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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
In a crop field cull, how do the knives of judgment distinguish saint from sinner? A new approach uses a fluorescent systemic marker that is applied onto seeds through a seed treatment. When the plant is stimulated with a special color of light, it emits a fluorescent color.
Narrow-windrow burning destroys soil seed bank
Cottonseed derivatives find their way into a remarkable array of products: cooking oil, cattle feed, electronics, food ingredients, and many more.
When city expansion nibbles around the edges of an operation with an inch to a mile appetite, erosion of landowner will is often the tacit intention. However, legacy and livelihood are a wedded pair for many producers.
Rubber-producing plants are back on the edge of farmland, backed by the muscle of genetic breeding.
Hell or high water, producers are often forced to chase markets. However, solid data stacked over multiple years shows the peaks and troughs of a consistent crop rotation system.
Agriculture-archaeological relationships, once tainted by mutual suspicion, are protecting the past and allowing farmland to serve as a vast repository for history.
Lifelong cattle and turkey producers in southwest Missouri’s Newton County, Rick and Nathan Clymer have tapped into a heavy demand vein: inland shrimp farming.
ARS research agronomist Frank Forcella believed sandblasting organic grit would be an effective weed killer. His determination to break from convention has resulted in a four-row grit blaster capable of obliterating weeds.
Jason Norsworthy is attacking the soil seed bank with a no-prisoner policy: capture, burn and kill. Norsworthy is testing a new weapon in the resistant weed wars aimed directly at the seed bank reserve – narrow-windrow burning.