The inaugural AGMasters Conference is underway at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and there is a good crowd on hand, despite the fact that many farmers around the state are still out harvesting corn. This event is a new format for a conference that has a 60 year history at the university. Once upon a time, it was called “Spray School” – but it has evolved into so much more.

I talked with one of the co-chairs, Mike Gray, an entomologist with the Department of Crop Sciences. Mike says the organizers of the conference decided to move to the beautiful new I Center this year and have it in December instead of January. “Who would have known with this late harvest that we would have some issues surface because of that,” he said.

They also decided to change the format to a general session the first day and a classroom setting with breakouts on the second day. Check out the AGMasters conference blog for full coverage.

Started a Flickr photo album here – and you can listen to or download my interview with Mike below.