Organic Farming

4 Biocontrol Strategies To Shrink Your Weed Seed Bank

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 16:27:28 GMT

Mother Nature has a way of balancing the scales, and for farmers looking to manage persistent weed pressure, biological control—or biocontrol—is one testament to that.

Unlike making a traditional herbicide pass with your sprayer, biocontrol isn’t about fast or even total eradication. Instead, it’s usually a long-term strategy designed to tip the scales in your favor, using living organisms to keep weed populations at a “manageable level,” according to William Curran, Penn State emeritus weed scientist.

While biocontrol methods are common in rangelands and perennial systems, Curran notes they can require more effort to adopt in row-crop settings where tillage and rotations can disrupt the very organisms farmers are trying to put to work.

Curran says if you’re interested in using biocontrol measures as part of a comprehensive weed-control program, there are four primary categories to consider, including:

The Classical Approach: This involves introducing a specific natural enemy into a weed-infested area. The goal is for that organism to establish a permanent home, feeding on the target weeds year after year to naturally suppress their growth and seed development. An example of this would be the use of a Canada thistle rust pathogen .
The Augmentative or Inundative Method: Bio-herbicides are one example of inundative methods. The intent is to overwhelm the weed population quickly. This practice often requires multiple applications to be effective.
Conservation Management: Sometimes, the best helpers are already in your fields. By adjusting your cropping system to be more “predator-friendly,” you can boost the populations of native organisms, like ground beetles, that naturally snack on weed seeds.
Grazing: One of the oldest tools in the shed is still one of the most effective. Utilizing cattle, sheep, or goats to graze down weed-heavy areas can significantly reduce seed banks and keep invasive species in check.

For more information on biocontrol weed control practices, check out a newly updated webpage , authored by Curran and released by the GROW network.

New Tool Helps Farmers, Ranchers Identify Conservation Incentive Programs

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 23:55:23 GMT

Conservation incentive programs that fit your farm and specific agronomic practices and/or livestock are not always easy to identify and sign up for online.

But those hurdles could soon be problems in the past, thanks to a new online platform, the Conservation Connector, which was just launched this week by the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC)

The new tool allows farmers, ranchers, and farm advisers to easily evaluate conservation incentive programs and connect with technical support at one online site, according to Ryan Heiniger, CTIC executive director.

As a fourth-generation farmer, Heiniger says he knows firsthand how challenging it can be to identify programs, companies and the individuals in charge of them who can provide more details in a phone call or an email.

“You might visit four or five government offices and a dozen websites, only to collect bits and pieces of information on those programs that would be a good fit for you. Our goal with the Conservation Connector is to bring all of that under one roof, so to speak, to help farmers, ranchers and advisers more easily find what is available in their area and fits with their needs,” Heiniger says.

The platform currently has around 500 programs and service providers in the Midwest that are participating, Heiniger says. He notes the tool is continually updated with the latest program offerings from trusted agencies, organizations and conservation partners. In addition, Connector.ag has no associated costs for farmers, ranchers and advisers to use.

“I want to underscore that it’s free for farmers; none of the information is behind any kind of paywall,” he says. “It’s also free for people who want to create a listing.”

The Conservation Connector is easy to navigate – it’s searchable by geography, commodity, incentive type, and/or management practice.

“We’ve made it easy for people who are on a specific mission to filter through,” Heiniger says. “You might be in New York looking for help with pasture renovation, and you don’t want or need to see what programs are available in Iowa. So, you can default right to New York. Or, you can default to a specific crop. The filters can help you ratchet down to the specific information you want to dive deeper into.”

Heiniger says the idea for Conservation Connector originated from Houston Engineering, the Nature Conservancy, and Open Team, and the CTIC invested the past 18 months in developing it.

CTIC invites farmers, ranchers, technical service providers, and conservation partners across the country to explore the platform at Connector.ag . You can provide feedback about your experience to help inform future iterations of the platform here .

Specialty Grains Might Boost Profits

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 21:42:55 GMT

There are two ways to boost your profit margin during farming’s inevitable cycles of low prices, says Farm Journal field agronomist Ken Ferrie: You can cut costs or raise your selling price.

Surveying his clients, Ferrie compiled a list of ways farmers have increased their profit margin, and gleaned tips to help those practices succeed.

“Through thinking outside the box, growers have found specialty crops that net higher prices than conventional corn and soybeans,” he says.

Possibilities include popcorn; non-GMO corn and soybeans; seed corn and soybeans; food-grade corn and soybeans; and organic crops.

