:41:09.180]Yep.
[00:41:10.013]But the other thing that I'd point out
[00:41:11.250]is, you know, there's other ways to do needs assessment
[00:41:13.950]outside of just survey.
[00:41:15.210]So again, the focus group idea, small cafe conversations,
[00:41:21.150]help understand the need
[00:41:23.250]but can also help build relationships.
[00:41:26.880]And then, you know, another sociological methodology
[00:41:31.530]is participation and not just demonstrations,
[00:41:35.880]but, you know, if you, for example,
[00:41:38.460]engage with a doctor of plant health student
[00:41:41.820]that might have the time to be employed
[00:41:44.880]by one of your stakeholders for a summer
[00:41:48.210]and view it more of an exercise in social science
[00:41:52.050]and understand the practice and participate with them
[00:41:55.320]in sort of a case study approach,
[00:41:56.850]I think that would be another innovative way
[00:41:59.580]to understand needs and to also kind of develop a pathway
[00:42:04.170]towards adoption for some of the cool things
[00:42:06.750]that you're developing.
[00:42:08.280]I do have a third question.
[00:42:10.530]I'm curious about, what was the wrap product?
[00:42:13.954]The BioWRAP.
[00:42:14.942]BioWRAP? Yeah.
[00:42:16.320]Bird feathers?
[00:42:17.153]I know how bird feathers smell.
[00:42:19.290]Does that translate into an odor with that product?
[00:42:22.590]Does that translate, Camille?
[00:42:23.610]I see, yes. Okay, I wonder.
[00:42:27.060]That's right.
[00:42:28.170]No, those are good.
[00:42:29.610]I mean, those are helpful points, Jeff, for sure.
[00:42:35.700]I think related to exactly what you're saying,
[00:42:37.260]some of the thoughts I've had is,
[00:42:38.850]what does it look like to stand,
[00:42:41.970]you know, in a farmer's shed,
[00:42:43.560]talking about whatever you were doing?
[00:42:45.690]And instead of saying, "Hey, would you fill the survey out?"
[00:42:48.300]Kinda have the questions preloaded,
[00:42:50.370]and you can ask 'em conversationally.
[00:42:52.860]You know, if you're paying attention,
[00:42:53.880]you can write the answers down
[00:42:55.050]and probably get the same feedback in a lot of ways.
[00:42:56.753]And so, what does it look like to do it more
[00:42:59.310]in the context of a relationship?
[00:43:01.350]Yeah, Paul, you have a comment?
[00:43:09.510]Couple of thoughts.
[00:43:10.710]I've probably been in extension
[00:43:12.150]longer than anybody else in the room.
[00:43:15.758]That doesn't mean I've got the best perspective,
[00:43:19.440]but I do think that we need to watch ourselves
[00:43:22.170]that we're not reinventing the wheel.
[00:43:24.810]That biofilm is something that is,
[00:43:29.040]except for the raw material that went into it,
[00:43:32.130]is at least 30 or 40 years old in terms of concept
[00:43:36.060]and technology.
[00:43:38.010]But I'm more worried about semantics.
[00:43:42.330]You used words like persuade and train.
[00:43:46.770]I had a colleague when I was at the University of Minnesota,
[00:43:49.710]says, "We gotta stop telling our grad students
[00:43:53.527]"and our clientele we're gonna train you."
[00:43:56.850]We're gonna educate them.
[00:43:58.710]And he always says, "You don't train people.
[00:44:02.347]"You train your dog to do the right thing."
[00:44:05.880]You educate people so they do the right thing
[00:44:09.090]because they want to.
[00:44:10.920]And I like that one slide you had about persuades
[00:44:16.650]and be persuadable.
[00:44:19.410]So there's a lot of,
[00:44:21.030]you've stirred some thought processes
[00:44:23.370]that could easily have been stirred up decades ago
[00:44:28.980]and probably should've been.
[00:44:30.180]But I think we have to watch semantics a little bit
[00:44:33.570]and make sure we're using words that don't offend.
[00:44:38.820]Your diagram
[00:44:41.400]of liberals and conservatives
[00:44:47.040]will probably offend some people,
[00:44:49.380]and maybe that was your purpose.
[00:44:50.760]But what I'm getting at is,
[00:44:53.580]if you want to persuade people to do something,
[00:44:56.130]to do the right thing,
[00:44:58.530]you have to use persuading tactics
[00:45:02.790]that are not causing people to think
[00:45:06.360]that you know what they should be doing,
[00:45:09.840]you know what they should think, and so forth.
[00:45:12.660]I'm rambling a little here now, and I'll leave it at that,
[00:45:14.940]but semantics and communication are absolutely critical,
[00:45:20.970]whether we're using modern technology
[00:45:23.100]or talking person to person over the back fence.
[00:45:27.150]No, those are good comments. Appreciate that.
[00:45:54.390]I was interested in the,
[00:45:56.175]you know, you contrasted the big,
[00:45:59.310]you know, up on a podium and 500 people
[00:46:02.190]versus the field-side chat,
[00:46:05.220]where you're showcasing maybe technology or something,
[00:46:10.020]but do you see an effect beyond just, you know,
[00:46:15.630]like is that a relationship builder in a,
[00:46:19.797]you know, you see impacts beyond like-
[00:46:21.420]Where does it go from here? Right, yeah.
[00:46:22.920]I mean, do you have enough experience to track that
[00:46:25.200]over time and see versus the 500-person lecture?
[00:46:31.514]I think it's easier to track,
[00:46:35.280]present to 500 people.
[00:46:38.400]I mean, you might've had in one sense a bigger impact
[00:46:42.300]if you could follow the thread all the way through.
[00:46:45.840]But I suppose I would probably argue that, again,
[00:46:49.350]when you have those relationships, and you can stop back by.
[00:46:52.680]So I mean, in this case, with those field-side chats,
[00:46:56.190]that was a relationship that the NRD had with the farmer.
[00:47:00.060]The NRD said, "Hey, here's a program that we're doing.
[00:47:02.737]"Are you interested?" "Yeah."
[00:47:04.207]"Would you be willing to host a site?"
[00:47:08.070]And then they invite their neighbors,
[00:47:10.200]and they all get together.
[00:47:12.180]They look at the technology.
[00:47:13.410]They talk about it in the field.
[00:47:16.350]But now, those connections have been built.
[00:47:18.540]So now, the next time the neighbor sees
[00:47:21.180]the local extension educator in the grocery store,
[00:47:24.390]I think there's a connection made there.
[00:47:26.327]And so I would say in those ways, yeah.
[00:47:30.900]Yeah, where do you go from there, right?
[00:47:32.492]I mean, I think you can initiate some of those things.
[00:47:34.230]I think potential for impacts there.
[00:47:37.290]A lot of these thoughts, I think,
[00:47:38.880]are still pretty fresh in my thinking,
[00:47:42.480]but I'd like to move in those directions.
[00:47:46.146]Okay, if there's no more further question,
[00:47:47.940]let's give a round of applause to Dr. Proctor.
[00:47:52.370](audience applauding)

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Keeping Extension Relevant: What Might the Future of Extension Look Like?

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