Northern New York – On-farm research trials funded by the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program shows some NNY farms have achieved notably high corn yields. These gains prompted farmers to want to know if the Cornell University nitrogen fertilizer and manure application recommendations derived from corn yield potential calculations need to be revised.

Twelve Northern New York farms teamed with Cornell University researchers, Cornell Cooperative Extension field crop specialists and regional crop consultants to investigate whether higher crop productivity means more nitrogen needs to be supplied to replace that taken up by the corn or are new corn varieties simply able to make better use of the nitrogen already in the soil?

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Click here for research report

A Soil Health Workshop will be held on Friday, August 22nd, 1-5pm, at the Logue Farms, 8 Smith Road, Chateaugay, NY. Agenda will focus on cover crops and tillage with short educational sessions, a farmer discussion panel and tillage equipment demonstrations.

Attendance is free, but please register with Chastity Miller at 518-483-4061 x110, cmiller@fcswcd.org in advance.

The field day is sponsored by the Franklin County and NYS Soil and Water Conservation offices, Franklin and Clinton County NRCS offices, Franklin County Farm Services Agency, and Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Click here to read “Soil Health Explained” by CCE NNY Field Crops and Soils Specialist Kitty O’Neil.

Read about more and more NNY farmers adopting the use of biocontrol nematodes to control alfalfa snout beetle. With NNYADP funding, Cornell Entomologist Elson Shields and Research Support Specialist Tony Testa now have trials on farms across the region.

Click here for the most recent update

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.

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