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...

During the Plant Ag & Pesticide Regulation Committee meeting which took place as part of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture Winter Policy Conference on Feb. 24, a policy amendment for the promotion of hemp was presented by Vermont Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets ...

Sometimes it’s time for a change, and that’s what initiated a major lifestyle and location shift for the Burrello family. “I had a great desire to not raise my kids in an urban environment,” said Kristin Burrello, explaining the family’s choice to move from Chicago to rural Ashford, CT. “I wanted to...