KATS (Kentucky Agriculture Training School), formally known as the Wheat Field School was started in 2017. The school was created to be a more hands on, in-depth alternative to field days. These small group meetings are important to help facilitate better group discussions and let the participants interact more directly with extension specialists. KATS trainings are held during different critical points in the growing season to help participants better understand the different management decisions that have to be made.

This year, I helped give the talk on soybean disease management for late season soybeans. In this talk, we discussed various soybean diseases, how to manage them and how to scout for diseases in a field. There were a total of 7 participants that represented over 68,500 acres of soybeans in Kentucky. The meeting was worth over a total of 40$ per acre for the participants. All of the participants found the talk very to extremely beneficial, would like to attend future KATS training and would recommend the trainings to other friends/colleagues.

Future meetings are expected to expand upon the topic base, adding other crops such as forages.