This year’s Blacklands Farm Managers Tour, set for Wednesday, Aug. 1 at 3 B Farms in Pinetown, N.C. will focus on corn management and corn and soybean fertility.

Registration begins at 7 a.m.. and the field day begins at 8 a.m. Field tours are scheduled in the morning and the event concludes with a catered lunch featuring a keynote address by Dr. Fred Below, professor of plant physiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Below will speak on "Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World."

3 B Farms is located at 2200 Respess Road, Pinetown, NC 27865 in Beaufort County. Field Day hosts are James Russell Boyd, Doug Boyd and Todd Boyd. The Blacklands Farm Managers Tour is considered the preeminent field day in NorthCarolina.

Speakers include Dr. Carl Crozier and Dr. David Hardy, discussing corn and soybean fertility, focusing on potassium; Dr. Ron Heiniger discussing corn management; Dr. Wes Everman and Dr. Charlie Cahoon, addressing herbicide symptomology; Scott Tilley, discussing corn fungicide placement; and Dr.  Rachel Vann, providing a soybean Extension program update.

In addition, local Extension agents will discuss the corn and soybean experimental plots, including nitrogen placement on corn, soybean fertility and fungicide placement, and other soybean tests with a focus on early maturing varieties.