Crops
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Growing Georgia published an article by Allison Floyd today discussing the opportunities for Southern vegetable farmers due to the continuing drought in California. You can read the article here. Because of the severe water restrictions in California, growers in Georgia are being asked to expand into other varieties of vegetables, including green leafy vegetables which…
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While parts of Buffalo have received over 70 inches of snow in this cold outbreak, other areas of the upper Midwest are also feeling the effects of early snow cover. AgWeb posted an article this week discussing the impacts of the snow on corn harvest in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and even Michigan. You can read…
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In my Facebook feed this morning I read a story from the Washington Post about the growing shortage of chocolate, mainly due to increases in demand from China and other places and also increased demand for dark chocolate, which uses more cocoa, but also due to dry weather in West Africa, specifically Ghana and the Ivory…
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Soil quality is a key factor in plant productivity in agriculture. Every good farmer tries to preserve or improve their soil to assure healthy crops and good yields in the future. In fact, 2015 will be the International Year of Soils and December 5 of this year World Soil Day. I’ve run across several articles…
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In honor of Halloween today, I am posting a link to a blog which describes the impacts of various types of climate conditions on pumpkin production. You can find it here from Earth Gauge. If conditions are cool and wet, mildew can reduce the yields or rot the pumpkins on the ground. If conditions are…
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The Packer printed a story on October 16 describing negative impacts of heavy rain in Florida on fresh tomato availability, in a story available here. Volumes will be down for a few weeks due to losses in Florida and in Baja California, where hurricane-related storms followed by heat and more rain knocked down plantings and…
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The Packer noted earlier this week that Chile has suffered some unseasonably cold weather, which has caused damage to blueberries as well as potentially to their other crops of apples, kiwifruit and cherries. However, the extent of the damage is uncertain, since reports have come in from only a few growers so far. The Packer…