Seed Production Benefits

“Contracts are harder to get for corn than soybeans,” Ferrie says. “But if you can get one, producing seed corn boosts profit several ways: You probably will net more per acre (based on a formula), and there is no cost for seed, drying or harvesting. You’ll have a better chance to get, and keep, a seed corn contract if you have irrigation.”

On the downside, field passes — planting the male and female rows and detasseling — must be made on schedule and not necessarily when soil conditions are ideal.

“That means you’ll have compaction to deal with,” Ferrie says. “You must maintain pollination buffers around the field edges, and you might have more weed pressure because more sunlight reaches the soil surface with short detasseled plants. All that said, I don’t recall anyone I know giving up a seed corn contract once they get one.”

“I don’t recall anyone I know giving up a seed corn contract once they get one.” ~Ken Ferrie

Seed soybeans can net a premium of up to 70¢ per bushel for the crop, 30¢ to 50¢ per bushel for quality premiums and 15¢ per bushel for storage, Ferrie says. Non-GMO seed bean contract premiums can hit $2.50 per bushel.

Seed companies need growers who do a good job of cleaning combines, carts and augers to prevent contamination of the seed crop and store their crop and deliver it when needed.

“When companies decrease acres because of an overabundance of seed, they tend to hang onto their best growers and those with irrigated acres,” Ferrie says.

Non-GMO Crop Premiums

Non-GMO conventional corn nets a premium of 20¢ to 35¢ per bushel, Ferrie reports. Non-GMO white waxy corn brings 40¢ to $1 per bushel more than genetically modified varieties. On top of that, you’ll save $30 to $40 per acre on seed by not buying the GMO insecticide trait, and if you don’t have a rootworm problem, you might not need an insecticide.

“Fall-delivery corn contracts are rare, so you need storage,” Ferrie says. “Most growers work with a merchandiser, who contracts with farmers and grain buyers. When a barge arrives for corn, the merchandiser notifies his growers their time frame to deliver their grain.”

Non-GMO soybeans net premiums of $1.85 to $2.50 per bushel, Ferrie says. Seed cost runs about 20% less than conventional soybeans.

Without GMO traits, weed control late in the season might be a challenge because of limited herbicide options. “It might help to narrow rows and push populations,” Ferrie says.

Think twice about planting non-GMO beans behind a GMO variety, though.

“If volunteer GMO beans emerge in the growing non-GMO crop, there’s no way to kill them, and they’ll contaminate your sample,” Ferrie says.

The non-GMO soybeans you deliver must be 99.5% pure.

“It’s a good idea to test your seed for purity and save a sample,” Ferrie says. “As with seed soybeans, equipment must be thoroughly cleaned.”

Time to Go Organic?

Organic soybeans sell for $18 to $20 per bushel, and corn for $6 to $9.

“The drawback is that it takes three years to become organically certified,” Ferrie says. “You’re likely to see reduced return on investment during that period.

“With tight margins, it might not be a good time to work on getting certified. However, if you’re already established in organic farming and have the know-how, equipment and a market, expanding organic acres might be an option.

“If you decide to enter organics, start small and find a successful local organic grower who’s willing to serve as a mentor,” Ferrie adds.

Wanted: On-Time Delivery

With specialty varieties, seed soybeans and non-GMO grain, reliable delivery to a terminal is vital, emphasizes Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal field agronomist. “That means despite winter weather or during planting season, so your bins must be located on roads that won’t be posted with seasonal weight limits,” he says.

“One grower I know got his non-GMO white waxy corn contract doubled just by proving he could deliver grain right after a blizzard, when no one else could get to the terminal in the allotted time,” Ferrie adds.

Your Next Read: Illinois Farmer Says EPA’s New Herbicide Strategy Is A Course Change But Doable

Farm Management New Year’s Resolutions for 2025

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 14:00:00 GMT

We asked past Top Producer award winners to share what’s new for them in the coming year. Here are some of the responses they shared with us:

“For the first time, we planted all our acres going to corn or soybeans next year to a cover crop. It is not the first time we have planted cover crops, but it is the first time we have done that many acres.” ~Bill Came
“We are hiring more people for the same amount of tractor seats. We are scheduling much better. We do this for two reasons — younger employees don’t want to work as much as they used to. Most used to work six days a week 10 years ago and now they are happy with four days a week. The second reason is ag overtime has passed in Oregon, so in order to manage overtime, we manage hours.” ~Shelly Boshart Davis
“We are continuing to expand the intensity of revenue acres by converting more conventional acres to organic production.” ~Pat Duncanson

