Willsboro, New York; December 2, 2024.  High tunnels help farmers to extend their growing seasons and sales, but crop selection and timing are critical decisions for production success and economic return. High tunnel crops research funded by the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) produced mixed results for fall-winter greens production and income opportunities for growers in New York’s northern climate region.

The research on direct-seeded greens grown from mid-September to early March produced data on which varieties had the best chance for high yield and high quality. The hoped-for news that the varieties could produce well for both extended fall and late winter (January-March) sales was only half fulfilled.

“The data suggest that the greens we trialed may be most worthwhile as a late fall crop to extend the season into November and December for the holiday markets, late-season community supported agriculture shares, or wholesale markets. The greens could be terminated in December rather than keeping the crop overwinter for regrowth in February and March,” says Cornell Cooperative Extension Vegetable Specialist Elisabeth Hodgdon, Ph.D.

Hodgdon, and CCE Agricultural Business Development and Marketing Specialist Lindsey Pashow conducted trials of 20 varieties of salad greens in an unheated tunnel at the Willsboro Research Farm, Willsboro, New York. The trials included arugula, kale, and Asian mustards, lettuce, and spinach.

Crop yields across the trials in 2022 and 2023 were higher for fall harvest than in winter. The all-varieties fall harvest yield total from the high tunnel from October 19 to December 5, 2022 was 109 pounds, 11 pounds in mid-March 2023. The fall harvest total yield from September 5 to October 30, 2023 under cooler, cloudier conditions was 49 pounds; 14 pounds harvested in February to March 4, 2024.

The enterprise budget calculated for the trial in 2023 used an average yield of 0.17 pounds per square foot of tunnel space at $10 per pound grown in a 20-foot by 48-foot tunnel. Selling price average was based on grower interviews. Cost calculations showed the most expensive inputs as compost, seed, and harvest labor. The net result was a loss of $1,424.91. The project team, however, suggests considerations that may offset the risk of loss with the winter-grown tunnel crops, including mechanized seeding, harvest, and lower cost soil amendments.

“While the winter season data suggest these greens may not be profitable for overwintering production, some growers note that extended-season greens can serve as a ‘loss leader’ to add value to winter CSA shares, allow the farms to retain their labor force, and maintain their wholesale markets year-round,” Pashow points out.

Project collaborators included Cornell Willsboro Research Farm Manager Michael H. Davis, Ph.D., and Cornell Vegetable Program Specialist Judson Reid.

The complete results for these trials in 2022 and 2023 are posted under the heading “Alternative High Tunnel Crops for Northern New York” at www.nnyagdev.org under About/NNYADP Projects by Year.

Funding for the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program is supported by the New York State Legislature through the New York State Assembly and administrated by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.

November 5, 2024. The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) has released the preliminary results of an evaluation of a new orchard thinning product that may help apple growers overcome challenging temperatures. The region’s cool spring temperatures can interfere with an orchard’s ability to reach optimal crop load that drives yield and income opportunity.

Northern New York’s apple growers are in search of alternative methods of thinning their crop, particularly after seeing poor results with some traditional thinners in the 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022 seasons, leading to small fruit size in some varieties and poor return bloom of Honeycrisp, one of the region’s most economically valuable apple varieties, in 2019 and 2021.

Apple growers periodically thin a portion of the blossoms or young fruitlets from their trees to support optimal crop lead for improved apple size and quality at harvest. Tree Fruit Specialist Michael Basedow, with Cornell Cooperative Extension, notes, “Thinning at traditional spring timings is particularly challenging in Northern New York as thinning treatments are heavily driven by, and temperatures here are often too cool for good thinning efficacy.”

An additional challenge is that once the apples reach a size larger than 24 millimeters, the fruit is unresponsive to standard thinning materials and substantial hand-thinning labor becomes necessary or cost-prohibitive.

When a new thinning product was announced with the potential to work under Northern New York’s often cooler temperatures, Basedow proposed orchard trials for 2023. The trials received funding from the farmer-driven NNYADP.

