Diseases in grain can dramatically effect yield. Gary C. Bergstrom, plant pathology and plant microbe biology Extension agent with Cornell Cooperative Extension, recently presented “Soybean and Small Grain Disease Updates” as part of the recent Northwestern New York Soybean and Small Grains Congress...

MUNNSVILLE, NY – One hundred ninety-nine years ago, a dairy farming legacy, borne of Honeoye soils and sacrifice, was started in the hamlet of Stockbridge along the banks of Oneida Creek in Madison County. In describing Lyman Farm’s historic and current journey, resilience and adaptation are key com...

Three brothers went into a manure pit to repair a pipe last summer and none of them made it out alive. Many farmers learned of that story and vowed it would never happen on their farm, but despite understanding the hazards of manure gases in a confined space, there’s a good chance someone else will ...

Spring is finally here. Along with the prospect of warmer sunny days, the greening of the grass and the first flower blooms comes the necessity for extra diligence in the care of horses’ feet. There are a couple of conditions that commonly occur this time of year that can cause severe and long-lasti...

Creating silvopasture is not a matter of fencing in the woods and letting the animals forage. Farmers must plan to create a successful silvopasture as indicated by “Converting Woodland to Silvopasture,” a recent webinar hosted by Food Animal Concerns Trust and presented by Steve Gabriel, owner of We...

As much as any other bone in the horse’sstructure,the coffin bone plays an important role in the soundness and longevity of the horse. The size and the shape varies from breed to breed, horse to horse, and the coffin bone is as inheritable as the rest of the structure. We cannot visually see it, but...

A professional forester once explained to me how snow loads can seriously harm trees: “The pressure from above is simply too great. Such breakdowns mostly happen in the months of March and April, when the snow is transformed from feather-light fluff to dead weight.” He estimates the point at which s...

Timothy Terry, farm strategic planning specialist with Cornell Pro-Dairy, is accustomed to helping farmers identify the often-overlooked details that a retrofit of an old barn or other farm building requires. Terry spoke at the 2022 Catskills Regional Agriculture Conference, sharing his knowledge to...

Bunzi was the goddess of rain in Kongo mythology; Horus, the god of weather in Egypt; Freyr, the Norse god of rain and sunshine; and Tohil, the Maya god of sun and rain. Ancient societies prayed to them for good things. Today, we have satellites and expert science to help us predict what the weather...

Agriculture has fed humanity throughout recorded history, but it must continue to evolve alongside technological advances if it is to meet current worldwide food needs. That was the overarching theme of “Utilizing Ground Based Rover Technology Across Fields to Aid in its Management,” a discussion pa...

How do you predict markets? When do you sell your grains? A few years ago, it was a more straightforward process. Now… “We’ve been trying to apply a rational thought process to an irrational series of events,” said Ed Usset. Usset is the grain marketing specialist in the Center for Farm Financial Ma...

Cereal rye has been increasing in popularity as a cover crop; however, it provides other benefits and a few issues, as discussed in “Growing Cereal Rye in the Northeast,” a talk presented at the NOFA-NY winter conference recently by Todd Hardie, owner of Thornhill Farm in Greensboro, VT, and Sandy S...

Cereal grains such as barley are often viewed as somewhat average and uninteresting, but Karl Kunze is changing that. Kunze is a Ph.D. candidate in the small grains breeding program in Dr. Mark Sorrell’s Cornell University lab. Kunze’s current work on organic naked barley is part of a USDA-NIFA-OREI...

“What can we do to get employees safe, productive and engaged from day one? That’s the bottom line. That’s what we really want,” said Richard Stup, an agriculture workforce specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension and the facilitator of a webinar series focused on the employee onboarding proces...

Bigger isn’t always better but staying small has its challenges. Nathan Henderson, founder of Reber Rock Farm Processing Facility in Essex, NY, presented “Logistics of Small Scale Meat Processing Licenses: NYS 5-A Poultry Processing, FSIS Custom Exempt Processing” at the recent NOFA-NY conference. “...