Three Iowa Beef Center Team Members Recognized at Extension Conference

By Erika Lundy-Woolfolk and Sherry Hoyer

Three Iowa Beef Center team members were recently recognized for programming and reporting excellence in Agriculture and Natural Resources with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. The awards were presented during the annual professional development event in October.

Extension beef specialist Erika Lundy-Woolfolk and former Iowa Beef Center director and extension feedlot specialist Dan Loy received the ANR Program Innovation Award for the Feedlot Short Course.

The three-day event began in 2017 and has since attracted 160 participants from 12 states representing more than 12 million head of cattle. In the first five years of the limited-attendance program, participants reported an estimated $90.2 million return to producers.

Extension beef specialist Chris Clark and Boone County extension staff member Jessie Soderstrum received one of two ANR Success Story Awards. They used a variety of methods to identify the needs of young, beginning and small producers, and for youth to get started in agriculture and livestock production.

Their Beef Management 101 program was the result and 100% of attendee respondents said they were at least somewhat likely to adopt new practices or make changes in their operations based on what they learned.

Lundy-Woolfolk and Mike Witt, an extension field agronomist based in Guthrie County, received the second of the two ANR Success Story Awards. They worked together on the Stalk Testing in Western Iowa program, created in response to drought conditions to increase awareness and share information to farmers and cattle producers on managing risks of feeding silage with high nitrate levels.

Representing 6,000 acres of silage in western Iowa, surveys showed every participant understood they could contact an extension specialist with questions about feeding silage, and 95% said the knowledge they gained from the program improved their operations.