Crops
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Forage production in Georgia has been struggling in recent years, according to this report in the Farm Monitor, due to a combination of high input costs and tough weather. According to the article, recent back-to-back bad years have resulted in depletion of hay stocks, leaving farmers short. There is nothing left for a rainy day,…
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The very heavy rain that California has experienced this year has provided many challenges for agricultural producers this year. Many orchards have been flooded, leading to suffocation of the tree roots due to lack of air in the soil, and farmers have not been able to do any field work for weeks due to the…
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As the climate changes, farmers can become more resilient by adding new crops to their portfolio of choices. One I read about today is elderberry. Another is pongamia, a hardy tree that grows in Florida’s subtropical climate and serves as a source of oils, a soybean-like protein source, or a fertilizer feedstock, according to the…
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I had the chance to visit the University of Georgia test plots at Bledsoe Farm just outside of Griffin GA this week. The test plots were composed of a variety of wheat, oats, and triticale varieties to see how they did under different planting dates, densities, and cuttings. Many of the plots looked quite good…
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Here is an interesting story from AZCentral that describes how one Arizona farmer is growing wheat and other crops in the desert by careful use of water combined with regenerative agriculture, a process of rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity through cover crops and other conservative methods. By growing his crop organically,…
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The spell of dry weather in parts of the Southeast for the past few weeks has been a blessing to farmers. It allowed them to get a lot of field work done as well as dry out soils that were wet due to rainfall earlier in the year. It has also helped keep down the…
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An ongoing study funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that is being conducted by the University of Alabama-Huntsville, the University of Florida and the University of Georgia is developing methods for identifying and quantifying the effect of flash drought with each university focusing on different strategies. Flash drought is often not captured by…