Crops
On many farming operations, mowing has given way to high-powered pre-emerges to kill vegetation, but bald ditches may spawn a regulatory leviathan. Silt gathering in the bottom of ditches and canals; eroded turn rows; washed out roads; and hammered PTO ditches are caught in a vicious spray cycle of unintended consequences with no simple fix.
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.
Sticking GMO science on the back shelf carries the highest consequences. As millions of children go blind and die due each year due to vitamin A deficiency, opponents of Golden Rice whistle past the graveyard.
When Winter squeezed the chemical trigger on a sugarcane aphid army, he didn’t know he was protecting bin-busting grain: the best sorghum crop of his life.
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.
Rotation is only defense against this new soybean disease
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.
Cottonseed derivatives find their way into a remarkable array of products: cooking oil, cattle feed, electronics, food ingredients, and many more.
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.
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.
The mustard crop can be used as a jet fuel source, protein meal and rotational crop option
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.
Groups hope more farmers will choose wheat to boost national acres
Technology expands market possibilities and profit potential for straw
The Natural Soybean and Grain Alliance (NSGA) has high hopes for UA 5814HP, a new variety commercially available beginning in fall 2015. UA5814HP, branded as Ashlock HP5A, is a vigorous variety aimed at high seed yield and protein to meet the demand from the high-end poultry industry.
Premium quality chicken litter key to achieve yield boosts.
New report looks beyond hardware tools and details a turn toward data integration.
Varieties, management and irrigation pave road to soybean yield crown.
Fluorescent marker technology could be a major weapon in weed battle
Sunlight into energy means fuel for plant growth – the crucial role of phosphorous in crop fields. Cell elongation and division may be the proper scientific description, but a simplified explanation is a better fit: Phosphorus cranks up plant horsepower.
There’s less fiber and post-gin cottonseed to supply byproduct markets