There are at least five yellow-blossoming weeds that welcome spring into the Northeast. They are, in order of appearance, marsh marigold (also called cowslip), buttercup, yellow rocket, dandelion and wild mustard. I’ll apologize to weeds number one and two, ignoring them so as to concentrate on the ...

As a lifetime ag educator, I try to impart a spirit of patience to corn growers this time of year. It’s tempting to plant corn – even soybeans – as soon as soil temperature reaches the 50º threshold for a couple days (soybeans prefer 60º), but pluses may not outweigh minuses, risk-wise. Here’s my fa...

Around mid-April one of our readers phoned me to ask a question about prussic acid. Before I discuss the conversation that he and I shared, let me write about information that I found on that subject after we both said goodbye. For a long time prior to this gentleman’s call, I had thought that term ...

I’m hoping that growing season 2024 behaves much more normally than its predecessor did. Last year boasted some of the planet’s highest average temperatures ever recorded. At the same time, I’m hard-pressed to forget 2012. While not as hot as 2023, the lack of rainfall was epic 12 years ago. Most up...

The weather forecast for the weekend just past was for rain, possibly a thunderstorm. I remember hoping that we would get the latter; such would make me feel more comfortable making my first fall frost forecast. On the afternoon of April 14 as we were driving to Oneonta, we encountered enough rain t...

This summer annual is currently planted on much smaller U.S. acreage than years ago. Buckwheat was a much more popular crop before the Industrial Revolution delivered impressive new technologies to farms around the world. Notably, new fertilizers dramatically increased the productivity and profitabi...

On March 26, a container-laden cargo ship hit Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, spanning the entrance to that city’s harbor, completely collapsing that structure. As a result, all shipping into that harbor ceased for an undetermined amount of time. Early estimates of the duration of the harbor c...

Peter Wohlleben, professional forester and science writer in Germany, explained how snow loads can seriously harm trees. From his book “ The Hidden Life of Trees ” – “The pressure from above is simply too great. Such breakdowns mostly happen in the months of March and April, when the snow is transfo...

As I was writing this column, there were two days left of winter. It was a milder than usual cold weather season. I only used the snowblower once. A gift from my three sons 15 winters ago, it’s seen lots of use other years. In any case, the winter forages and grasses are kicking into gear. Up till 1...

In his March Advanced Ag Systems newsletter, Certified Crop Advisor Tom Kilcer wrote that most farms growing winter triticale forage, with a high yield management package, often harvest tonnage above what they expected, yet the protein often is less than hoped for. With high soy meal prices, the lac...

The idea behind that title is that if crop yields drop because soil pH is too low, more land must be worked in order for farmers to harvest the necessary feed tonnage required by their livestock. Working more land than what might otherwise be necessary means bigger numbers on the dashboard hour gaug...

A couple years ago, in this column, I addressed the agricultural cornerstone of a military event of paramount historical significance. That military happening was a battle that occurred in France on Oct. 25, 1415. The actual events of that battle formed the theme of William Shakespeare’s play “Henry...

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...