Jack Bailey Memorial Tour

Dr. Jack Bailey, long-time Professor and Extension Specialist in the department who died unexpectedly, had a passion for teaching and mentoring students. He saw that both applied and basic research was needed to solve disease problems for growers. For example, he developed an environmental monitoring device for in-field use in support of his disease forecasting models for leaf spot in peanuts when no suitable device was available. He regularly invited student groups and faculty to his family's suburban home for discussions and socials. In his honor, the faculty chose to name the student tour in his memory.The tour aims to introduce students in plant pathology to agriculture and agribusiness in North Carolina.

Monday, August 16, 2010

This year, 2010, the Bailey tour focused on Eastern North Carolina. Students and faculty had a full day starting at 6:30a.m. First stop was the Mt. Olive Pickle Company where a detailed tour of the plant operations were discussed and where 40 million lbs of cucumbers are processed. The tour included the production line, testing, pasteurizing, labeling, quality control. The Mt. Olive Pickle company has been in operation since 1926. You can see more of what the students and faculty experienced through a visual tour ...>> HERE

Next stop was Shingleton Farms Stantonsburg, NC where Dr. Louws led the group through the cucumber fields. Irrigation was discussed. According to the NC Strawberry Association, Shingleton was one of the first nursery producers in the state to participate in the North Carolina Certified Strawberry Plant program, which provide high-quality, disease-free transplants, using micropropagated plants raised under a rigorous system of careful management and inspections.
In Clayton, Bayer Enviornmental took the group through their facilities where herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and seed treatments were discussed. The tour was lead by NC State alumnus, Mike Newnam, who is in charge of maintaining various diseases of turf grasses on a four hole golf course on their research farm.

Also in Clayton we visited the Central Crops Research Station where the group enjoyed eating watermelon and then toured the facilities where Dr. Ojiambo and Mike Adams discussed downy mildew on cucurbits and basil and. Dr Koenning showed the group the nematode research miniplots.

Back in Raleigh the group visited the Lake Wheeler Research Station where Dr. Hu arranged for the USDA personnel to show research on carbon sequestration, Ozone, and CO2 were discussed and how it relates to the environment and crop production. The green houses were toured and Dr. Sutton reviewed grape diseases symptoms.

The tour ended with a barbeque dinner at the Lake Wheeler Turfgrass Research Facility where Dr. Tredway gave a presentation relating to turfgrass pathology.

More 2010 Photos ...>> HERE

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Thursday, August 14, 2008

This year, the bailey tour will visit the North and Central piedmont area of North Carolina including Cherry Research Farm, Goldsboro, NC and Peanut Belt Reasearch Station, Lewiston-Woodville, NC.

We had a very nice tour of the Peanut Station at Lewiston and Barbara Shew did a great job of describing her research on peanuts and that of others that is occurring there. We also got a view of a very special peanut selection having multiple disease resistance that is very close to release and is being named 'Bailey' in honor of Jack. Next Cary Rivard organized the tour of a small part of the more than 2200 acre Cherry Research Station in Goldsboro where we saw the integration of crops and animals having the goal of developing sustainable agricultural systems. We also saw some of Cary's research on using grafting of susceptible scions to resistant rootstocks to control disease in tomatoes. And to complete the tour, Mike Adams (who works with Dr. Holmes) showed us a field experiment dealing with fusarium wilt of watermelon on a grower's farm.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

This year the Bailey tour focused on the Sandhills and southern piedmont of North Carolina. Students and faculty visited the Sandhills Research Station, in Jackson Springs, Sandhills Turf, Inc. in Candor, and Metrolina Greenhouses, in Huntersville. The tour was organized by Dr. Larry Grand. At the Sandhills station, Dr. Dave Ritchie and Dr. Zvezdana Pesic-VanEsbroeck spoke of their research. Dr. Lane Tredway introduced students to turfgrass production at Sandhills Turf, and Dr. Mike Benson described the ornamental industry and automation of greenhouse production at Metrolina Greenhouses.

Later in the afternoon, the group was treated to a behind the scenes view of contruction at the new North Carolina Research Campus under way in Kannapolis. This public-private venture on 350 acres will boast the most technologically advanced biotechnology campus in the country. It will feature several prestigious, university-run research facilities and labs as well as private industries. This public-private partnership was conceived and is being supported by Mr. David H. Murdock, owner of Castle & Cooke, Inc. and Dole Food Company, Inc., The campus tour was co-led by Ms. Lynne Scott Safrit, President, Castle & Cooke, and Dr. Steven Leath, Vice-President for Research, UNC. A dinner following the tour was hosted by Dr. Steven Lommel, Associate Dean for Research at NC State University.

Photo highlights-2008

Photo highlights-2007

A Few photo highlights of the 2006 Bailey Tour

The Diseases Observed - 2006

Bailey Tour 2005 Information and Photo Album

Damon Smith's Photo Album

Bailey Tour 2004 information