[6/9/03]Vicksburg was picked for its mix of high-tech and history, Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture Lester Spell said here Monday while squiring 11 fellow commissioners around.

“We were looking for something interesting for them to do and see,” Spell said as he led two busloads, or about 75 individuals, of commissioners, spouses and others for a morning and part of the afternoon visit to Vicksburg.

The commissioners took the day off from a five-day meeting in Jackson. While in the city, the Southern Association of State Departments of Agriculture group visited the Army Engineer Research and Development Center at Waterways Experiment Station, lunched at and toured Cedar Grove Mansion and took a short tour of the Vicksburg National Military Park.

At ERDC, the group toured part of the Environmental Laboratory where scientists study ways to keep unwanted species of fish out of waterways and how to help desirable species move into them as well as how to control imported, nuisance plants by methods other than chemical eradication. Also part of the tour was to the Coastal and Hydraulic Laboratory, where scientists are using a model of a portion of the Columbia River basin, where there is concern over salmon populations.

In the Environmental Laboratory, Charles Sharpe, commissioner of agriculture from South Carolina, was particularly interested in research in the biological control of nuisance plants.

“We have hydrilla growing like crazy in our lakes in the middle part of the state. The only way we have been able to control it is diploid carp, and when you do that you destroy everything,” Sharpe said after peering into a microscope at a tiny insect that feeds off specific aquatic vegetation. “I wish I could take them with me,” he said of the insects.

“It has been a great tour,” said Carlton Courter, the Virginia commissioner of agriculture. “I always enjoy getting around the country to see different forms of agriculture and the infrastructure that supports it.”

Courter said he was impressed with the soils in the Delta and the variety of crops they support.

In addition to Mississippi, member states of SASDA are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Virgin Islands and West Virginia. The southern association is one of four regional groups of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.