“We’re going to reduce our soybean acres and increase our corn, winter wheat and cow-calf operation with these acres. We feel this will increase profitability.” ~Kelly Garrett
“I want to do a better job of promoting the extremely nutritious vegetable (yes, a vegetable) we call a potato, whenever possible. When choices appear relating to the value of spending time at work or with family, personally, I really need to do a better job of prioritizing, and therefore choosing, family time. After all: which one is more important?” ~Gregg Halverson
“For the first time in 39 years, I want to sidedress nitrogen on all of my corn acres.” ~April Hemmes

“Things that we need to do next year are straight out of the Danny Klinefelter playbook. We will focus on controlling cost in a high inflation/low price world. We’ll look for money under rocks — diversify revenue streams. We’ll leverage technology and new practices to become more efficient. It’s time to manage debt carefully in a high-interest environment, and it’s time to plan for the long term. This is a valley, don’t lose focus on the long-term plans of the operation.” ~Jeremy Jack
“I will physically and mentally execute and implement a succession plan for our farm to transition to the next generation.” ~Pam Johnson
“My resolution is that if you want to sell things at my farm, you need to reduce pricing by 15%. For those who say that is too sharp a cut, I say “try on my boots.” Price increases were easy on the way up. Now it’s time to reduce or be replaced.” ~Ben Riensche

“We’re going to buckle down and conserve operating cash and be conservative with inputs in anticipation of Trump tariffs negatively impacting our markets and prices like his last administration. We are considering replacing some aging storage and increasing our capacity. There are no plans to update equipment; just keep what we have operating. We will probably increase our vegetable acres in anticipation of low grain prices.” ~Jennie Schmidt
“We purchased life insurance and invested cash in a flex plan, so we can cover and service the debt if I am not around.” ~Trey Wasserburger

Shockingly Cool: This Startup Makes Fertilizer From Electricity

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 22:42:42 GMT

If you happen to pop into a Chipotle in California’s Central Valley, there’s an off chance you’ve consumed something downright futuristic: produce grown with fertilizers derived entirely from electricity, water, and air.

Nitricity, a climate-smart fertilizer startup founded by Stanford PhDs and postdocs, is proving its environmentally friendly concept with every scoop of lettuce or side of spicy red salsa. And there’s even bigger plans for 2024.

Its liquid fertilizer blends – sustainably produced via an ingenious process CTO and co-founder Dr. Joshua McEnaney likens to catching lighting in a bottle – are slated for trialing this spring with ag food giant, Olam (OFI). And Chipotle just dropped an investment into Nitricity at the end of 2023.

“We use a plasma-based process that splits nitrogen molecules from air, reacts the nitrogen with oxygen, and forms nitrate fertilizers in water,” he explains. “We capture that fixed nitrogen in an irrigable aqueous form, and we can make many kinds of nitrate-based fertilizers.”

For those thinking to themselves, ‘Wait, what did I just read?’ the same basic process occurs in nature during a lightning storm. These storms produce 1% of total nitrogen fertilizers globally, but they are just not efficient or predictable enough to rely on. Nitricity is taking that process into a controlled environment and ramping up the production.

“At the core (of our process) we make green nitric acid and can neutralize that with minerals to produce calcium nitrate or potassium nitrate fertilizers,” McEnaney says, noting Nitricity accomplishes this without requiring ammonia from fossil fuels.

Chipotle and Olam are on-board for 2024, and academics seem to be too. Studies commissioned by the California Air Resources Board and World Bank, among others, show that the nitrate fertilizers Nitricity makes can reduce nitrous oxide application emissions by 2-10x, depending on soil conditions and application rates. Third party studies have also shown similar results, according to McEnaney.

The next steps are clear. Setting up regional facilities for large-scale production and focusing on low-cost production so its blends can level up and be cost-competitive with conventional fertilizer.

“We’re looking at (producing) some fertilizers that are on the shelf but can now be sustainably made, and some that no one has ever seen yet, but it’s really about fitting into several different fertilizer categories that farmers are asking for,” McEnany says. “The biggest thing on our mind is scaling up.”

Nitricity recently relocated to a facility in Fremont, CA, for just that purpose. The concept that started with a focus on producing on-demand at the edge of the field in portable modular units has evolved into a Hub and Spoke distribution system.

“We’re not quite there yet,” McEnany allows, adding farmers in the American Southwest and West who use nitrate-based fertilizers for specialty crops are the initial product-market focus, for now. Eventually, the group does hope to have a product that will resonate with Midwest row crop growers (and the ag retail channel) that primarily use Ammonia, Urea, or Urea Ammonium Nitrate.

