Search results for 'Changshu City'

Spring is about to pop - Benton City, WA

By #SoilMatters

Published Mar 14, 2018

Soil temperatures have risen 4-6F in the past week. This has signaled these Chelan #cherry buds to swell. This is an early ripening variety. Which means the number of days a farmer has to grow and nurture the crop are limited. This means every day counts from bloom until harvest and are critical to develop the fruit in preparation of harvest...

What Farmers Need to Know About Mycorrhizae

By Laura Barrera

Published Nov 2, 2018

If someone asked you, “How do plants take up the water and nutrients they need?” you’d probably tell them through the roots. But did you know that for many crops, those roots aren’t working alone?That’s because most plant species associate with mycorrhizal fungi. What is mycorrhizal fungi? University of Alberta biological scientist JC Cahill says that mycorrhizas are actually the interaction between a fungus and a plant. Although there are many different types of mycorrhizae, the only one crop farmers need to be concerned about is arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), as 65% of plant species associate with it... “We know that adding fertilizer doesn’t always increase crop yield because there are going to be some farms and conditions that have enough fertilizer, or you get toxicity,” he explains...

Categories: Cover Crops

Ten Ways to Increase Your Farm's Profits This Year

By AgFuse Exclusive Content

Published Oct 10, 2018

So, what about smaller purchases that you know will make you more efficient, purchases that you’ve been putting off because times are tight? You can easily become more efficient by upgrading your nurse tank capacity or buying a portable welder... What Is Equipment Efficiency? There is an optimal size for your farm based on whatever acreage capacity your equipment currently has... To gain field capacity, you want to optimally go wider with these machines rather than adding additional units... When we look at this cropping system annually, we ask ourselves where the bottleneck is based on our current equipment capacity... The 800 acres for each is optimal based on our current equipment capacity...

Categories: Agribusiness, Marketing, Cover Crops

How Yield Champions Use Cover Crops for Growing Higher Bushels

By Laura Barrera

Published Jun 1, 2018

There are many factors that can influence corn yield. In fact, Fred Below, a plant physiologist at the University of Illinois, identified seven of them, which he dubbed the “Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World. ”The seven wonders, ranked in order of most influence on yield, are:WeatherNitrogenHybridPrevious cropPlant populationTillageGrowth regulatorsWhile Below was referring to the cash crop rotation in the fourth wonder, some farmers are taking it one step further by seeding cover crops. The benefit of added crop diversity along with improvements to soil health is paying off, as some of these farmers are achieving the highest yields in the country... His goal for using cover crops is to increase organic matter — which on most fields has gone from 2% or less to 7% and higher — break up the soil hardpan and increase the soil’s water-holding capacity...

7 Ways to Measure Soil Health Improvements

By Laura Barrera

Published Mar 7, 2019

While there are numerous reasons for using cover crops, a primary one is improving soil health. In fact, it’s the one benefit most farmers using cover crops have experienced: In the most recent Cover Crop Survey Annual Report, of those who rated the statement, “Using cover crops has improved soil health on my farm,” 86% agreed or strongly agreed. The report notes that it’s interesting and heartening that “soil health reflects an embrace of a long-term, hard-to-quantify benefit of cover crops, and that for the past two surveys, it has achieved the top spot by garnering 86% of the responses... In a Penn State Extension article written by soil scientist Sjeord Duiker, he recommends using the penetrometer when the whole profile is at field capacity, which is approximately 24 hours after a soaking rain... Higher Organic MatterAlong with infiltrating water faster, cover crops should also help your soil’s water-holding capacity, as it increases the soil’s organic matter...

Categories: Cover Crops

5 reasons to choose chitosan oligosaccharide in organic agriculture

By Darren Chan

Published Jan 22, 2019

In the application of agricultural production, chitosan oligosaccharides not only make crops grow better and robust, but also has obvious effects in stress resistance and pest resistance. Numerous studies have shown that chitosan oligosaccharides can induce broad-spectrum resistance, enhance the plant’s own defense ability, inhibit the growth of a variety of plant pathogenic microorganisms, and it is non-toxic and can be microbial degradation, and will not pollute the environment. This makes it an important role in agricultural production as a new type of green production. 1... The role of chitosan oligosaccharides in agricultureChitosan oligosaccharides have wide adaptability to plants, good affinity, no toxicity, no side effects, no harm to humans and animals, biodegradability, no soiling in the soil, slow degradation to small molecular carbohydrates, no pollution to the environment, an excellent pure natural ecological preparation...

Categories: Agribusiness, Irrigation, Organic

Why is soil salinization a problem?

By Darren Chan

Published Aug 21, 2019

What’s Soil SalinizationSoil salinization is one of the most vital soil problems for agricultural production. Salinization refers to the salt content of the level affecting agricultural and environmental health. Soil salinization usually occurs in arid areas, In these areas, soluble salt ions accumulate in the soil... When soil gets wet, it’s water infiltration capacity reduces as well... Specific Ion ToxicitySome ions (particularly chloride) are toxic to plants and as the concentration of these ions increases, the plant is poisoned and dies...

Categories: Agribusiness, Irrigation, Wheat

Supporting Small-to-Midsized Agriculture and Localized Food Distribution During COVID-19

By Melissa Rouse

Published Mar 30

If you are a vendor who has the capacity to renegotiate your contract terms so that farmers and ranchers get paid upon delivery, this is a great way to infuse cash into the industry right now... What this means will vary from plant-to-plant but it could look like:increasing cold chain storage infrastructure for those that are dealing with an influx of demand,aggregating existing supply to the places where there is capacity,logistics support for moving product to and from processing facilities,and/or providing capital for those needing to either expand capacity or just stay open through an uncertain supply and demand cycle... Looking back at processing and slaughter facilities, there are major concerns for further economic failures around small-midscale process capacity, packing, and distribution... Aggregators who are seeing massive PO cancellation from distributors like Sysco and US Foods are working overtime to make good on the orders they have put in with farmers but are seeing a bottleneck in processing and distribution capacity as plants try to accommodate for the needs of the retail market... The LTL logistics, USDA cold storage capacity, and delivery infrastructure is not set up to handle this input and solutions are desperately needed...

Categories: Agribusiness, Beef Cattle, Organic

Key Factor in Improving Soil Water Infiltration Rates: Living Roots

By Laura Barrera

Published Jan 22

Many farmers across the U. S. experienced wet weather last growing season... In fact, a meta-analysis study conducted by researchers from ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute and the International Rice Research Institute found that no-till increased steady-state infiltration rates by 66%, and improved field capacity water content at surface and sub-surface layers by 6-16%... The book says its dense but shallow root system enhances soil tilth and improves water infiltration and is an “excellent choice for building soil structure to enhance water infiltration, water-holding capacity or irrigation efficiency...

Categories: Cover Crops

Type of Organic Fertilizer

By Darren Chan

Published Dec 17, 2019

What's Organic FertilizerNowadays, as the level of modernization of agriculture is getting higher and higher, sustainable agriculture is an important global issue. Organic food is receiving more and more attention. According to the trend, organic fertilizers are becoming the first choice for many people. Widely used for vegetables (tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber), fruits (strawberries, grapes, citrus), Cash crops (grass, flowers, cannabis)Organic Fertilizer DefinitionOrganic fertilizer is also called “farm manure... For example, cow manure can control weeds and increases the moisture-holding capacity of the soil and increases air penetration in the soil...

Categories: Agribusiness, Organic, Wheat