“I really love marketing,” said Vermont vegetable farmer and writer Kate Spring during her presentation at the 2020 Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Farmer to Farmer online conference. “I did not know that about myself until I started farming.” Specifically, Spring outlined her success marketing ...

Branding may sound like a difficult job for savvy social media whizzes. But Dahlia Dill, owner of Chandler Pond Farm in Wheelock, VT, believes that any farmer can develop effective branding with just a few ideas. She presented “Social Media Tips & Tricks” as part of the New England Women in Livestoc...

“Hemp Seed Ingredients & What You Need to Know About the Hemp-Based Food Market” was led by Chad Rosen, interacted with participants from across the U.S. during this year’s virtual World Ag Expo. Rosen, who founded Victory Hemp Foods in 2014 in Carrollton, KY, and currently serves as the company’s C...

Anyone who uses irrigation knows there are myriad ways an irrigation system can have issues – clogs, leaks, pressure issues and more. But what are the real costs of irrigation problems on yield, efficiency, quality and your bottom line? That’s what John Bourne, vice president of Ceres Imaging, addre...

Hemp is hot. There’s no doubt many growers are excited about the possibilities surrounding the commodity, whether for fiber or oil. But farmers need to consider the regulations and expenses attached to growing hemp. As part of the recent 2021 Industrial Hemp Conference hosted online by the Universit...

High tunnels can provide growers with an economical approach to extending the growing season, starting seedlings and controlling more aspects of growing; however, they can be susceptible to damage if farmers do not take the right precautions. Adam Montri, owner of Ten Hens Farm in Bath, MI, presente...

During February’s American Seed Trade Association Innovation in Plant Breeding Virtual Tour, some of the biggest names in the game presented new takes on staple crops. Below, we’ll look at some of the work being undertaken to continually improve these consumer favorites. Breeding for Balance in Melo...

Jonathan Ebba is a landscape and greenhouse field specialist, and George Hamilton is a fruit and vegetable production field specialist. Both are employed by University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension and gave a presentation titled “Spraying in Tunnels: 5 Top Tips for Success” during the third...

What customers used to prefer isn’t necessarily what they do now. What customers never knew they may have enjoyed might now be a favorite shopping experience for them – look at the increase in local food sales. Customer expectations sometimes shifted dramatically due to COVID-19, and during this yea...

At this year’s virtual Empire State Producers Expo, John Sanderson, associate professor of entomology at Cornell University, presented “Some Best Practices for Biocontrol Success,” which he said are “good for pretty much anything you grow in the greenhouse.” “But biocontrol is not a silver bullet by...

Over the course of my career, I’ve had the privilege to interact and work with many vegetable growers. They varied in age, farm size, diversity of crops, level of expertise, farming philosophies (from pure organic to chemical intensive or a combination thereof), widely differing marketing strategies...

Plant growth regulators (PGRs) can be used to control different growth patterns and characteristics of nursery grown crops, allowing growers to influence factors such as stem elongation, foliage color, leaf bract size, amount of branching, bud set, bloom time and plant compaction. PGRs can also incr...

There are many advantages to online booking software no matter what your business is. People can pay in advance, you’ll know exactly how many people are coming, you can gather more information about your customers and it’ll likely result in a lot less time spent on the phone or scrolling through ema...

George Sundin, Michigan State University, presented a workshop discussion on the implications of fungicide resistance for three tree fruit pathogens of importance. Those pathogens – Blumeriella jaapii , the causal agent of cherry leaf spot; Monilinia fructicola , which results in American brown rot;...

One of the many trends in marketing centers around cooperative partnerships, which blend a belief in shared benefits. Think in terms of two or more advertisers, even if they represent different products or services, discovering they share a key target audience and seeing the advantage of joint outre...