Wednesday Schedule

PESTICIDE APPLICATOR RE-CERTIFICATION

December 10th, 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM and December 11th, 7:30 AM - 4:30 PM

*Please note Category C starts in that afternoon on Tuesday, December 10th!

These MDA-approved sessions are for applicators that need recertification credit in Categories A (Core), C (Field Crop Pest Management), and/or H (Seed Treatment). Workshop topics will include insect, disease, and weed updates, new pesticide safety topics, prevention of off-target movement of pesticides, and more. Please bring your current license card with you.

*Start time on Wednesday, December 11th is 7:30 am!

Category A + C: Attend December 10th from 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm and December 11th recertification sessions from 7:30 am to 11:15 am.
Category A + H: Attend all December 11th recertification sessions (7:30 am to 4:30 pm).
Category A + C + H: Attend all December 10th and December 11th recertification sessions.

Do You Need to Recertify? Please refer to your pesticide applicator license for your recertification due date. If the due date is 12/31/2024 then you will need to take a recertification workshop, or retest with MDA, by the end of 2024 in order to renew your license in 2025. You can also check the status of your license, including your recertification date, online at: http://www2.mda.state.mn.us/webapp/lis/default.jsp. For any licensing questions, please contact MDA at: 651-201-6615 or Pesticide.Licensing@state.mn.us. PLEASE NOTE: 2025 RENEWAL NOTICES WILL BE PRINTED PRIOR TO THIS EVENT. AFTER CREDIT IS GIVEN TO PARTICIPANTS, THE RETEST FEE WILL BE REMOVED FROM RENEWAL AMOUNT.

CROP PEST MANAGEMENT SHORT COURSE GENERAL SESSION

December 11th, 8 AM – 11 AM

Welcome from Senator Nick Frentz and Dean Beverly Durgan, Dean, University of Minnesota Extension

Senator Nick Frentz

Beverly Durgan

MCPR Legislative Policy Discussion and Elections Update

The 2024 elections will shape agriculture policy at the Federal and State levels of government. Join us as we engage with a panel of key stakeholders and policy experts to review the election results and hear how that will influence policy priorities, public investment strategies, and regulatory action. MCRP invites you to participate in this discussion, offering a unique opportunity to learn and grow your understanding of the issues likely to impact ag retailers and the ag sector. This session will help you and your organization’s leadership team be better prepared to engage with policymakers and strengthen our advocacy efforts.

Panelists: Brian McClung, McClung PR & Blois Olson. Fluence Media

Brian McClung is the CEO of McClung PR with over 25 years of experience in media, politics, and business. Before founding the firm, he served as Press Secretary, Director of Communications, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, earning recognition on the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty list. Brian’s PR work has garnered multiple awards, and he serves as a local and national media analyst and adjunct professor, with a B.A. in Mass Communications and Journalism from Washington & Lee University.

Blois Olson has been called “Mr. Minnesota” for his ability to read the mood of the state’s residents and the political dynamics and economic trends. He has moderated hundreds of conversations across the state including political debates, economic discussions and business forums.

His influential newsletters and commentaries are read by thousands daily as part of Fluence Media. From the MN Orchestra lockout to Punch Pizza at the State of the Union he’s influenced news and information three decades throughout the country.

His insights and perspective are sought regularly by business, civic and political leaders across the state and country.

Named one of 100 Minnesotans you should know for 2023, he was recognized as a “Top Marketer” by Minnesota Business magazine in 2012, and named one of “200 Minnesotan’s You Should Know” by Twin Cities Business magazine in 2011.

He has been on-air host and contributor to WCCO Radio since 1998.

Outside of radio, Blois has built a handful of successful businesses in media and public relations/public affairs, his current company Fluence Media is the leading source of
information for Minnesota’s business and political elite. He lives in St. Louis Park, has two adult children, and enjoys pickleball, golf and wine.

CEU= 1 PD

Brian McClung

Blois Olson

Soil Health and Climate Smart Ag: What’s in it for me?

Minnesota is receiving a historic influx of federal and state funding promoting widespread adoption of soil-friendly and climate-smart agricultural practices, including $1.2B worth of USDA Climate Smart Commodity partnership projects impacting our state. Simultaneously, unprecedented demand for sustainably produced products and feedstocks creates an opportunity for ag retail to diversify revenue streams, capture new markets, and continue to build trust with customers by incorporating conservation-aligned services into their business. But what does that all mean for you?

