Dr. Arly Drake, assistant professor of agriculture at Clark State College, has been selected by the Community College Alliance for Agriculture Advancement (C2A3) to host a Lunch-n-Learn webinar at 1 p.m. on April 21.
Drake will present on proper site selection, soil testing, and sampling; experimental designs for plant and crop science; advantages and disadvantages of Completely Randomized Design, Randomized Complete BlockDesign, Latin Square Design, Factorial experiments, and Split-Plot Design; the importance of replication and how to properly lay out plots; provide a brief overview of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and what to do with missing data; and emphasis on design and proper sampling.
“The research being done by C2A3 is important as it helps us, and the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education and the Natural Resources and Conservation Service - the branches of the USDA C2A3 is specifically working with - to inform producers of best practices to conserve valuable resources and ensure educators are providing students with good, relevant information that will help them become good stewards of our environment in the future,” said Drake.
Drake said using proper research methods is important and makes the data collected useful and informative.
The C2A3 is a collaboration of nine Midwest community colleges across eight states who have joined together to provide quality education, training and demonstrations to future farm producers and agriculture service providers. Members of the Alliance partner to share resources, faculty expertise, curriculum and tools to advance agriculture in their regions.
In 2018 Clark State received $25,000 grant from a C2A3 for the development of soil health curriculum, supplementary materials and workshops for current students and producers. There were approximately 160 initial proposals with 28 invited for a full submission. Of those submissions, 16 were selected for funding, including Clark State.