“For me, I was mostly attracted to the climate aspect, and then I just grew to love working with farmers,” McEnany says when asked what drew him to the project. “Our green nitrates have inherently lower field emissions than other fertilizers in many soil conditions – this could have an immense impact on climate change.”

You can learn more about Nitricity at its website.

John Phipps: The Slow Growth of Going Organic in Agriculture

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 17:27:54 GMT

A straightforward question from Melody Kappenman from Leaf River, Illinois:

“How much is organic farming growing year to year? I’m hearing more & more about organic foods being available. Is organic farming anywhere near half of all farming in the United States and/or the world?”

This is a great question, and the answer was mildly surprising.

To begin with, data about organic products usually comes from producer organizations along with numbers from the USDA. While they show historic sales growth they almost never compare it to total retail food sales. For example, here is a chart showing organic sales since 2005. $60 billion dollars is pretty impressive. Until you compare it with total food sales.

Sales of food consumed at home were $1.05T in 2022 with food away from home $1.35T. Organic numbers are production, and USDA numbers are consumption.

Organic share of the food market is then anywhere from 2.5% to 6% depending on how you measure. Global organic sales are roughly twice as large, $133B, but total global food sales are three times as large, so the organic share is less than 2%.

Organic sales are growing but have a long way to go to comprise half of our consumption. Part of the problem with increasing organic sales is some food is really hard to produce organically. The biggest segment – produce – has been the most successful, but not all plants lend themselves to organic production.

Organic dairy is challenging since the rules require organic feed, housing rules, ration and medicine restrictions, and more. Organic meat production has many of the same hurdles, but the largest is organic feed components are difficult to produce, particularly meeting the non-GMO standards for corn.

Inflation has made consumers price sensitive, and organic production requires higher prices to offset costs.

The growth of U.S. organic market has been met in part by imports, especially fruits. I doubt organic market share will increase much due to such production issues, but also because objective proof of organic advantages for consumers is still sparse.

The Organic Sectors ‘ZeroTolerance’ Approach to Gene-Editing May Seal Its Own Demise

Sun, 17 Sep 2023 12:00:00 GMT

By Paul Temple: Driffield, E. Yorkshire, United Kingdom

The rejection of gene editing by the organic lobby makes less sense every day—and even some of the industry’s best friends are starting to appreciate the case for this important new technology.

Gene editing introduces no foreign DNA in food. It can help reduce or eliminate the need for synthetic pesticides. And it’s immeasurably more precise and effective than older forms of mutation breeding using chemicals and radiation, which many organic farmers already accept.

Those who oppose gene editing may perceive some form of marketing advantage in remaining GE free, even if it consigns their farming systems to less productive, and in many cases more environmentally damaging, forms of food production.

But the jury is out on that one. Twenty-five years ago, scaring people about the hidden dangers of GMOs may have lifted organic sales, but the world is different today.

War in Ukraine, the pandemic, climate change, and spiraling food and energy costs have changed people’s outlook. The public is much more willing to embrace new food and farming technologies to tackle challenges of food security, health, and climate change.

This was evidenced in recent research conducted by the Food Standards Agency, which showed that almost two thirds of the consuming public would eat gene edited food if, for example, it offered health benefits (65%), was better for the environment (64%), was safer for people with allergies (64%), tasted better (62%), was cheaper (61%), or was more resilient to a changing climate (60%).

Surely those polling figures are remarkable, and a marketeer’s dream when bringing out a new product to find, pre-launch, that two-thirds of your potential customer base want to try it out.

And this is precisely how early applications of these techniques are being used.

To date, nine field trial notifications for gene edited crops in the UK have been announced by the Department of Food, Environment, and Rural Affairs since simplified arrangements were introduced in March last year for experimental release of gene edited plants. Virtually every application is focused on innovations which will improve our food supply, health, and environment, whether in terms of reducing food waste (pod-shatter resistant oilseed rape, non-browning potatoes), reducing pesticide use (late blight resistance in potatoes), healthier eating (Omega-3 enriched camelina, tomatoes higher in provitamin B3), or safer food (low-asparagine wheat).

In closing its mind to these technologies, the organic sector may be passing up a major opportunity to transform the productivity, sustainability and viability of its future farming systems.

This is particularly the case if, as is widely predicted , the use of gene editing rapidly becomes commonplace in conventional breeding, but remains prohibited under organic standards.

Thankfully, some voices within the organic industry are beginning to speak in favor of gene editing.

