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Chris Bennett

Writing from the level land of the Delta just outside of Clarksdale, Miss., Bennett has blogged for several years on agriculture, surrounded by cotton and plenty of cottonmouths.

Latest Stories
WES EVAN
Soybeans
Farm Boy’s Big Start: Five Acres And A Grin
Teach a boy to farm and he feeds others for a lifetime. When 12-year-old Evan Kirkpatrick worked his first five acres of soybeans in 2017, harvest represented a big link in a chain connecting past and present.
September 20, 2022 12:02 AM
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Chris Bennett
From a cabin in a Bootheel swamp to swashbuckling across America to the pages of Time magazine, Jessie Small was a farming legend. (Photo by Chris Bennett)
Used Machinery
US Farming Loses the King of Combines
An American farming titan, Jessie Small, the king of combines, has passed on, and with him goes a sizable chunk of U.S. historical lore.
September 20, 2022 12:02 AM
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Chris Bennett
$100 Ideas
New Holland Acquires Miller, Boosts Capabilities
With an eye toward pushing self-propelled sprayers on a global scale, New Holland Agriculture will acquire Miller. The acquisition comes on the heels of a four-year partnership between New Holland and Miller in North America that has seen strong acceptance of a front boom self-propelled sprayer offering.
September 19, 2022 11:17 PM
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Chris Bennett
84b5c88c02604d6baaeab07904bfa5b81.JPG
New Machinery
The Path to a Proper Spray Run
There is no perfect day to spray, plain and simple. Growers in most years are often backed in a corner, avoiding wind one day, only to face rain the next. Delays in spraying means the weeds grow larger and more difficult to control with herbicides.
September 19, 2022 11:17 PM
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Chris Bennett
KAN COT 1
Corn
Cotton Climbs in Kansas With 2,4-D Boost
Cotton isn’t king in Kansas, but it’s a fine prince for many Jayhawk growers, boosted by the arrival of new 2,4-D technology.
September 19, 2022 11:16 PM
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Chris Bennett
dicamba
Soybeans
Dicamba Questions Cloud 2017 Horizon
Illegal use of dicamba was a devil in 2016 and begs the question: With EPA’s labeling approvals on new dicamba formulations, how might the off-target scenario play out in 2017?
September 19, 2022 11:16 PM
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Chris Bennett
Mikey Taylor kneels in deep cover planted after 100-plus bu. dicamba-tolerant soybeans, along with son Wells, 6, and daughter Merrie Leigh, 10.
Soybeans
Early Adopters Put Dicamba-Tolerant Soybeans to the Test
When Mikey Taylor broke the century mark with dicamba-tolerant soybeans, yielding over 100 bu. per acre, he did so in straight-laced fashion, in direct contrast to the dicamba debacle of 2016.
September 19, 2022 11:16 PM
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Chris Bennett
The smart sprayer searches for a particular crop and any plant that isn’t a match gets hit with a spot-on stream of herbicide.
Corn
Robotic Pigweed Killer Nears Farmland
A robotic pigweed killer may provide a 90% reduction in chemical use, maintenance of tractor speed at 6 mph, and the polar opposite of broadcast spraying.
September 19, 2022 11:16 PM
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Chris Bennett
WEEDit allows chemical application solely to green matter, rather than spraying bare dirt, light of day or dark of night.
New Machinery
New Weed Tech Blasts Way to Real Savings?
If it’s green, it goes. A new weed technology uses a combination of infrared, sensors and nozzles to detect plants and aim a blast of herbicide at a spot the size of a nickel. WEEDit is an automatic plant detection technology that allows chemical application solely to green matter, rather than spraying bare dirt, all while the sprayer rolls at 15 mph, light of day or dark of night.
September 19, 2022 11:16 PM
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Chris Bennett
SMITH STONER AND VICTORIA DARDEN
Politics
EPA Fiddles as Flood Clock Rolls on Mississippi Delta’s Forgotten Nightmare
Welcome to a nightmare—the Yazoo Backwater Project—a bureaucratic taffy pull of dysfunctional government, politics, science, farming, and the backdoor dealings of a federal agency.
September 19, 2022 09:31 PM
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Chris Bennett
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