Released Jan. 9, 2008
A new Web site about increasing the U.S. cotton industry’s productivity provides research, news and interactive learning from the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service. Cotton eXtension (pronounced e-extension) launched this week at the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in Nashville, Tenn. It is one of many Web communities within a national initiative by land-grant universities.
Cotton eXtension “will serve as a reference for all phases of cotton production and address issues of pressing importance,” Louisiana State University Extension cotton specialist Sandy Stewart said. “It will be a one-stop place to access individual state pest management recommendations, variety trial information and Extension newsletters.”
The cotton site joins other eXtension sites that have information on horses, personal finance, dairy cattle, diversity across higher education, horticulture, parenting, entrepreneurs and their communities, wildlife damage management and fire ants. Additional topic areas will launch in 2008.
According to Stewart, “eXtension is a portal to the nation’s largest educational information system and is branded with the individual university Extension identifications. It’s really a different way of doing business for Cooperative Extension Services across the country. It’s not only a library of information on cotton production, but we will have learning modules for growers, consultants and others. We’re just at the tip of the iceberg of what we can do.”
“We feel this site has the potential to reach a broad audience,” said Joel Faircloth, Extension cotton agronomist, Virginia Tech University. “Crop consultants and producers are now using the Web more than ever, and the number is increasing.”
“The eXtension platform provides us an opportunity to bring together experts from across the United States to address problems,” said Dale Monks, cotton agronomist, Auburn University.
Extension cotton specialists from across the nation compile content that goes through a review process before it’s released. Extension cotton experts from Auburn University, Clemson University, Kansas State University, Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University, North Carolina State University, Oklahoma State University, Texas Cooperative Extension, University of Arizona, University of Arkansas, University of California-Davis, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech University worked on the new site. Staff from the National Cotton Council and USDA/Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service also contributed.
eXtension is an educational partnership of more than 70 land grant universities helping Americans improve their lives with access to timely, objective, research-based information and educational opportunities. eXtension’s interactive Web site, http://www.extension.org, is customized with links to local Cooperative Extension Web sites. Land-grant colleges were founded on the ideals that higher education should be accessible to all, that colleges should teach liberal and practical subjects and share knowledge with people throughout their states.
--30--
Contacts: Terry Meisenbach, eXtension Communications and Marketing, (760) 318-0276, terry.meisenbach@eXtension.org
Lynette Spicer, eXtension Virtual News Room, (515) 294-1327, lspicer@iastate.edu