“The questions to be answered are could this new product be a more reliable material for growers to use during the late window of time before fruit becomes unresponsive to thinning, and how much efficacy could we expect compared to thinning with traditional materials at bloom, petal fall, and fruit set,” Basedow explains.

Orchards in Chazy and Peru, New York, participated in the first-year trials. Four different thinning treatments were applied to three varieties of apple: Gala, Honeycrisp, and Macoun.

First-Year Results Varied by Location and Variety
Results varied by location and variety. In some cases, no difference among the treatments was seen in the number of Gale or Honeycrisp fruit per tree or yield, suggesting the new product could potentially be used in place of some other thinners if weather is not cooperative at the earlier thinning timings.

A significant increase in Gala fruit size was measured in one Gala treatment when the trees were thinned at petal fall, 12 mm, and with the new product under evaluation at 20mm. At another site, significant differences were recorded in Macoun fruit number per tree and yield with the new product, but no significant gain in fruit size or color, while the use of the product at another site improved Honeycrisp fruit color.

A mid-May freeze impacted the research results in at least one orchard where the extreme temperature lasted four hours.

“As a first-year evaluation, mixed results are often the case and backstop the need for trials in multiple years under varying conditions. More data will be added before any conclusions can be made,” Basedow says.

The impact on return bloom will be reported with the 2024 harvest data in the second-year research results report expected early in 2025. The report will be posted at www.nnyagdev.org.

Funding for the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program is supported by the New York State Legislature through the New York State Assembly and administrated by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.

 

NNYADP Water Quality Research: The Impact of Combined Cropland Management Practices

Project update will be presented to American Societies of Agronomy, Crop Science and Soil Science in November

Peru, New York; October 22, 2024.  How do specific cropland management practices impact water quality stewardship on tile-drained farmland? That is a question that newly focused research by the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) is evaluating. Miner Institute Nutrient Management Researcher Laura Klaiber is conducting research evaluating three different cropping practices to characterize their combined effect on water quality. Field trials are underway on tile-drained land under no-till corn production with a winter cover crop.

Klaiber will present an update on this research at the November 10-13, 2024 join meeting of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America in San Antonio, Texas.

Tile drainage helps support corn production on poorly draining soils. No-till practices over time help improve the soil structure in previously heavily-tilled fields. Cover crops filter surface and ground water, add organic matter to the soil, reduce weeds, and sequester carbon in the soil. Fall-planted cover crops provide a winter covering and can hold nutrients during spring snow melt. The new NNYADP research is collecting data on the combination of these practices.

“This first phase of the new research in northern New York is looking at whether specific farming practices are achieving the intended environmental quality benefits,” Klaiber says.

The desired benefits reduce the loss of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, from tiled fields into nearby waters.

“Our field trials provide the opportunity to compare data sets on nutrient retention and egress from untiled land, previously tiled land, and, now, from previously-untiled land with newly-installed tile,” Klaiber explains.

Working Dairy Farm Hosts Side-by-Side Trials
A working dairy farm in Peru, New York, has hosted tile-drainage research trials since 2016. The side-by-side trials utilize two fields of the same soil type, specifically poorly draining silt loam. Until 2023, one field was tiled, one untiled. Data generated from the field tiled in 2023 will be compared to its own seven-year untiled dataset and to the data from its sister field that was first tiled in 2016. The farmer is applying the same cropping practices to both fields going forward.

The data sets include measures of nitrogen and phosphorus, total surface and subsurface runoff, and total suspended solids as an indication of soil erosion. The data will be correlated with local storm events.

Agronomist Mike Contessa of Champlain Valley Agronomics, Peru, NY, is a project collaborator. Contessa notes, “This research is essential for showing how we can adopt better farming practices while minimizing nutrient loss and improving water management. By closely monitoring how tile drainage, no-till systems, and cover crops work together, we can create more resilient, environmentally-friendly farming systems that benefit both producers and the environment.”

“A broad range of audiences, including agricultural producers, water resource managers, and the public, is interested in learning about how the ways we manage our land influence how nutrients and sediment moves through soil, surface water, and ground water,” Klaiber adds.

The next report on this NNYADP agricultural environmental research will be posted in the spring of 2025 at nnyagdev.org. Previous trial reports are also posted there.

