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In search of salt-tolerable crops


PRINCESS ANNE, Md. — As coastal flooding threatens more farmer acres, a UMES horticulturalist is looking for crop varieties that will withstand more of the punishment from elevated salt levels in the soil. Naveen Kumar Dixit and a team of students are evaluating varieties of soybeans and strawberries for salt tolerance as part of a USDA-funded research addressing climate change. […]

Promising Lumina strawberry awaiting patent


  BELTSVILLE, Md. — The start of the local strawberry season is still more than a month away but breeding better cultivars never stops. As a new cultivar from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service’s strawberry breeding program awaits a patent, its breeder is urging growers to share their interest in their top varieties with propagating nurseries. USDA-ARS Research Plant Geneticist Kim […]

Dairies find benefits to robotic age


WOODSTOCK, Va. — In 2016, French Brothers Dairy had reached the breaking point of a problem known all too well to farmers regionally and nationwide – labor shortages. It was a critical issue for the Frenches’ sprawling family farm that includes nearly 500 cow-calf pairs, four broiler chicken houses, 1,000 acres of row crops, a crop spraying business, and a […]

Bills re-entered to save Lower Shore’s Doe Harvest Challenge


ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A cross-filed bill in the Maryland legislature seeks to save a farmer-led deer hunting initiative on the Lower Eastern Shore. The reprisal of the bill that passed the Senate and House of Delegates last year but did not get signed by the end of session, preserves the Doe Harvest Challenge operated by the Farm Bureaus of Wicomico, […]

Adams is Forage Producer of Year


  CHATHAM, Va. — A decade ago, Miller Adams, participated in a regional silvopasture tour and consulted with the team at the Southern Piedmont Agriculture Research and Education Center to set up a silvopasture research and demonstration area at the Blackstone, Va., facility. In 2020, Miller moved from talking about silvopasture to creating silvopasture, devoting 15 acres to the practice. […]

Panel: Soil amendment success takes curiosity, calculated risks


  SALISBURY, Md. — Be it biologicals from a jug or biomass from a cover crop, interest in soil amendments has brought a lot of products to market and with them, a lot of questions on how best to use them. “You could call it a new frontier or the Wild West,” said Chris Brosch, administrator for the Delaware Nutrient […]

Maryland wine law takes effect in spring


ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Farm wineries in the state will have to comply this spring with a law requiring them to use more Maryland ingredients in their wine. Starting May 1, all Class 4 wineries will be required to grow at least 20 acres of their grapes or other fruit, or at least 51 percent of their ingredients will need to […]

Workshop shows how hay sampling skills enhance testing for its quality


  BLACKSBURG, Va. — Among the topics discussed at the quality hay production workshop here on Feb. 3 — growing quality hay, storing it, learning its quality and even insuring it — one that kept coming up was testing for quality. Derek Pruitt and Amber Bradley from the Farm Service Agency introduced the topic while explaining the Non-Insured Crop Disaster […]

Traffic circle driving farmers loopy


WESTMINSTER, Md. — The Maryland Farm Bureau and Maryland Grain Producers are urging Carroll County authorities to redesign a new traffic circle that they said impedes local agricultural vehicles and machinery. The circle, which already sits at Sullivan Road and Great Day Court, was constructed by the developer of Windy Hills, a new housing development that rests on former farmland. […]

Va. dairymen’s group’s donated dispensers boosts consumption


BRIDGEWATER, Va. — A program to put milk dispensers in school cafeterias across the state has significantly boosted consumption among students, the Virginia State Dairymen’s Association said last week. The group has donated 17 dispensers to Virginia schools, leading to a roughly 15-percent increase in milk consumption, said Eric Paulson, the association’s executive director. The program arrives as a nationwide […]


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