LINGLE – One of the more interesting projects underway at the James C. Hageman Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center west of town was 12,000 years in the making.

Producers were introduced to the Wyoming First Grains Project and other new projects under way on Wednesday during the 2018 Wyoming Agriculture Experiment Station Field Day at the site west of Lingle. WFGP is working at several sites around the state to bring back two ancient varieties of wheat – spelt and emmer – to learn if they can grow in the state.

But the big news of the day wasn’t about research. A week from Saturday, SAREC director John Tanaka will be turning over the reins of the center to Extension Beef Specialist Steve Paisley.

Due to retirements at the university in Laramie, Tanaka’s job will keep him on the main campus, he said. He’ll still be working with the various research centers around the state, but Paisley will be in charge of the daily operation of SAREC as its interim director during reorganization.

“This is a transitional year” for the college, Tanaka said. “We’re charged with coming up with what the College of Agriculture and National Resources will look like over the next 20 years.

“We’re working on that internally,” he said. “Then, we’ll see if what we think internally will meet the needs of producers around the state will really meet the needs of the state.”

Emmer wheat was one of the first, if not the first, cereal grain grown under cultivation some 12,000 years ago in areas of Iraq and Syria, said Tom Foulke, a senior research scientist with the University of Wyoming Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics. Common crops until about 100 years ago, emmer and spelt went out of favor in the early 20th Century because it wouldn’t lend itself to mechanized harvesting, he said.

But both grains are experiencing renewed interest in the past 10 to 20 years, Foulke and others are hoping to develop a niche market for the grains, ideally to mill for baking flour and malting to be brewed into beer, here in the Cowboy State. The goal is to get that niche market up and running, then sell to investors in the private sector, Foulke said.

In addition to reports on ongoing dry bean research, water resource economics specialist Dr. Kristi Hansen and SAREC farm manager Kevin Madden talked about a project to install water flow meters and electrical metering systems on the irrigation systems at the center. The project allows better monitoring and control over water use, both for pivot and flood irrigation systems at SAREC, they said.

Monitors and a system of control valves on each well and at each irrigation station allow Madden to know where every drop of water used is going, he said. Though the system at SAREC was expensive, Madden said the idea could be adapted to individual farms at a more affordable cost.

One highlight of the field day included presentations from graduate students. Students from around the college reported on their research while others entering the post-grad system got a look at what’s already being done.

Eric Gleson, a first-year master’s student from Indiana, said he came to the SAREC Field Day hoping to focus his thinking as he looks for his own research project. By getting a look at what current students are working on, he hoped to narrow down his own focus, he said.

“I’m looking for more of a general overview,” Gleson said. “I’m looking at what I’ll end up doing later.”

For student Chandan Shilpakar, who plans to graduate from the master’s program in 2019, the Field Days are a chance to receive feedback on his research into herbicide-resistant alfalfa.

“This is a platform to present what I’m doing and learn how it impacts farmers,” he said. “It allows me to convert the work I’m doing to a producer’s prospective.

“There will be queries from producers,” Shilpakar said. “I can then incorporate those queries into future research.”

And that’s the beauty of the Field Day format, both for students and seasoned researchers, Tanaka said. 

“We get feedback from producers, learn if we’re going in the right direction, if the results we’re seeing are reasonable,” Tanaka said. “We hope everything we’re doing at the Research and Extension Centers at least relates to the producers.

“And this is a way for (student’s) research not to just end up on a shelf,” he said. “They have the interaction with the public about what they’re doing and why and answer some questions.”

That outreach is the focus of the work at the Centers around the state, Paisley told the crowd. 

“We’re committed to doing a better job of interacting with the communities,” Paisley said. “This is one of our days for doing that.”