April 2025 Newsletter-Granville County Center

Join N.C. Cooperative Extension on Tuesday, April 29 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. for the Cattle EID Tag Laws and Market Trends webinar.

Neil Bowman, NC Department of Agriculture Livestock Marketing, will be discussing livestock tagging and Electronic Identification Tag Laws. He will include information on premises identification and which animals are required/exempt.

Bryan Sullivan, USDA Livestock Marketing, will show you how to access the Livestock Auction Dashboard via the MyMarketNews webpage. From this dashboard, you can find out the latest market news reports from the sale barns and includes:

What data is captured in the dashboard and how often it’s refreshed.

How to filter data based on the level of detail desired.

How to download and export files from the dashboard for further use.

Demonstration of each of the dashboard pages and what the information presented represents.

The 2025 Central Piedmont Livestock Show and Sals for 4-H or FFA youth, ages 5-18 from Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Guilford, Orange, Person, Randolph, Rockingham, and Wake Counties. These youth can exhibit Market Lambs, Ewe Lambs, Feeder Steers, Market Steers, Beef Heifers, Market Goats, Meat Goat Breeding Does, and Market Hogs.

The show will be held April 8 and 9 in Orange Grove in southern Orange County. The location is 6716 Orange Grove Road Hillsborough, NC 27278.

Mark your calendar and plan to come watch these kids and their animal projects. It is a great time! Plus there will be a BBQ super and animal auction on the evening of the 10th.

Show website can be found here: https://sites.google.com/ncsu.edu/cpjls

Come learn about pasture herbicides, improved forages/seed mixes, drone technology with a pasture walk/plant species identification. Regardless of the livestock species you raise, this conference will help you better manage your pastures and forages. The event will take place on April 15, 2025, with registration beginning at 8:30 am. The program begins at 9:00 am and should conclude around 3 pm. We will start off at the Yadkin County Extension office located at 2051 Agricultural Way, Suite 201 in Yadkinville, NC. After lunch, we will visit a farm for some hands-on time.

NC Cooperative Extension will be presenting talks about food preservation, livestock basics, fundamentals of composting, and seed saving at the Granville Gardeners Expo on April 26th. This event is being held at the Granville Expo and Convention Center (4185 US Hwy 15, Oxford NC). The talks will be from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm in the auditorium area of the Expo Center. The presentation schedule with topics, presenters and times are in the flyer to the left.
The event itself begins at 9:00 am and is over at 3:00 pm. We look forward to seeing you there!

Join us virtually on Tuesday, April 15 at 10:00am (EDT) as we learn the what, how, and why of composting! The presentation will cover what compost is, the procedures of composting compost, and why we should compost. We will discuss what you can put in your compost piles and at what proportions in order to compost most effectively. If you already compost or you are just thinking about starting this presentation will have tips for you. Presentation spoiler – it is easier than you think! Register at go.ncsu.edu/compostingnow

Interested in learning the basics about food preservation and want to know how you can get started? We will have a "Putting Food By" workshop on food preservation techniques such as canning, freezing, dehydrating and the food safety that goes along with it. Join us at 10:00am on Saturday, April 26 at the Granville Gardener’s Expo, where we will be giving an introduction to different food preservation techniques. We will have a tomato seed kit for the first 20 people in attendance along with the opportunity to purchase a "So Easy to Preserve" book for $20.

Let's face it, most of us have at least one space (or several) that we'd like to have more organized. In fact, a recent survey about clutter found that 84 percent of Americans are concerned their home isn’t organized or clean enough. And more than half of them reported that it causes them stress. Tackling clutter can seem overwhelming and sometimes getting started is the hardest part. Join Jennifer Brown from the NC Cooperative Extension on Monday, April 28 at 10:45am at the Granville Senior Center in Oxford to learn some simple steps you can take to begin to tackle areas of clutter that may be bothering you. No guilt, just ideas!