Mother Nature recently helped remove snow and ice in most of the Northeast. She did so by shoving outdoor thermometer readings down into single digit Fahrenheit readings. Other than some higher altitude sites, I hadn’t heard of any sub-zero (F) readings. In the second week of February 2024, the bott...

David had me pick up some soil samples he’d taken. He owns a small organic farm in the next county. I brought the samples home, air-dried them, then screened them using a wide-mouthed plastic jar with quarter-inch holes in the lid. Screening removes impurities like bug parts, roots, worms, leaves, t...

Groundhog Day always happens on Feb. 2, unlike other celebrated holidays which commandeer Mondays, so humans can enjoy long weekends. The animal’s scientific name is Marmota monax . On our home farm in Greene County, NY, during my late teens I shot a lot of woodchucks. We were afraid one of our beef...

As most crop/livestock people are reading this, we just passed the halfway mark in the Northeast non-grazing season (grazing season being May – October). Thoughts of spring and managing soil fertility then come to mind – or at least they should. Let’s look at the classic big three nutrients: nitroge...

In an excellent article in the current winter edition of Farming Magazine, writer Alan Guebert explains his thoughts on the ongoing federal carbon dioxide greenhouse gas abatement program. In his typical in-your-face style, Guebert titled his story “ Don’t bury just CO2 pipelines; bury the very idea...

It’s snowing on this second Sunday afternoon of the new year, which – at least to me – makes it advisable to think pasture management thoughts. Old-timer farmers always said it was a good idea to still have half of your initial hay inventory in the barn on the first of February. If grazing livestock...

In the current winter edition of the Natural Farmer (the newspaper of the Northeast Organic Farming Association ), Erin Buckwalter wrote an article titled “Vermont’s Summer of Flooding.” She noted the catastrophic flash-flooding and river flooding that hit much of Vermont during the first two-thirds...

Upon request, I receive the Argus North American Fertilizer e-newsletter. The one hitting my inbox most recently was the Dec. 4, 2023 issue. From that document I selected a few high spots, targeting three very high-volume conventional (non-organic) commodity ingredients. Quotes are for three differe...

The sun finished setting a couple hours ago on what turned out to be yet another green Christmas for most of the Northeast as I wrote this. Despite this, I’m not writing about global warming or climate change. According to the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) division of the National Weather Service ...

Can our fine feathered friends subjectively evaluate different traits of feed, particularly corn? I asked myself that question more than a dozen years ago while serving as an advisor to the vocational ag program in Milford, NY. This ag program was physically centered in a barn populated by goats, sh...

There’s evidence that lush vegetation was once common in the Sahara Desert. “ The Sahara Desert – Yes, That One – Remarkably Grows Green Every 21,000 Years ” was the headline of an article in the Oct. 17 edition of Popular Mechanics. Writer Tim Newcomb explained that this historically famous wastela...

According to the Nov. 30 online Argus North American Fertilizer Newsletter, heavy rain is expected in the South and Pacific Northwest, while warmer-than-normal temperatures are forecast for most of the U.S. for the first 10 days of December. At the same time, near normal temperatures are likely alon...

As most subscribers are reading this column, it’s about 2.5 weeks until days start to lengthen in the northern hemisphere. Recently, most of the Northeast has been gathering just a few occasional snowflakes. This is very much unlike a year ago, when the Buffalo area got clobbered with a few feet of ...

Happy four days after Thanksgiving (which is when most subscribers are reading my column). Let’s mentally return to the first Thanksgiving Day – celebrated, according to New England historians, on Sept. 29, 1621. Edward Winslow, the Plymouth Pilgrim community’s first historian, recorded that Squanto...

Nutrients that can be applied to the soils (with or without winter forages) include mined and/or unrefined amendments, such as ground limestone, rock phosphates, bone meal and some forms of potash. The items are feeding the soil rather than feeding growing plants directly. They also benefit greatly ...