With autumn ending, greenhouse growers are now in the planning stages for their next season. They’re choosing which varieties they want to plant again and which ones they may want to experiment with. They’re also preparing for another year of battling harmful insects, mites and other pests. There ar...

A trend these days among nursery shoppers – particularly Millennials and Gen Z – is sustainability. They want plants that will last and even enhance the natural environment. That’s why some are seeking out living Christmas trees rather than pre-cut or ones they cut themselves. Those customers need t...

Using cover crops isn’t a new concept for most farmers – many have adopted the practice for a variety of reasons. For organic farmers, cover crops can mean the difference between so-so yields and a tidy profit. Julie Fine, who earned a master’s degree in plant biology at UMass-Amherst, pointed out t...

When Debalina Saha, assistant professor with the Michigan State University Department of Horticulture, wanted to assess the primary weed issue in Michigan’s nurseries and greenhouses, she wasn’t too surprised to find that liverwort – there are somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 species – was one of t...

Leading agricultural advocacy association AmericanHort recently released their “Top Performers from All-America Selections Vegetable & Herb Variety Trials.” The webinar was presented by Diane Blazek, who serves as executive director of All-America Selections as well as the National Garden Bureau. “I...

Many farms wouldn’t have an adequate labor force without the presence of H-2A workers. L.G. D’Arrigo, co-leader of the immigration practice at Harris Beach in Albany, NY, said there isn’t a reliable supply of labor in the U.S., and part of that is because the American government is concerned about w...

Wildfires have burned mind-boggling numbers of acres, destroying towns, farms and lives this year. Climate change is implicated in this mass burning: severe droughts, hotter, drier seasons with less rainfall and early snow melt due to warmer winter weather patterns has created a tinderbox. Combined ...

Recently, a longtime peach and apple grower faced a dilemma. After losing his entire peach crop to frost this season – the first time in his eight decades of growing fruit trees on the same land where his father started the orchard – Bob Best Sr. was debating whether or not to purchase peaches from ...

We have all learned valuable lessons during the pandemic, and one lesson I hear about above all other business concerns is a recommitment to accurate and timely recordkeeping. Why? To apply for grant and loan programs, to work with state and federal agencies, to report risk assessments and to gauge ...

If you want to expand your farm’s maple production, going with tubing rather than collection buckets can make the entire system work more smoothly. It’s vital to set up your sugarbush’s tubing properly so that it works well. Adam Wild, director of the Cornell Uihlein Maple Research Forest, and Aaron...

Rodney and Lynn Martinez are new to farming, but not new to hard work. Rodney retired from the Coast Guard in 2016 and Lynn is an Army veteran. The couple met in in Massachusetts, and despite frequent moves around the country, Rodney said he always wanted to return to New England and have a farm. “W...

Earlier this year, NAFDMA hosted an online roundtable to ask producers how they were preparing for an autumn influenced by COVID-19 restrictions. At the beginning of October, the international agritourism association brought in three different growers to discuss how the harvest season has been going...

Horticultural advocacy group AmericanHort recently hosted “Top Performers From Perennial Variety Trials,” the latest production in the organization’s “Grower Insider Series.” The program was administered by Paul Westervelt, chief of container operations at Saunders Brothers Nursery in Piney River, V...

The location of your nursery, what you’re growing and how you’re growing it will influence the type of preparation your plants need to survive the winter season and emerge thriving in the spring. Protecting against freeze, frost, desiccation, rodents and winter injury requires planning. General Conc...

Reliable, high-speed internet in rural regions has been an issue for decades. City centers and villages can download movies in minutes; meanwhile, those traveling some country roads need to let others know their approximate locations in advance because there is no service available in case of an acc...