Crop Production
Mikey Taylor’s 110-acre block of cover crops has attracted pickers from multiple states and yielded a bounty of blessing.
Frank Forcella has designed a four-row organic grit blaster capable of obliterating weeds.
The promise of biotech mosquitoes grabs the headlines, but the same technology utilizing genetically engineered (GE) insects is being tested on U.S. farmland.
As is a written guarantee against GMO presence to protect non-GMO crop sales
Secrecy is farming’s seductive mistress, but concealing production tips isn’t a formula for long-term success, according to some top-yielding producers.
On the doorstep of an immediate in-crop use ban, the dicamba issue is hanging in limbo after a roller coaster ride.
With alarm bells ringing in multiple states over confirmed PPO-resistant pigweed, is the weed control cavalry expected in soybean fields anytime soon? Bolstered by new technologies, help might be on the way within the next five years.
Artificial intelligence recognizes crop, targets weeds
Waterhemp has piled on genetic muscle and built documented resistance to herbicides from six separate site of action groups in Illinois. Yet, even more alarming are the consequences of stacked resistance in waterhemp. Once resistance begins stacking, what’s the snowball effect of a weed juggernaut?
Will Harris was delighted when the first pair of bald eagles arrived on his farm in 2011. Six years and 80 eagles later, Harris faces annual six-figure poultry losses and major FSA litigation.
A dicamba cloud rolled across U.S. agriculture in 2016 and turned the crop season into a high-stakes waiting game as producers wondered whose soybean crop would cup and when more symptoms would appear.
Greenhouse and field trials have Arkansas weed scientists looking for answers
Questions about crop response and yield increase.
The Australian-based Harrington Seed Destructor is a weed seed’s nightmare
Look to the sky—research finds resistant pigweed spread by waterfowl
Thumb-sized plastic beans, packed with a world of sensor circuitry, may soon be ready to monitor grain bins and storage facilities. Toss in a magic BeanIoT pod to check grain vitals. One bean to mind them all.
Timothy Gertson kicks up dirt off Texas’ Gulf Coast, southwest of Houston in Wharton County. He’s a young 31, but Gertson is an old-school farmer with no time for ideology and no wish to curb his options. Field decisions across his 2,000 acres at G5 Farms are dictated by dollars, and in 2016, he’s found a profit window in organic corn.
When William James Beal crept out under cover of night and buried 20 uniform bottles filled with a mixture of soil and seed in 1879, he lit the fuse on agriculture’s longest running experiment.
10,000-farmer sample seeks best management plan answers to resistance
The agriculture industry may be on the cusp of an unprecedented takeoff with the advent of ribonucleic acid interference (RNAi) – a sniper’s bullet technology with implications for every aspect of crop growth. Disease, drought, pests and much more are in the crosshairs and the possibilities for this non-GMO crop alteration technology seem boundless.
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.
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.