Russell County is home to a diverse agriculture community.  The county is still home to traditional agriculture practices but has begun to see a transition to smaller scale, home produced food production.  This year the Russell and Cumberland County Extension offices joined together to host a pruning and grafting seminar in conjunction with UK specialist, Dr. Strang. Attendees were able to get hands on experience in fruit tree pruning thanks to a community member who allowed the class to visit their backyard fruit production site to watch and help prune a variety of fruit and nut trees.  Attendees also attended a session of grafting trees and the proper techniques to make a quality graft union and overall tree.  Once the presentation session was complete, the participants were able to graft up to 10 trees of their own with root stock and scion woods supplied by the office and University.

If cared for properly, the fruit trees should begin to produce fruit for the families of the participants with in 5 years.  This will provide families and generations to come with a quality, nutritious food that has been grown locally.