News
Today’s agriculture headlines and expert perspectives serving farmers, ranchers, crop consultants, livestock nutritionists and the entire U.S. ag community.
Smartphone video rolling, a Mississippi farmer was surprised to find a beaver hammering a quarter-acre of soybeans in broad daylight.
The Farm Journal Midwest Crop Tour gets underway today, with four long-time scouts weighing in on what they expect to see in their own fields.
Yield robbers in the form of thistle caterpillars are the surprise guests of South Dakota soybean fields as late September and early October harvest approaches.
What’s around the bend for precision agriculture? A new information-packed report from the Context Network carries significant implications for growers, retailers, industry professionals, and ag companies.
Randy Dowdy, Perry Galloway, David Hula, Kevin Matthews and Matt Miles have consistently produced some of the strongest yields in the history of agriculture. The five friends are separated by 1,000 miles of farmland, yet share a belief that today’s competitor may be tomorrow’s helping hand.
In 2014, Nathan Reed fought for financial breath even after skinning inputs one by one. No matter how he shifted the figures, the pencil always pointed to the glaring expense of biotech seed. With an eye on cost control, he began switching portions of his ground to non-GMO production supported by a minimum till cover crop scheme, and the change led to farm-wide profitability.
Secrecy is farming’s seductive mistress, but concealing production tips isn’t a formula for long-term success, according to some top-yielding producers.
A rollercoaster dicamba ride passed a major benchmark as the Arkansas State Plant Board (ASPB) voted to recommend an emergency dicamba ban.
Reports of dicamba drift incidents are pouring in and producer concerns are mounting, particularly with the echoes of 2016 still fresh across farmland. Pared down, the damage is alarming and there are plenty of passes left in the spray season.
As of June 26, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) is investigating 27 alleged dicamba-related drift incidents. Looking a year backward, the TDA had received only three cases of dicamba-related drift by June 26, 2016.
Dicamba faces a potential immediate and total row crop use ban, pending approval by the plant board and a further green light from Arkansas Gov. Hutchinson.
On the doorstep of an immediate in-crop use ban, the dicamba issue is hanging in limbo after a roller coaster ride.
U.S. agriculture has a tremendous amount of skin at stake in an off-the-radar fight that may impact the future of groundwater regulations at federal, state and private levels.
When Jack Shoup refused to pay late fees to the Iowa Soybean Association on tardy checkoff payments as the first purchaser of grain at Dinsdale Elevator, he drew a straight line in his Reinbeck dirt and prepared for a legal battle.
After an early planting kick-start to the crop season, torrential rains blanketed northeast Arkansas and Missouri Bootheel farmland in late April and early May. The flood disaster raises a tangle of questions about crop insurance, risk and water management.
What does it take to make a robot tractor? A batch of free software, some drone parts, a tablet computer, and one curious farmer to cobble the bits together. Matt Reimer’s remote control 7930 is proof in the dirt.
Will and Laura run Willow & Co., a well-oiled farming machine squeezing every drop of profit from a shrinking commodity barrel. Pennies and nickels are precious in an anemic market, and the duo adheres to a strict regimen of efficiency, diversification and adjustment. The overall machine is geared for present gain, but the parts are deeply rooted to the past.
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.
Rob Sharkey’s Shark Farmer podcast is finding a hungry audience in agriculture and beyond, attracted by the take-no-prisoners attitude of his weekly show.
Two Bootheel farmers with a match of tousled hair, blue eyes and easy manner may be the most unique brother and sister farming operation in the United States.
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?
Premium chicken litter quality is key for Mike McGregor, agriculture’s version of the consummate field general, and he commands his chicken litter operation with military precision. The results are evident in the flatlands of the southeast Arkansas Delta.
From an automatic gate entry to an airplane, this South Dakota farmer makes it all
Jared Schott is a maverick farmer at work in the wide open spaces of South Dakota and he’s in constant pursuit of like-minded producers.
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.
Mikey Taylor cracks 100-bu. soybeans, while waiting for label approval
Greenhouse and field trials have Arkansas weed scientists looking for answers
In a farming age where the grip of Palmer amaranth intensifies and expands each season, dicamba controversy is exploding beyond fields of Monsanto’s Xtend soybeans.