The NNYADP has cover crop variety and breeding selection trials underway to develop a cover crop most well suited to northern climate regions with shorter growing season, harsh winters, and unpredictable weather in the spring planting and fall harvesting windows.

Funding for the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program is supported by the New York State Legislature through the New York State Assembly and administrated by the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets.

NNYADP-Funded Research Trials Evaluating Farmers’ Fall Planting Questions

September 6, 2024.  Research funded by the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) is addressing challenges raised by a regional focus group interested in the potential benefits of fall-planted cover crops.

“The focus group of regional farmers and agribusinesses expressed a need to identify cover crop varieties that will establish well specifically in northern New York’s colder soil and have increased winter season hardiness after a late fall planting in the region,” said project leader Dr. Virginia Moore, Ph.D., of the Cornell University School of Integrative Plant Science, Ithaca, New York.

Since the fall season of 2022, with NNYADP grant support, Dr. Moore and Dr. Julie L. Hansen, Ph.D., a plant breeding and genetics specialist with Cornell University, have been collecting data from cover crop trials on working dairy and vegetable farms in Clinton and Lewis counties, at Miner Institute in Chazy, the Willsboro Research Farm, and the Cornell Cooperative Extension Learning Farm in St. Lawrence County.

Fall-planted cover crops help reduce soil erosion and nutrient runoff, filter surface and ground water, add organic matter to the soil, reduce weeds and pests, and sequester carbon in the soil. However, Northern New York’s short growing season, climate conditions, and at times wet soil conditions pose barriers to the regional adoption of fall-planted cover crops.

The cover crop being evaluated is cereal rye. Dr. Hansen explains, “Cereal rye is the most common cover crop due to its unparalleled biomass production, weed suppression, and growth under colder climate conditions.”

The data being collected from the NNYADP cereal rye research plantings include soil composition, seedling emergence after various planting dates, winter survival, plant vigor, growth, the biomass of the cereal rye crop, and the weed pressure in the plots.

The fall planting dates in the trials across two year have ranged from September 25^th to November 6^th.

The Northern New York farmers participating in the trials will be surveyed in 2025 for feedback on results to date. Project collaborators include Happy Haven Farm in Mooers, New York; Dyer Farms in Plattsburgh, New York; Pominville Farms in Croghan, New York; Cornell University field crops; soils and dairy specialists; and personnel with the Soil and Water Conservation Districts in Clinton and Lewis counties.

Additional research is underway at breeding nurseries initiated at the Willsboro Research Farm, the Homer C. Thompson Vegetable Research Farm in Freeville, New York, and at the University of Minnesota: St. Paul. At those sites, Dr. Moore and Ph.D. student Raksha Thapa are selectively breeding cereal rye varieties with improved ability to emerge in colder soils and to produce sufficient biomass when planted in late fall. The crop populations at the breeding nursery sites are crosses of northern-adapted cereal rye varieties and southern-adapted and alleopathic breeding lines of cereal rye.

The NNYADP trial data are provided to a national Cover Crop Breeding Network, led by Dr. Moore, to broaden national-level field-based knowledge in support of cover crop improvement.

The 2022 and 2023 project reports for this cover crop research are publicly accessible at www.nyyagdev.org.

Funding for the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program is supported by the New York State Legislature through the New York State Assembly and administrated through the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.

Click here to read the 2023 NNYADP cereal rye cover crop trials report

2025 NNYADP Request for Project Proposals are Due by October 30, 2024

The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) is pleased to announce its small grants program for 2025. Funds from this program will support projects that focus on research, education, and technical assistance in support of the agricultural production sectors in the six-county Northern New York region: Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence counties. Funding for the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program is supported by the New York State Legislature through the New York State Assembly and administered by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. For 2025, $300,000 in small grants will be provided through a contract with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets per the 2023-2024 New York State budget.

Click on the links below for more information and application form
2025 NNYADP Research Ideas List (pdf)
2025 NNYADP RFP/Grant Application Form (doc)
2025 NNYADP RFP Project Budget Form (doc)