Specialty Crops
Many folks may not give pecans a whole lot of thought, except around the holiday season, when Tarheel bakers make pecan pies, cakes and all sorts of desserts and dips with the brown-hulled nuts.
You can still buy watermelon and cantaloupe at roadside stands throughout southern Indiana. But if you’re the grower and you want to market your produce wholesale, it’s no longer business as usual. Staying in business today means investing in a packaging facility that meets strict food safety codes.
Should there be non-GMO soybeans in your future? That may depend upon three factors: premium opportunities, availability of competitive genetics and your willingness to step up your management.
In 1972, Levi and Norma Huffman operated a 1,800-acre family farm near Lafayette. Nearly 40 years later the farm has grown to 3,000 acres, and the couple raises specialty and row crops. Today, the farm is run by Levi, son Aaron, son-in-law Jim Hawbaker, and their families.
While it’s not going to rival the millions of acres grown in Canada, winter canola is getting a try in Texas and Oklahoma.
Cover crops can keep the soil covered between growing cash crops in a field. Cover crops increase soil organic matter, improve water quality and reduce erosion during some of the most vulnerable times of the year. But cover crops can also be grown to extend the grazing season and reduce the need for stored forages, or free up pastures to increase rest periods or make more hay. There are many different strategies of how farmers are doing this.
By planting switchgrass and using certain agronomic practices, farmers can significantly reduce the amount of nitrogen and nitrates that leach from the soil, according to results of new Iowa State University research.
Twenty-three-year-old Glen Elsbernd is using USDA’s Organic Initiative and higher payment rates on conservation practices as a beginning farmer to help transition his 88-acre Winneshiek County farm to organic vegetables much sooner than he expected, and in doing so is protecting valuable natural resources on the farm.
Those who romanticize agriculture often picture tractors making their way through peaceful, out-of-the-way fields with nary a house in site. But, if current MSU Extension research proves fruitful, farmers may one day harvest crops with low-flying planes overhead or cars whizzing past.
Even with the drought last summer, the trees at Huber’s Orchard, Winery & Vineyards were still in good shape for the fall Christmas tree harvest season. Younger ones were hurt from the lack of rain, but the more established ones were not affected, according to A.J. Huber, who manages the Christmas tree production farm near Starlight.
What if you could wave a magic wand and instantly create fruit that fits the needs and wants of growers and processors, as well as consumers?
In 1991, the fresh market apple industry hit a home run with consumers by introducing Honeycrisp. It was decades in the making. But while the texture and the flavor pleased palates, it wasn’t exactly producer- or handler-friendly.
Texas AgriLife Research scientists hope a drought-resistant trait from a crossbred cowpea soon will be available to producers. So far results look promising.
Producing the newest energy crop in the West won’t be hard. It grows like a weed.
Dried cherries are starting to show up on restaurant menus in salads, pork dishes and other entrees. And cherry juice concentrate is no longer just an industrial ingredient, as consumers seek out the juice for its health benefits.
The tart cherry industry has seen its share of trying times. The 2002 growing season and its extremely short crop will be remembered by cherry growers for decades. Few growers in northern Michigan had anything worth harvesting that year. In fact, the five-year average of 145 million pounds was slashed to just 1 million pounds.
In the past, blueberry growers suffered major financial losses due to damaged blueberry bushes near roadways. In 2003, crop losses and plant mortality were estimated at $682,000.
Castagra, a Canadian bioproducts company, has made an agreement with Texas AgriLife Research, part of the Texas A&M University System, to test production of a new castor bean with less ricin.
In the continuing thrust to bring meadowfoam into greater use for Oregon growers, Oregon State University researchers have launched a comprehensive study program focused on comprehensive uses for the crop.
If you have to plant at least two canola crops to get some good oil, there might be some options to salvage a few dollars from the first crop.
A good chile crop is a big deal in New Mexico.
"We’re growing oil,” says Patrice Harrison-Inglis while standing in a half-acre field of shoulder-high sunflowers at Pena Blanca, N.M.
North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring has issued a special local needs (SLN) registration to Aceto Agricultural Chemicals Corp., giving North Dakota dry edible bean producers more flexibility in using Halomax 75 herbicide to control common ragweed.
Sunflowers can be a tricky crop to harvest. They’ve got to be dry (9% to 10% moisture is ideal for storage), but if they get too dry, heads can start shelling out, and there’s the risk of fire when you combine.
Alternative crops could add potential income to an existing portfolio of commodities produced by Texas farmers, according to a Texas AgriLife Extension Service expert.
A mix-up of definitions is often behind the divide in agriculture. Lundberg Family Farms is organic and considered a small farm, when it is a large farm of more than 5,000 acres.
USDA recently introduced a compass, an online resource, to help guide people seeking information about the department’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative.
The number of small farms producing value-added crops such as vegetables, fruit or naturally raised livestock has grown tremendously the past decade in Iowa. Back then, most people didn’t think of these as legitimate farms. They were hobby farms. Today, these operations earn income from specialized crops and other enterprises by selling to farmers markets, restaurants, schools, hospitals, or community-supported agriculture, groups, as well as directly to consumers.
