Cornell University researchers conducting the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP)-funded 2013 corn silage hybrid trials are calling producers’ attention to digestibility data.

 

“Most agronomists and animal nutritionists now believe that stover fiber digestibility is one of the most important hybrid characteristics affecting silage quality. Furthermore, some animal nutritionists believe that starch concentrations are no longer adequate in assessing corn silage hybrids for quality but rather starch digestibility of the grain is far more important,” says lead researcher William J. Cox, a Cornell University Crop and Soil Sciences professor.

 

In 2013, Cox and Cornell University Crop and Soil Sciences professor Jerry Cherney collaborated with two NNY farmers to evaluate 37 hybrids in St. Lawrence County at the Greenwood Dairy Farm in Madrid and 39 hybrids in Jefferson County at Robbins Farms in Sackets Harbor.

 

Click here to read more on the NNYADP 2013 Corn Silage Trial Results

Click here to find the NNYADP 2013 Corn Silage Hybrids Trials research report

 

 

 

 

 

Farm and home owners, Extension educators and Master Gardeners from eight counties across New York state attended the April 11, 2014, Juneberries for the Home and Small Farm Workshop hosted by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Onondaga County at Sollecito Landscaping Nursery in Syracuse, NY.

At left, nursery owner Jim Sollecito holds a juneberry plant, and workshop leader Jim Ochterski, agricultural program leader of Cornell Cooperative Extension in Ontario County, holds a jar of Nordic Farms’ juneberry jam. Ochterski is partnering with NNYADP Juneberry Nursery Project leaders Michael Davis, farm manager of the Cornell Willsboro Research Farm at Willsboro, NY, and botanist Michael Burgess of SUNY Plattsburgh.

 

Those attending the workshop received juneberry production materials provided by workshop leader Jim Ochterski and the first report from the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program on the establishment of New York’s first juneberry research nursery. Everyone had a taste of Juneberry Jam from Nordic Farms in Branchport, NY.

 

Since the workshop the NNYADP has received an inquiry from a large wholesaler asking when he might expect the region to be producing a supply of berries for sale.

 

 

Learn more about juneberry production and marketing at https://www.nnyagdev.org/index.php/horticulture/juneberries-in-nny/. The page includes links to resources posted at www.juneberries.org.

The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) has received $600,000 in the recently-passed New York State Budget for research to enhance the sustainability and profitability of farm businesses in the state’s six northernmost counties: Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence.

The Northern New York agricultural industry contributes nearly $600 million in farm product market value to the local economy and has a local payroll of approximately $53 million.

Click here for comments from the NNYADP Co-Chairs Jon Greenwood, Joe Giroux and Jon Rulfs, and from North Country legislators: NYS Senate Ag Committee Chair Patty Ritchie, Senator Betty Little, Senator Joe Griffo, and NYS Assembly Ag Committee Chair Bill Magee

Videos and presentations from the recent Adapt-N Training Webinar are now online at http://adapt-n.cals.cornell.edu/webinars/index.html.

Sessions include: N Concerns and Challenges: Why Adapt-N?, 2011-2013 On-Farm Trial Results, What’s New for 2014, Inner Workings of the Adapt-N Tool, Becoming an Expert User of Adapt-N, Complementary Technologies and Future Road Map, and Live Demo of the New Adapt-N Interface.

Click here for more information on the use of Adapt-N in NNY

As Northern New York farmers begin checking their fields for signs of brown root rot (BRR) this spring, Cornell University researchers are preparing to overcome a weather-related setback to developing regionally-adapted alfalfa varieties resistant to the soil-borne fungus Phoma sclerotioides.

Ice sheeting in 2012 killed both older and younger generations of alfalfa plants and caused the loss of significant data from the field trials at the William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute at Chazy, NY.

Since 2008 with funding from the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program, Cornell researchers have managed a trial to test the resistance to BRR in currently available alfalfa varieties.

Cornell plant breeders Don Viands and Julie L. Hansen are hoping an agronomist’s loss will become a plant breeder’s gain in that the trial results were lost to winterkill, but the surviving plants may be genetically improved for winter stress, perhaps including resistance to BRR.

In 2013, the research group grew out stem cuttings from surviving plants from Cornell-developed alfalfa varieties. Seed was produced and is now ready for planting at Chazy in the 2014 BRR-resistance trials on a field with a high concentration of BRR.

BRR-resistant alfalfa grown in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, where BRR has been a long-term problem for alfalfa production, has shown up to 65 percent higher yields, however, says Cornell Plant Pathologist Gary C. Bergstrom, “Unfortunately for New York alfalfa growers, the BRR-resistant variety that does well in Saskatchewan and Alberta performs poorly here as it is susceptible to other alfalfa root rots common in New York.”

Brown root rot was first identified in the eastern United States in Clinton County in northern New York in 2003. It has since been confirmed in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Ontario. The fungus impacts alfalfa, other perennial legume crops, and overwintering grass crops. BRR persists in soil year-round, becoming primarily active in winter and early spring, causing slow crop emergence, stand decline, and yield loss.

The latest Brown Root Rot of Alfalfa: Challenges and Opportunities research report is posted in the Field Crops section on this website.