Willsboro, New York; August 7, 2024.  The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) has published production data and enterprise budgets analyzing melons as an alternative crop for farms with high tunnels. This research is one of NNYADP’s horticultural projects evaluating opportunities to diversify crop options for spring-to-fall season extension and year-round local foods production.

Regional Vegetable Specialist Elisabeth Hodgdon, Ph.D., and Agricultural Business Development and Marketing Specialist Lindsey Pashow with Cornell University compared the use of two vertical trellising systems – a double leader system and a mesh netting system – to untrellised production in a 30-foot by 96-foot unheated high tunnel. The trial was hosted at the Willsboro Research Farm in Willsboro, New York.

Two varieties of miniature muskmelon, “Sugar Cube” and “Tasty Bites,” were grown using each system and organic production methods, including the use of pest exclusive netting and beneficial insects, including bumblebees, parasitoid wasps, and ladybeetles.

A May 18^th frost stunted the first planting. After reseeding, transplants were moved to the high tunnel on July 6, 2023. The melons on the trellising systems were pruned and clipped for six weeks until they reached the high tunnel rafters in late August.

The melons were harvested two to three times per week beginning in early September and harvest continued until the first fall frost on October 30^th. Marketable yield ranged from four to six marketable fruit with weights ranging from 7.28 pounds to 9.51 pounds per plant.

“Plants harvested in the untrellised system were harvested slightly earlier than with the trellising treatments, which can be beneficial to farms interested in being the first to market with a particular crop,” Pashow noted.

Six enterprise budgets were calculated to identify gross and net income for each variety grown under each of the three systems. Total market weight, yield, and unmarketable melon numbers were all considered in calculating income opportunity. The income potential was compared with the income estimates in studies by Pennsylvania State University and Iowa State University for the popular high tunnel-grown crops of tomatoes and cucumbers.

The net income range of $1,184.43 to $2,835.66 calculated for the melon production systems in northern New York was compared with rough net income potential in studies by Pennsylvania State University and Iowa State University for the popular high tunnel crops of tomatoes ($1,374.00) and cucumbers ($2,550.00).

“While our data suggests that melons likely will not replace tomatoes and cucumbers in a high tunnel system, they may be a valuable addition to a farm’s high tunnel cropping plan. Growers must compare the various aspects of the data from this trial and decide whether the addition of melon production is a good fit for their farm,” Dr. Hodgdon said.

Willsboro Research Farm Manager Michael H. Davis, Ph.D., and Cornell Vegetable Specialist Judson Reid collaborated on the project; program aide Jennifer Stanton assisted with harvest and trial data collection. Click here to read the complete report for this project.

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.

August 6, 2024.  Atypical weather in northern New York may have impacted field trials investigating the interseeding of alternative forages on corn silage yield and quality. The trials were conducted by Miner Institute with funding from the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP).

“We planted a trial in 2023 to investigate whether interseeding alternative forages into corn silage under northern New York growing conditions could be a way to improve the economics of interseeding by adding yield or quality value to the silage,” says project leader Allen Wilder, forage agronomist at Miner Institute, Chazy, New York.

The 2023 growing season in northern New York was not typical for the region. Conditions were abnormally dry in the spring, followed by an anomalously wet summer. The spring and fall were warmer than normal; however, there were notable cold spells in May that delayed crop development. Late summer was slightly cooler than average. A warmer-than-typical fall in northern New York extended the growing season and contributed to an extremely rapid dry-down. The total yearly precipitation recorded at Miner Institute in 2023 was 142.7 percent of normal.

Wilder established trials at Miner Institute in Chazy, New York, and at a working farm in Mooers, New York. At both sites, corn was planted on 30-inch rows at a plant population of 32,019 plants per acre. Previous manure application provided most of the crop nutrition during the growing season. Glyphosate alone was used for weed control.

Male sterile forage sorghum and forage kale were selected as the alternative forage crops for the trial.

Interseeding was done at the V5 stage of a dwarf variety of corn at Chazy and at V7 stage at Mooers with a six-row drill interseeder. Seeding rate was calculated to be approximately 10.7 pounds per acre for the sorghum and 6.4 pound per acre for the kale.

At the Mooers farm, the interseeding was done relatively close to corn canopy closure, thus, Wilder says, “It is not surprising that no statistical yield difference was detected in the corn there. Almost all the kale had completely died out by the end of the season as a result of being smothered by the corn.”

The forage sorghum at the Mooers site did not reach a height sufficient to be even partially harvested with the corn.

An earlier interseeding date – June 16^th at Chazy vs. June 30th at Mooers – plus the shorter stature of the dwarf corn likely helped the establishment of the interseeded crops at Chazy. By the end of the season, the sorghum, waist high in some areas, produced harvestable biomass able to be cut by a multi-directional corn head. The kale, however, appeared stunted and was unharvestable.

