Fruit
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Every once in a while I run across a story about an agricultural oddity that is delicious to read. In this case, almost literally. Gastro Obscura published a short article on a tree in Syracuse NY that contains grafts from 40 different varieties of stone fruit. You can read it and see some pictures here.
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I have never heard of pongamia, an oilseed tree from India and Australia. So I was interested to read this article from Biofuels Digest on how it might provide an alternative crop for farmers in Florida who have been crushed by citrus greening and Hurricane Irma’s destruction earlier this year. The article makes it sound…
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Pecans are one of the most valuable crops grown in the Southeast, and the impacts of Hurricane Irma hit pecan growers pretty hard this year, with about 30% of the nuts blown off the trees in the storm. Trees were also blown over or dropped limbs and may need to be replaced. Vegetable and Specialty…
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The latest estimates from the USDA regarding the orange harvest this year have dropped the expected yield by 7.4 percent, to 50 million boxes, from last month’s estimate. Producers generally considered last month’s estimates too high because all of the accumulated losses from Hurricane Irma have not yet been seen, much less quantified. Some delayed…
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How old can grapevines get and still produce a good crop? Atlas Obscura has a short but interesting story this week on a vine in England that has been producing sweet dessert grapes for over 250 years. When they were originally produced, only royalty could eat the fruit, but now it is available to the…
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Reports on damage caused by the wind and rain of Hurricane Irma are still coming in, and they look bad. Vegetable and Specialty Crop News posted a story this week about one strawberry farmer’s impacts on his fields from the ravaging wind, which tore out most of his plastic sheeting, and heavy rains, which eroded…
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Global Weather & Climate Center has a good short summary article about the impacts that weather and climate have on wine production. It is a compilation of information from Forbes, Journal of Wine Economics, the Denver Post, and Earth magazine. You can read it at https://www.globalweatherclimatecenter.com/climate/weather-climate-and-wine-forbes-journal-of-wine-economics-the-denver-post-earth-magazine.