The Heart of the N.C. PSI: Morgan Menaker
As part of an Extension agent network working with the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative, Morgan Menaker is a voice for ensuring that research into problem-solving agricultural technologies addresses growers’ highest priority needs.
Editor’s Note: As we gear up for NC State’s 2025 Day of Giving on March 26, the N.C. PSI is highlighting passion-inspired, donor-fueled staff, students and others behind our plant sciences research, extension and workforce development efforts. This is the fourth Q&A in our series.
For Morgan Menaker, being a North Carolina Cooperative Extension field crops agent in Union County means being a linchpin in ensuring that the nation’s research-and-extension system continues to deliver agricultural knowledge and technology that works for growers and addresses their greatest needs.
One way that Menaker contributes to that mission is through his involvement with the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative. He is one of 12 agents selected in 2023 to serve as an inaugural member of a network of Extension agents helping shape future N.C. PSI research. Today, the network has 26 members.
By working with the N.C. PSI, Menaker has helped beta-test technology developed by initiative-supported researchers. Thanks partly to farmer feedback he and his fellow agents obtained, growers in North Carolina and beyond now have access to a free, user-friendly web-based Precision Sustainable Agriculture Cover Crop Species Selector. The tool allows them to enter their site conditions, cover cropping goals, cash crop growing window, and more to receive detailed recommendations.
Anything I can do to deliver a new perspective or technology to make our acres count makes me feel like I am leaving a better world for my son and daughter.
Beyond beta-testing, Menaker says being involved with the N.C. PSI has helped him bring local growers’ needs to the attention of university researchers with the expertise to help solve them.
For example, this week he welcomed an NC State research team to his county to begin collecting photographs of a noxious weed called Italian ryegrass. Union is the state’s top wheat-producing county, and the invasive, herbicide-resistant weed cuts their yields substantially.
The photos that the NC State team collects will be part of a massive agricultural image repository that will inform the development of artificial intelligence-based technologies that can discern weeds from crops and deliver highly targeted weed control.
“In Union County, ryegrass is the death of wheat growers’ profit and interferes with all row crop production. Bringing this key issue to the forefront for my growers is something I am proud of and will eventually have long-lasting effects on them,” he said.
Menaker, a U.S. Army veteran, recently answered a few questions about himself, his work as an agent, and his involvement with the N.C. PSI.
What drew you to Extension work and the plant sciences?
My internal motivation behind my Extension work is a sense of service to the American people. After my time in the military ended, I had an industry job that was not fulfilling that need. My love for plant science started in my mother’s flower garden, grew on my grandfather’s Christmas tree farm, and was cultivated through public school and my undergraduate and graduate studies.
What have you done as part of your role as a network member?
Beta-testing emerging technology was the initial ask of agents. Utilizing hand-held sensor-based technology to quantify cover crops and collecting feedback on decision support tools was the boots-on-the-ground work.
However, I quickly found that, as an Extension agent, I could play a part in providing my and my grower’s experience in agriculture to the research team and other N.C. PSI-affiliated faculty.
With the Plant Sciences Initiative, there’s an opportunity for a county agent to give input and bring up challenges that people or research teams might not have known about that are important to your part of the state.
How does what you do ultimately impact people and agriculture in North Carolina?
A county agent’s business is their people. Each one of my growers can call on me for my expertise and opinion, with no motive other than to help them, at any time. I would move everything around to be by their side in a moment of critical decision-making. County agents save people time and money, plain and simple.
How does what is being done through the N.C. PSI motivate you?
Professionally I get to work with highly motivated and talented individuals on projects that I know will make a difference to my growers. That is all that I could ask for.
And personally, knowing I have a hand in bringing new and emerging technologies to the agricultural community I grew up next to is fulfilling. Urbanization and loss of open space are real threats to row crop farming, anything I can do to deliver a new perspective or technology to make our acres count makes me feel like I am leaving a better world for my son and daughter.
