[Dramatic Instrumental Music]
[Male narrator]: Josh Dallin led a team of faculty
and staff who were able to process over 3,300 turkeys in only seven days.
In addition there was an increase in support of sales
during the turkey auction for 4-H and FFA youth.
Josh and his faculty research team also used the turkey processing
and show to conduct an annual applied research project.
The research focus this year was on hen yield percentage
and preference of feed, pellets versus granular.
Results of these research projects each year are presented
at national conferences and published in journals.
Nell Larson was selected as a grantee
of the Park City Community Foundations new climate fund grant.
She and colleague Raya Cohn,
with community partners will build 100 beaver analogs
and access their capacity for carbon sequestration
via sediment capture, and re-wetting wetlands.
They will train other organizations and land owners
in mountain towns on the process.
They received 48,000 dollars through a highly competitive process.
The Swaner eco-center is hosting Water Ways,
an interactive traveling exhibition from Smithsonian's museums on Main Street.
A new bilingual companion exhibit, Why Wetlands,
has also been created by the team, led by Hunter Klingensmith.
It focuses on Swaner preserve and the many critical roles of wetlands,
shown through short videos that are selected by the visitor.
Research from the urban farm demonstration garden
contributed to passing a mini greenbelt initiative in Davis County.
Shardon Hansen was invited to present to the Davis County council of government.
The initiative passed and will be implemented for small acreage farmers.
The county commissioners said that the data
from Shardon's urban farm demonstration garden was the most compelling evidence
for support of urban small scale farming they had seen.
Final data for Shardon's urban farm demonstration garden includes:
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Utah Water Watch is Utah's citizen science water quality monitoring program,
led by Hope Braithwaite.
In 2020, there were 34 volunteers, 121 total volunteers,
840 participants, 204 sights, and 515 monitoring events.
UWW volunteers expanded the reach
and capabilities of monitoring efforts statewide.
UWW volunteer driving and monitoring time in 2020,
was valued at over 32,000 dollars.
Water quality data, collected by volunteers
were enter into a publicly available online data base
and shared with monitoring partners,
including the Utah Division of Water Quality.
Thanks to a UWW volunteer, we were able to alert
the UDWQ about a harmful algal bloom in the Jordan River,
and they worked with the local health department to issue a health watch.
The Pesticide Safety Education Program,
partnered with the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food
from July through September to provide
three two hour continuing education webinars,
attended by 188 pesticide applicators.
The webinar has provided 376 CEU's to applicators in a little over six hours.
In preparation for recording sessions for online CEU models,
Michael Weirda presented a series of Facebook Live events in late September
on national pesticide safety core materials.
The videos have been viewed 1,516 times,
and the pesticide safety education Facebook page
saw 300 percent increase in post engagement.
In November and early December the program partnered with UDAF,
and Statewide extension faculty, for eight, three hour
CEU webinars and delivered 2,992 CEUs.
There was no financial cost or time lost to travel for virtual events,
and credits were delivered and earned safely.
Mike Karen began working with a producer in Dammeron Valley
outside St. George on vineyard production two years ago.
Since then, Mike has found five other producers
in Southern Utah that are growing vineyards and making wine.
The six producers are planning to form a cooperative,
where they have a wine tasting circuit
similar to Napa or Sonoma Valley in California.
These vineyards mean land stays in agriculture production
and isn't developed and creates a new industry in Utah.
Mike has been instrumental in helping these producers
create quality grapes and maintain productive vineyards.
Reagan Wytsalucy and Kynda Curtis received a 34,000 dollar grant
to purchase hay and grain for livestock producers of the Navajo Nation.
Tribal leaders were organized so they could pick up hay
and grain for their communities.
Reagan and her team were able to distribute 600 40 pound bags of grain
and 1,490 hay bales to five chapters.
Navajo Mountain, Red Mesa, Ohato, Mexican Water, and Aneth.
There were 298 Navajo grazing permittee holders served,
A number of extension faculty throughout the state
were able to assist in distributing the donations.
Because of the dramatic increase in home gardening during the pandemic,
the Garden Guys and Gal social media campaign was launched in April 2020.
The goal was to provide sound gardening information,
that was easily accessible to the public.
The campaign used social media platforms to disseminate short videos
and information on a range of gardening and horticulture topics
several times a week during the growing season.
From April to January 2021, they produced 471 posts, including short videos.
As of January 25th, 2021, Garden Guys and Gal had 1,510 followers
on Facebook, and 626 followers on Instagram.
Posts reached 228,270 people and were shared 829 times.
On YouTube, they have 111 subscribers and over 4,000 views.
95% of those surveyed ranked the program as excellent or very good.
And 88% said the videos gave enough information to make informed decisions,
and they had implemented recommended practices in their own gardens.
USU Extension hosted the first annual Utah Hemp Seminar in February 2020.
Over 300 people attended.
Evaluation results show that 87% of participants
rated the seminar as either excellent or very good.
Matt Yost, in partnership with the extension specialists
and statewide county faculty, organized a two day virtual field day
with 40 presentations, five virtual crop schools, and 1,300 total participants.
Nearly 700 completed evaluations showed
that over 95% said the events were very good or exceptional.
Thirty-five percent of the people had never attended a USU field day before.
Recordings have been viewed over 7,600 times on YouTube.
Matt and his team were able to reach a larger audience in a new way.
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