Dr. Matthew Ryan with the Cornell University Sustainable Cropping Systems Lab will share results of the Early Cover Crop Interseeding project funded by the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program/NNYADP daily at the August 5-7 Empire Farm Days event in Seneca Falls, NY.

 

Each day at 1:30pm at the 300-acre agricultural showcase event at Rodman Lott and Son Farms in Seneca Falls, NY, Ryan and a team of Penn State researchers will have a three-way interseeder on exhibit and will talk about how the equipment works and how the interseeding of cover crops at two farms in northern New York performed in tandem with corn crops.

The interseeder developed at Penn State bundles three operations into one implement, permitting farmers to simultaneously seed cover crops while also applying postemergence herbicide and sidedress nitrogen fertilizer to corn, the primary crop of interest.

Although planting winter cover crops, such as annual ryegrass, crimson clover, hairy vetch, and tillage radish can improve soil health, minimize soil runoff, and retain nitrogen for crop use, the use of cover crops is not yet widely adopted.

‘Farmers tell us they do not have time to plant a cover crop in the fall crop after corn is harvested. Researchers at Penn State developed the 3-way interseeder to overcome this problem,’ Ryan says.

The Cover Crops for Northern Climates and Interseeding Demonstration presentations will be made at 1:30pm in the Field Crops demonstration area at Empire Farm Days. Find more information at www.empirefarmdays.com and www.nnyagdev.org.

The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program is a farmer-driven research and technical assistance program serving the farming industry in Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties. The complete report of the interseeding project is on the NNYADP website at www.nnyagdev.org.

The interseeding project received supplemental funding from the NRCS CIG project titled ‘Maximizing conservation in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed with an innovative new 3-way interseeder for early establishment of cover crops in no-till corn and soybeans.

With funding from the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program, Regional Vegetable Specialist Amy Ivy has produced a four-page fact sheet to help high tunnel tomato growers cope with leaf mold.

This new resource provides tips on prevention and control, information on the most resistant and least resistant varieties, and photos of the early symptoms of leaf mold and leaf mold look-alikes.

Read more

Click here to go to the Leaf Mold in High Tunnel Tomatoes Fact Sheet.

 

 

Cornell Cooperative Extension is sponsoring two regional field discussions for Northern New York horticultural growers: one on July 28 in Willsboro and one on July 29 in Canton. The events are free-but-registration-required evening educational opportunities.

Each program will run from 6pm to 8pm with a picnic supper, farm tour, and discussion of vegetable production projects focused on season extension, inter-row cover crops, reduced zone tillage, crop pests: leek moth and spotted wing drosophila, and more.

Click here for event details and registration

The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) and Cornell University Crop and Soil Sciences and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences departments have released the results of their latest efforts to enhance real-time weather-based precision nitrogen (N) management in New York state’s northernmost counties.

Based in part on 18 years of field studies in Northern New York, the van Es Lab at Cornell University developed the Adapt-N data-driven simulation software to help reduce uncertainty about optimum nitrogen application rates, particularly driven by early-season variable weather conditions.

‘Nitrogen management on corn silage and grain acres can be costly when the nutrient is overapplied without any gain in crop yield. The dynamic recommendations of Adapt-N can reduce overall inputs, cost, and environmental losses,’ says Cornell Crop and Soil Sciences Professor Dr. Harold van Es.

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Adapt-N functions in real-time, daily adapting recommendations to current weather conditions. Farmers and crop consultants can receive weather-adjusted updates daily via email or text alert.

In 2013, with an uncharacteristically wet spring, the tool successfully adapted N recommendations to account for early-season N dynamics, and further demonstrated its ability to improve New York State farmers’ profits.

Click here to read about the results of 2013 strip trials in the June 2014 Cornell What’s Cropping Up newsletter

Northern New York – Research conducted on Northern New York farms by Cornell University researchers with funding from the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) is helping farmers enhance their production of forage crops for their dairy cows.

Eight farms in Northern New York participated in on-farm double cropping trials from 2011 to 2013. The research specifically refines nitrogen fertilizer management guidelines for fields that will be used for double cropping – the practice of planting two different crops on the same field in which the second crop is planted after the first has been harvested.

By using the same land to plant two crops that can be fed to dairy cows, farmers can offset previous-year dairy cow forage inventory losses due to drought, excess water, or other causes.

Read more

Link to Winter Forage Small Grains to Boost Feed Supply: Not a Cover Crop Anymore research report

Link to profiles on growing 70 acres of triticale as a double crop with corn at Brandy View Farm in Madrid, NY, and a cereal rye trial at BCS Dairy in Peru, NY.