Corn was originally a tropical grass from high elevation areas of central Mexico (about 7,400 feet above sea level). Today, corn still prefers conditions typical of that area – warm daytime temperatures and cool nights. Areas that consistently produce high corn yields share some significant characte...

According to Steve Culman, Ph.D., soil scientist at Ohio State, cation exchange capacity (CEC) is a fundamental soil property used to predict plant nutrient availability and retention in the soil. It is the potential of available nutrient supply, not a direct measurement of available nutrients. Soil...

Punxsutawney Phil typically emerges to look for his shadow around 7:25 a.m. on Feb. 2 at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania. If he sees his shadow, legend dictates six more weeks of winter; if he doesn’t, an early spring is predicted. My first woodchuck hunting experiences took place at our home farm in...

My first contact with herbicide residue injuring field crops came in the 1970s, as an agronomy Extension agent. A farmer had me examine his alfalfa seeding that had a weird mortality pattern. He had planted corn two years earlier, fallowed the piece in question the next year, planting a legume seedi...

Up till a decade and a half ago I served as an advisor to the high school vocational ag program in Milford, NY, which was part of the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). This ag program was physically centered in a barn which housed goats, sheep, layer hens, rabbits, pigs, dairy heife...

Of the three main fertilizer nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – P is doing the poorest job of returning to lower pre-pandemic price levels. A number of global factors influences P price (which I’ll evaluate in a later column). P is also the most limiting crop nutrient in Northeast soil...

Awhile ago, my friend Tom Kilcer (a certified crop advisor, whose wisdom I seek frequently) was giving a lecture at a Midwest crop growers’ conference. He explained how corn populations can be reduced without hurting yields – in fact, possibly increasing yields, if plant crowding had been an issue. ...

Four basic inputs are required for successful crop production: solar radiation, moisture, warmth (soil and air) and soil nutrients. All equally important, if any one factor is seriously limiting, crop production is greatly undermined. The input category threatened most by wildfire smoke is solar rad...

Normally I try to give crop-growing readers an update on the global fertilizer situation once every quarter. I get much of my information from an online industry publication titled “Argus North American Fertilizer Newsletter.” My friend and associate Jeff Cassim subscribes to this twice-monthly peri...

The Dec. 10, 2025 issue of Country Folks listed 11 advertisements for hay crops, one of which was for organic hay. This is relevant, because one year ago our paper posted approximately 30 hay crop ads, roughly 10 of which were for organic forages. I believe that these numbers provide a report card o...

Occasionally the bottom drops out, temperature-wise, in Central New York during the last week of November. Three or four years ago, Thanksgiving Day in our area saw the mercury drop to -25º F. Fortunately, most places had already been blessed with at least a half-foot of protective snow, but it turn...

As I’m writing this column on the first day of December, it’s about three weeks until days start lengthening in the northern hemisphere. Recently, most of the Northeast had been gathering just a few occasional snowflakes. But that changed the day after Thanksgiving, when the Mohawk Valley got about ...

As I wrote this column, the actual holiday was three days away. The happening should be considered more a season, not just a single square on a calendar page displaying the fourth Thursday of each November. A look at early colonial history in Massachusetts supports my reasoning. The first Thanksgivi...

An article titled “Attack of the Superweeds” was written by H. Claire Brown in the New York Times four years ago. The sub-heading read “Herbicides are losing the war…and agriculture might never be the same again.” Brown began by explaining the concept of superweeds: “Weeds that have evolved characte...

Scientists define hydrology as “the scientific study of the movement, distribution and management of water on Earth, including the water cycle, water resources and drainage basin sustainability.” A common misconception is that drought’s impacts on society are limited to semi-arid regions, but drough...