Regarding the “correct” seeding rate for sorghum and/or sudangrass, old-timers typically recommended 15 – 20 lbs. of seed/acre (or one bag for three acres). At this rate, seed drop/acre ran about 225,000. This means slightly less than one inch between plants on 30-inch rows. Advocates for this pract...

Soil fumigants are pesticides that, when applied to soils, form gases to control pests which, if unchecked, disrupt plant growth and crop production. Fumigation suppresses weeds and soilborne plant pathogens in crops like potatoes, onions, sugar beets, tomatoes, mint, carrots and strawberries. Chemi...

There’s general concern among doctors that as we age, our bodies become less efficient at regulating temperature. This puts such people at greater risk of heat illness. To avoid such problems, health professionals recommend that aging folks in hot weather drink plenty of water before going outside –...

That’s the title of Tom Kilcer’s June 2025 monthly newsletter, available at advancedagsys.com . Kilcer is a Certified Crop Advisor who served for 28 years as a field crops agent working for the Extension service in Columbia County, NY. He then managed the Cornell agronomy research farm in Valatie, N...

That’s title of the article written by Heidi Roth that appeared June 16 on the Offrange website . The introductory paragraph reads, “In the Pacific Northwest, a region of the country known for abundant rainfall, decades of droughts and resource battles are forcing farmers to learn about ‘dry farming...

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune ( nola.com ), “A large Saharan dust plume will soon blanket Gulf Coast.” That was the headline on June 6. The brown haze over the central and western Caribbean is a Saharan dust outbreak that left the African coast on May 21 and was forecast to reach the G...

We just hit the two-year anniversary of the runaway Canadian wildfire smoke epidemic, the one engulfing America’s northern states in early June 2023. At that time, ABC Online news headlined “Canadian wildfire smoke live updates: Air quality alerts issued for 13 states.” Canadian officials said firef...

During Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I spent a half day with my son Peter’s family in Columbia County. I can’t drive anywhere without looking at other people’s crops. After crossing the Hudson River, I was hoping to see distinctly formed green rows of nicely emerged corn seedlings compared to th...

Before delving into the big four fertilizer macro-nutrients – nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and sulfur (S) – I’ll address a trace element that often gets under-publicized: zinc. In his “Eco-farm,” Charles Walters wrote, “Zinc is only now [1996] joining the crowd of elements required fo...

The first wild plant in the Northeast welcoming winter’s demise is marsh marigold, also called cowslip. Part of the buttercup family, this plant isn’t related to garden variety marigolds. Marsh marigolds are commonly found in very damp soils – even upland marshes – hence their name. They grow up to ...

With all the political confusion presently surrounding agriculture, domestically and globally, there’s at least one ray of common sense that shines through – the fact that the ag lime price in the U.S. has increased very little, and its availability has remained very constant. Being an almost exclus...

During 63 months as an agronomy/livestock Extension agent in Central New York, I learned the “correct” term for winter small grains planted in early autumn: cover crops. After leaving Extension for a career in ag sales in 1978, I continued referring to such crops as cover crops. Then I began resurre...

According to Katelyn Miller, Western New York field crops and forage specialist, a relatively new disease threatens NY corn production – tar spot. This plant disease originated in Central America and was first reported in the U.S. in 2015. The first significant yield-reducing tar spot event was obse...

Under the auspices of the Cornell Departments of Animal Science and Agronomy, the results of a feeding management study were released in 2023. That study’s purpose was to determine how well brown mid-rib (BMR) forage sorghum could substitute for corn silage in supporting 85 lbs. milk/day production ...

A report released Jan. 23 by Save Our Seeds highlights the increasing use of “generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the development of genetically modified (GM) plants, raising significant new concerns about their safety.” These developments come at a time when the European Union is considering...