“The interseeding at Chazy of corn with forage sorghum and kale did not result in a corn yield decline. Oddly enough, the moisture content of the corn interseeded with kale was affected with the kale causing the forage sample to be slightly drier than that of the corn interseeded with forage sorghum and the corn-only control,” Wilder says.

Significant differences were not detected in forage quality at Chazy for most parameters evaluated, with some exceptions.

Forage samples from both the interseeded kale and interseeded sorghum plots were proportionally lower in protein than the corn-only control.  Wilder says, “This may be a symptom of increased nitrogen demand on the soil of two crops growing at the same time. In this case, it would make sense that the nitrogen would have to be split between the crops and a lower total crude protein percentage would be harvested.”

Crude fat was slightly, but significantly, lower from the kale interseeding. Wilder postulates that interseeding reduced the fat content of the corn, while additional lipids were captured in the sorghum treatment through harvesting of the sorghum tops.

This one-year trial suggests interseeding at V5 stage or earlier may be warranted for growers in the state’s northern region; however, this single trial also evidences the need for more evaluation of the performance of corn interseeded with alternative forages under different years’ growing conditions. More data would also help with the important selection of forage species for best results with interseeding.

The results of these trials conducted by Miner Institute with funding from the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program are publicly accessible at www.nnyagdev.org under About: NNYADP Projects by Year: 2023.

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.

Click here to see the Plattsburgh Press-Republican story on this research.

July 12, 2024.  American Agriculturist Editor Chris Torres recently featured the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP)-funded dairy climatic heat stress abatement research conducted by Miner Institute.  Chris spoke with Greg Palmer, Herdsman at Dimock Farms that hosted some of the research trials, and with Katie Ballard, Director of Research at Miner Institute, who has conducted a number of dairy animal climatic heat stress abatement research projects with NNYADP support.

Click here to read the American Agriculturist “Cows hot? Let the air flow” article that includes a graph from the NNYADP 2023 report showing the impact of cooling fans on average milk production from April through October.

Click here to read NNYADP heat stress abatement research reports: the latest report is at the top of the page; others are farther down on the page under a heading of Heat Stress Abatement on Dairy Farms

Preliminary Research Showed Atrazine May Not Be Necessary
NNYADP project responds to proposed EPA interest in reducing herbicide’s use; more on-farm trials underway

July 9, 2024.  Following upon Environmental Protection Agency interest in reducing the use of atrazine, an herbicide applied for early season weed control in field corn, the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) funded on-farm research in 2023 to address growers’ questions about the effectiveness of using reduced rates of atrazine or no atrazine.

“The results of this limited-scope, preliminary trial demonstrated that excellent corn weed control was achievable regardless of the atrazine rate used and without inclusion of atrazine in the herbicide treatment; however, additional trials are now underway to provide data from other locations and in different growing seasons before we draw any definite conclusions,” said New York State Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Field Crops IPM Coordinator Mike Hunter.

Hunter conducted the research on farms in Franklin and Jefferson counties in 2023. All herbicide treatments – with and without atrazine – provided greater than 93 percent control of common lambsquarter. The range of effectiveness was 93.75 to 100 percent control.

Hunter’s weed control effectiveness assessment primarily focused on common lambsquarter as a predominant weed at both farms in the study. Common lambsquarter grows in wide range of soil types, is a strong consumer of nutrients, and takes a growth advantage from nitrogen applications. The weed’s seeds are spread through the manure of grazing animals and movement of field equipment.

The weed control assessment was conducted 35 days after the application of 16 different pre-emergence herbicide treatments. The application rates were adjusted at each farm based on soil texture and organic matter. Both trial locations received sufficient rainfall to activate the soil-applied treatments.

The “Evaluation of Corn Herbicide Programs With and Without Atrazine” project results are publicly-accessible on the NNYADP website under the About: Projects by Year 2023 tab at 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 Dairy Heat Stress Abatement Research was featured on a late June 2024 episode of the Cornell Cow Convos podcast. To hear the episode click on the highlighted link below.

In the eleventh episode of the Cornell Cow Convos podcast, Lindsay Ferlito, Cornell PRO-DAIRY’s Dairy Animal Welfare Specialist, and Dr. Kaitlyn Lutz, Dairy Management Specialist with CCE Northwest NY Dairy, Livestock, and Field Crops Team, interview Katie Ballard, Research Director at the William H. Miner Institute (and project leader of several NNYADP-funded dairy animal heat stress research projects). They discuss the impacts of heat stress in dairy cows in NY, the takeaways from Katie’s research in this area, and heat abatement strategies to consider on our region’s dairy farms.

To see the results of NNYADP dairy heat stress research, click here.