That certainly seems to be the position of Danish organic body Økologisk Landsforening (Organic Denmark), whose response to recently published EU plans for the future regulation of new genomic techniques (NGTs) questioned the proposed ban on NGTs in organic farming, suggesting that this position should be reviewed with such techniques expected to become widespread in conventional plant breeding.

Another leading proponent of organic agriculture, Swiss researcher Urs Niggli, who was director of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) from 1990 to 2020, has also urged the European organic industry to change its position on gene editing to avoid being left behind.

In a recent interview with the German magazine Spektrum, Niggli acknowledged that “GMO-free” is a selling point for organic, and that organic associations have deliberately stoked the fear of molecular biological breeding methods in order to distinguish themselves on the market.

But he suggests that this view is outdated, with new gene editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 enabling targeted mutations at individual sites of the genome, as happens all the time in nature or in conventional breeding. And while these changes can also occur in nature, with CRISPR-Cas9 breeding progress is much faster, bringing many advantages for agriculture and society, he says.

Niggli warns that by rejecting gene editing, the organic sector could lose its pioneering edge in sustainable agriculture, consigned to producing 20-50% lower yields than conventional farming, and missing out on potential solutions to current production challenges such as reliance on copper-based fungicides for disease control.

Meanwhile he predicts that gene edited crop varieties will become the norm in five to ten years, led by the Chinese and American markets, supporting a global trend to move away from manufactured nitrogen fertilizer and chemical pesticides. This would put organic farming in danger of being left behind, especially in terms of sustainability, according to Niggli.

This poses a major dilemma for the organic industry, since the viability of organic farming when practiced at scale hinges critically on routine access to non-organic inputs under “emergency” derogations where the equivalent inputs are not available in organic form.

Although organic consumers paying a hefty premium may be blissfully unaware, there are many examples of situations in which organic producers rely on non-organic inputs of seed, feed, forage, youngstock, breeding stock, antibiotics, and anthelmintics.

Last year, for example, despite a long-term decline in the area farmed organically in the UK, authorizations of non-organic seed use by organic sector bodies reached a record high, at more than 17,000 individual derogations.

If the organic sector maintains its “zero tolerance” approach to gene editing, while these techniques become routinely used in mainstream plant breeding, such derogations will no longer be available. Organic growers will be left with older genetics gradually becoming more and more outclassed, more prone to disease and pest infestation, further widening the productivity gap between organic and non-organic.

So I urge the organic sector to open its mind to the potential opportunities offered by these technologies and listen to the advice of their friends in Denmark and Switzerland.

What is there to lose?

There’s an awful lot to gain.

Paul Temple grows cereals, vegetables along with grazing beef cattle on a mixed arable farm in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Involved in the UK FSE trials for 3 years, Paul volunteers as a board member of the Global Farmer Network. This column originates at www.globalfarmernetwork.org

The Race for Organic

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:58:25 GMT

Once a small piece of the food pie, organic foods are going mainstream and jumping into more row crop fields. Organic products are now available in nearly 20,000 natural food stores and nearly 3 out of 4 conventional grocery stores, according to USDA.

From 2008 to 2019, harvested acreage of organic corn increased 124% while acreage for organic soybeans rose 73%, according to USDA. Despite the upward trend, the organic share of total domestic corn and soybean acreage accounted for less than 1% of total harvested acres for each crop in 2019.

Growth Potential

This growth is not surprising to David Ross, sales and operations manager for Great Harvest Organics, a division of Beck’s Hybrids. He has seen demand for organic corn and soybean seed grow as farmers look to diversify their row crop lineup or reduce their use of synthetic chemicals or fertilizers.

In addition, he says, organic crops offer price premiums.

“Organic corn sells for around $10 a bushel, while soybeans are just over $30 a bushel,” Ross says. “Many people forget buyers are willing to pay 2.3 times more because it’s 2.3 more risky to produce organic crops.”

Weeds and fertility are the two biggest challenges for organic crop production, Ross says. Tillage and cover crops are viable tools in sup- pressing weeds, he says. For fertility, the growers he works with tend to use poultry or hog manure.

“Organic farming offers a steep learning curve and a 36-month transition period from conventional agriculture to certified organic,” Ross says. “But the future looks bright for this segment.”

Total U.S. Organic Corn Acres by State

U.S. organic corn harvested acres will reach 455,000 in 2021/22, up 4% from the previous year, according to Mercaris, a data service company. Organic soybean harvested acres will reach 252,000 in 2021/22, which is up 10% from the previous year.

For more on the growing trend, listen here: