All tours are $50. If you wish to participate in one of our field tours, please make your selection as part of the general registration process.
Samples and Solutions: Touring the Nutrient Triangle
Shorter day · stays close to Raleigh
This is a snapshot of what makes the Research Triangle unique: a place where wastewater utilities, startups, state agencies and a land-grant university all work on the same nutrient challenges. This tour begins with Raleigh’s wastewater treatment plant, tracing nutrients through the infrastructure that recovers them. We will visit the state soil testing lab, which handles over 300,000 samples per year. We will wrap things up at NC State’s research farm, where all of this information and technology is put to the test, ending with a well-earned scoop of homegrown ice cream.
Hatch to Haul-Out: Poultry in Eastern North Carolina
Full day · eastern North Carolina
North Carolina raises poultry on a scale few states can match, and this tour shows what it takes to manage what comes with it. You’ll spend the day in eastern North Carolina’s poultry belt, from the farm to the people training the next generation of growers. Along the way you’ll see how one of the state’s biggest industries makes it happen.
Manure to Market: Manure Management Innovations in Southeast North Carolina
Full day · southeastern North Carolina
A behind-the-scenes look at the technology innovations in animal agriculture, turning its byproducts into products people want to buy. We will start where the supply chain ends, touring the largest swine processing facility in the world, and follow with manure processing technologies unique to NC swine production.