The North Central Weed Science Society Student Contest was held at NDSU for the first time this year.
The society was incorporated in 1945 and has members from 16 states and four Canadian provinces. The contest was first held in 1981 at Kansas State University.
The contest, which took place on July 29, was planned by 56 NDSU weed scientists and alumni. A total of 52 graduate students and nine undergraduate students from 10 universities participated.
Students competed in four events, including Weed Identification, Herbicide Application Technology, Identification of Unknown Herbicides and Problem Solving and Recommendation. Awards were given to graduate and undergraduate student participants in team and individual categories.
Undergraduate prize winners were from the University of Missouri, Western Illinois University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Graduate students from Kansas State University, the University of Minnesota, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison were prize winners. Other schools attending the contest were the University of Illinois, Iowa State University, the University of Kentucky and the University of Nebraska.
The primary planning committee from NDSU included assistant professor Joe Ikely, program coordinator Kirk Howatt, research specialists Stephanie DeSimini and Joe Mettler, technician Sandy Mark and students Jeff Stith, Emma Mitchel and Nathan Haugrud.
Others who helped were faculty members Mike Christoffers, Harlene Hatterman-Valenti, Tom Peters and Quincy Law; research specialists Collin Auwarter, Darin Eisinger, Alexa Lystad and Rob Sabba; and students from Peters’s and Greta Gramig’s projects. Emeritus professor Cal Messersmith also assisted.
In addition, industry representatives Angela Kazmierczak and Kevin Thorsness from Bayer, Bridgette Readel from Corteva and Brett Miller from Syngenta volunteered.
The NDSU team prepared 18 farmer problem plots and three different planting timings for the herbicide identification contests. They used eight of the prepared farmer problem plots and one of the herbicide identification plots.
Howatt and Ikely were pleased with the success of the contest and hope to host it again in the future. “We can’t thank the list of volunteers enough for helping make it a successful contest. Students and volunteers who came from out-of-state were very complimentary of our facilities at NDSU and the contest, itself,” Ikely said.
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