Our Impact
Making A Difference in Our County
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is working hard for its constituents. The following are examples of Extension’s impact in the county over the past year.
4-H Youth Development
The 4-H program provided by the Miller County Extension in conjunction with the Miller County school system provides in classroom agricultural and STEM lessons that follow the Georgia Performance Standards for all fifth grade students. Miller Co. 4-H has been able to shift and adjust during these unusual times to not only offering traditional face to face programming, but also providing virtual programing to students. Miller Co. 4-H has expanded its programing, providing seeds and gardening instructions to approximately 850 students, provided virtual field trips learning about Georgia ecosystems, STEM project, entomology, pet care, and healthy snacks preparation. Students have also had the opportunity to have zoom classrooms with Q&A sessions taught by leaders in the fields of Meteorology, Paleontology and NASA Scientist. MC 4-H has been able to draw on and share programing from other 4-H counties across the state. This shared programing has allowed 4-H’ers a vast field of programing and activities while helping students with their mental health by experiencing other 4-H instructors, meeting new 4-H’ers across the state and catching up with 4-H’ers they may have previously met while attending 4-H events like Summer Camp or Project Achievement. For the 23-24 school year MC has worked closely with the MCSS facility an administration to make sure that 4-H is also serving the families who have elected to attend school virtually. The 23-24 school year will look different but MC 4-H is rising to the challenge and is committed to deliver the same great programing for students it always has.
Agriculture and Natural Resources
At the Miller County Extension office, we give growers the information and tools they need to achieve maximum yields on their operations for peak profitability. One of the ways we do this is through state variety testing. In 2023 the Agriculture and Natural Resource agent, in collaboration with state specialist, created and conducted a variety trial testing the performance of a nematode-resistant peanut variety called TifNV-Hg. Plant parasitic nematodes can cost peanut growers thousands of dollars in yield lost if left unchecked. This new variety was planted and replicated with two other resistant varieties. When picked, the new variety weighed 500 pounds per acre more than the others. It also graded four points higher. This will bring growers in Miller County and across the state a high-yielding, nematode-resistant peanut variety to utilize on their operations.