Shifting to a “climate-smart” agricultural system requires industry wide collaboration and innovative approaches to scale. Speakers will share current opportunities, practical experience and on the ground examples of successful service-models for conservation delivery, while engaging the audience in applying key insights to their own position in the value chain.

After brief presentations, the panel will host a Q&A to foster dialogue, solicit perspectives, and forge connections to emerging opportunities in the public and private sector.

Panelists:

Anna Cates, Soil Health Specialist, Minnesota Office for Soil Health
Ariel Kagan, Climate and Working Lands Program Director, Minnesota Farmers Union
Jared House, Soils Programming Coordinator, MN Board of Soil and Water Resources
Andrew Lambert, Technology Services Manager, Centra Sota Cooperative
TJ Cartes, Regional Sales Representative, Saddle Butte Ag

Moderator: Peter Mead, Agriculture Project Manager, The Nature Conservancy

CEU= 1 SW

Speaker Bios for Soil Health and Climate Smart Ag Session

AI Guided Advancements in Agriculture

Dr. David Mulla, Department of Soil, Water & Climate at the University of Minnesota

This talk will provide an overview of how AI is being used in agriculture, give some example success stories for AI applications in agriculture, and discuss future directions and challenges for accelerating the adoption of AI in agriculture. Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications are rapidly emerging to assist producers improve productivity, efficiency of inputs and sustainability of agricultural practices such as tilling the soil, planting a crop, applying irrigation, fertilizer, manure or crop protection products, and harvesting. AI is a powerful approach for assessing spatiotemporal patterns and uncertainty arising from variations in weather, soils, nutrient availability, insects, and disease that may affect productivity. AI guided tools are emerging to help producers with early detection and treatment of stresses from water, nutrients, pests and diseases.

Specific strengths of AI include computer perception and vision, classification, regression, clustering, and predictive analytics, multi-criteria, multi-objective decision-making, and natural language processing tools as exemplified by chatbots and virtual assistants. Advances in AI have fostered the widespread adoption of autosteer tractors in agriculture. Advances have also been significant in the areas of a) remote sensing for precision agriculture, b) detection of stress from weeds, insects, nitrogen or water, c) robotic navigation and manipulation, and d) crop phenology assessment.

Dr. Mulla is Professor and Larson Chair for Soil & Water Resources in the Dept. of Soil, Water, and Climate at the Univ. of Minnesota, and a member of the Executive Committee for the National AI-CLIMATE Institute. From 2004 – 2024 he was Director of the Precision Agriculture Center at the Univ. of Minnesota. From 2007-2013 he was a consultant to the Millennium Challenge Corporation for a project to install erosion control practices and plant 8 million olive trees on 75,000 ha in Morocco.

Dr. Mulla and his coauthors (including 46 MS and PhD students) have produced over 230 publications, and have received funding of over $50 million. Broadly speaking, Dr. Mulla’s pioneering research on precision agriculture contributed significantly to its adoption in the US and around the world, fostering business opportunities, job growth and greater economic and environmental efficiency in agriculture.

Dr. Mulla is an internationally recognized researcher and scholar. His peers elected him as a Fellow in the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), and as a Fellow in the Agronomy Society of America. In 2012 he received the Pierre C. Robert Precision Agriculture Research Award from the International Society for Precision Agriculture. In 2013 he received the SSSA Soil Science Applied Research Award. He has served as Associate and Technical Editor for the Soil Science Society of America Journal, and as Associate Editor for the journal Precision Agriculture.

CEU= 1 CM

Special Interest Groups

Wednesday, December 11th during the lunch hour

The purpose of SIGs is to allow people to connect with colleagues from different agriculture retailers and share experiences. With four SIGs to select from – Women in Ag, Emerging Leaders, Sales Agronomists and Conservation Programs – there is an option for everyone. And MCPR is open to additional SIG topics; if you have topic suggestions, please contact Helgen at lee@mcpr-cca.org. Each SIG will be led by an experienced professional, who will facilitate conversation and connections.

To participate in a SIG, you must be registered for the 2024 CPM Short Course and MCPR Trade Show.

Special Interest Group Registration