2026 East Idaho Cereals Conference moving to Idaho Falls

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — University of Idaho Extension’s 2026 East Idaho Cereals Conference is moving to Idaho Falls, and organizers are planning for a record crowd.  

The conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4, in the Mountain America Center Blue Cross Conference Center, 1690 Event Center Drive.  

Lunch is included, and the cost of registration is $30 through Wednesday, Jan. 28, or $40 at the door. The event will feature presentations on the latest cereal research and industry trends, industry updates from cereal commodity groups and a trade show with booths staffed by vendors and organizations involved in cereal crop production.  

For several years, Extension hosted smaller schools in six East Idaho cities. In 2025, however, Extension shifted to a single, large cereal school. Hosting one event reduced scheduling challenges for speakers and vendors and made it feasible for Extension to schedule multiple sessions at a time, giving participants more options.  

The 2025 conference, hosted in Fort Hall, drew about 300 participants. Organizers expect the Idaho Falls conference to draw at least 350.  

“We noticed after doing it last year in one location that growers and producers really enjoyed the social aspect, where they got to see colleagues they hadn’t seen in a long time from across East Idaho, and it really adds a whole other element of the networking,” said UI Extension educator Justin Hatch, Caribou County, who heads the conference’s planning committee.

General session topics will include a cereals economic outlook and a grain marketing panel discussion, as well as updates from the Idaho Wheat Commission, the Idaho Barley Commission and the Idaho Grain Producers Association.

“Marketing is one of the big buzzwords this year,” Hatch said. “Prices are down and farmers are wondering, ‘What can we do to be able to make a better profit with what we have?’”  

The Idaho Barley Commission and Idaho Wheat Commission again are sponsoring the lunch. A new feature this year is that supporters, such as Anheuser-Busch and Syngenta, are sponsoring individual breakout sessions.  

Breakout session topics include Marketing 101, end-use quality, wild oat control, the economic cost of wild oat resistance, wheat and barley variety trials, equipment calibration, disease updates, a liming trial update, the profitability of a cereal-pea intercropping, the cost of wheat production, variable-rate sprayer applications, effectively using spray drones, vertical integration of farms, tank mixing and clean-out and using an online nitrogen calculator.  

One room will be devoted to pesticide applicator recertification training, with up to four credits available.

For more information, contact Hatch at jlhatch@uidaho.edu or 208-547-3205.  

“We’re excited to host this again. It was an awesome event last year,” Hatch said. “We really think this is a good model and that it meets the needs of producers.”

Media contact 

John O’Connell
Assistant Director of Communications, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
208-530-5959
joconnell@uidaho.edu 

Justin Hatch
University of Idaho Extension Educator, Caribou County
208-547-3205
jlhatch@uidaho.edu