Canola’s striking yellow head brightens up a field. And its price is also pretty to growers like Ed Regier.
A Texas AgriLife Research scientist says there’s potential for a black grain sorghum hybrid targeting the health food market.
Many growers are on the lookout for new ways to diversify their crops — and diversify their risk. However, it is the rare case when they can find a new crop that brings its market with it to the table. That is the case for brothers and farming partners Jimmy and Angus Powers in St. Pauls, N.C., who teamed up with Technology Crops International in 2011 and are growing rapeseed under contract with the company for the first time this year.
For decades farmers have raised traditional tobacco, but for the last few years profit margins have been tight. So, many conventional tobacco growers are fast turning to some other crops for the higher profit margins. Two of those crops are organic tobacco and traditional soybeans.
Besides raising cattle, Mike Clark of Burkeville, Va., spreads chicken litter for other farmers. Over 10 years ago while making a litter-spreading trip to a farmer in a county over, he saw something he had never seen before.
Farmers love to see ladybird beetles in their fields, and they know that parasitic wasps help control aphids. Livestock farmers let dung beetles do some of the really hard work of improving their pastures; these beetles break down livestock dung, roll it up into balls and tunnel underground to store it, in the process breaking up the soil and making it more friable.
Despite having grown up on a farm where his dad raised tobacco for more than 50 years, Jason Barbour did not see a bright future for himself in bright leaf.
A lot of people grow produce, and sell it at roadside stands and farmers markets. What Green B.E.A.N. does for producers is give them an opportunity to have vast distribution. B.E.A.N. stands for Biodynamic, Education, Agriculture and Nutrition.
If you’re old enough to remember the commercial for recording tape, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” you probably remember that the singer’s voice on tape supposedly shattered glass. Experts say even a person singing live can’t shatter glass.
Agritourism is quickly becoming a new business option for farmers to interact with local customers.
An amazing thing is happening at Georgia’s peanut production meetings in 2013. During every presentation, University of Georgia Extension agronomist John Beasley is urging growers to plant a portion of their crop in the latter part of April to achieve top yields.
Last summer wasn’t a good time to start growing organic fruits and vegetables or graze livestock for Woodward farmer Christopher Garcia. Produce required immeasurable amounts of water and attention, and livestock needed hay to supplement drought-affected pasture.
The good, the bad and the ugly of safflower took center stage for one presentation during the annual Kansas Ag Research and Technology Association conference in Salina in January.
U.S. peanuts clearly have dug their way out of a surplus. An ever-growing demand and tighter supply could spell better days ahead for peanut prices during the year.
A conversation with Linda Spain might sound more like some fictional story than farming — topics such as spawn, working in the shade and using cut timber rather than soil for production don’t resonate with your typical grower.
South Dakota State University scientists are exploring a native perennial called the cup plant as a potential new biomass crop that could also store carbon in its extensive root system and add biodiversity to biomass plantings.
The Green Vision Group recently announced that it hopes to build a $5 million sugarbeet-to-ethanol demonstration plant in North Dakota next year.
Today, close to 1,000 acres of fast-growing willow are in commercial production in New York, mostly for biomass energy. But the potential is there for many more — a renewable energy industry.
In January, after nearly four years of federal court delays, Monsanto Co. and co-developer Forage Genetics International got the green light to market Roundup Ready alfalfa. “I think there’s a general sigh of relief in U.S. agriculture that this is the right decision,” remarked Mark McCaslin, Forage Genetics president.
Many of us caught in today’s on-the-go lifestyle find it easier to stop for fast food and 32-ounce sodas rather than pack a homemade meal.
The whitefly in Texas finally may be sending up a surrender flag to tomato processors in the state, thanks to a Texas AgriLife Research scientist developing a new variety that resists the virus spread by this pesky insect.
Carl Seeliger is what a lot of folks call a “crusty character.”At 82, Carl doesn’t hesitate to say what he thinks, and he does things his way. Generally speaking, that tends to turn out pretty well. That just might be why he’s fearless when it comes to trying new things, or taking on monumental projects.
Americans love potatoes, consuming about 130 pounds per person annually. But it’s a wonder the spuds even make it to the dinner table, given the many fungal diseases that attack the tuber crop — powdery scab and black dot among them.
If you ask George Wooten, he’ll tell you there are collards, and then there are cabbage collards. In his mind’s eye, there is a world of difference. But don’t feel bad if you don’t know the difference right off the bat — neither did he.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture’s Geagley Laboratory in East Lansing is a busy place.
Demand for pasture-fed pigs prompted farmer Craig Hagaman to try his hand in the business. Hagaman now raises purebred Berkshires, as well as poultry, in the countryside near Berryville, Va. He doesn’t farrow the hogs out, but purchases them from a couple in Berkley County, W.Va. He may farrow them in the future, however, once he builds the infrastructure.