Planning for the coming growing season is an important but sometimes challenging task for producers of grain crops. University of Kentucky College of Agriculture specialists will offer their nonbiased advice to help growers wade through the decision-making process during a series of early bird meetings.

These meetings were previously scheduled for mid-November but were moved to December to include producers dealing with the late harvest.

The meetings will take place Dec. 14 at the Feed Mill Restaurant in Union County, Dec. 15 at the Christian County Cooperative Extension Service and Dec. 16 at the Sedalia Restaurant in Graves County.  The program will begin at 9:15 a.m. CST and end around 1:45 p.m. each day.

"These meetings are designed to help farmers make decisions on pre- and early purchases for the 2010 growing season," said Chad Lee, UK grain crops specialist.

Program topics include twin row corn and early planted soybeans, pigweed and volunteer corn, foliar fungicides, stacked traits, grain drying and storage, and marketing grain and budgeting.  At the end of the meeting, growers will have time to ask the specialists additional questions.

Lunch is sponsored by the Kentucky Corn Growers Association, Kentucky Soybean Board and the Kentucky Small Grain Growers.

Continuing education units are available for certified crop advisors and pesticide applicators.

For more information, visit the UK Grain Crops Extension Web site at http://www.uky.edu/Ag/GrainCrops/ or contact the following UK agriculture and natural resources extension agents: Rankin Powell in Union County at 270-952-2092, Kenny Perry in Graves County at 270-247-2334, and Jay Stone in Christian County at 270-226-6328.