Wrapping up its series of agritourism roundtables last month, NAFDMA, the International Tourism Association, highlighted the success stories of three operations from the Midwest and the Northeast.The producers shared their resources, their ideas and the practical solutions that helped them not only ...

How do you start a new farming enterprise? Sow seeds, grow plants, harvest. It seems simple enough – except sometimes those plants take years to grow to maturity. Sometimes the potential for a new crop is there, but a region’s climate may have other ideas. That’s not holding back the New York Nut Gr...

For the sixth November since 2015, the University of Maryland’s Agriculture Law Education Initiative (ALEI) hosted its annual Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference. Sponsored by the Maryland Farm Bureau and MidAtlantic Farm Credit, the event brought together agricultural professionals, attor...

First introduced in 2011, spotted wing drosophila has been affecting cherry harvests. Cornell researchers studied the impact on tart and sweet cherry crops in New York State and estimated a 2% loss. That estimate jumped by 78% for both tart and sweet cherries in the year to follow, resulting in a $3...

In a recent webinar, Aaron Wightman, maple specialist at Cornell, highlighted emerging value-added opportunities for maple syrup producers. According to Wightman, maple syrup production has increased dramatically in New York in the past 18 years, and other states are experiencing similar trends. “Al...

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...