Field days usually focus on the station's current research, but the agenda is never ccertain until the day of the event. An entomologist may have planned to talk about a new alfalfa insecticide, but if local farmers are wrestling with a severe corn borer problem, that will be the topic of the day. But you don't have to wait for a field day. Visitors are encouraged to stop by any time, whether it's to get immediate answers to a pressing problem, or to take a self-guided station tour. Field days and informal visits are as valuable to researchers as to the visitors.
Information passes in both directions.
By answering questions and asking some of their own, researchers learn more about problems growers are facing. While farmers learn what new technology is on the horizon, researchers learn how last year's new ideas are working under actual field conditions.