NNY Ag Development Program

Northern New York Agriculture

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NNY Beef Nutrition Meetings: Nov 12-15

Do your forages meet the requirements of your cows or calves over the winter? Learn about computerized ration analyzers  at any of these meetings in Northern New York with Dr. Mike Baker, Cornell University Beef Extension Specialist. Bring your laptop and get help to set it up. If you do not have a forage analysis done, discuss hay corer and instructions. Call your local site for more details.

Nov 12 – Watertown. Forage Quality for Beef and Equine. Free. contact CCE Jefferson County for details: 315-788-8450, efc57@cornell.edu
Nov 13 – East Adirondack Cattle Company Farm Tour and Beef Discussion, Westport. Free. Contact CCE Essex County for details: 518-962-4810 x409, cfs82@cornell.edu
Nov 14 – Malone. Free. Contact CCE Franklin County for details: 518-483-7403, jlr15@cornell.edu
Nov 15 – Extension Learning Farm, Canton.  Cost: $5.00.  Registration appreciated but not required.  Contact CCE St. Lawrence County, 315-379-9192 x226, bmf9@cornell.edu

 

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October 28: Beef Producers Fall Meeting in Potsdam

The Region 8/9 NY Beef Producers Fall Meeting will held Monday October 28, 2019 at the “Stables” at Windy Point Angus Farm, 215 Sissonville Road in Potsdam, NY.

Guest speaker Levi Geyer from New Holland, PA, works for the USDA Ag Marketing Service and is the price reporter for Livestock, Poultry and Grain Market News. He has traveled throughout the Northeast as a feeder cattle grader and auctioneer at various feeder sales. Levi keeps his finger on the pulse of the cattle market world and will be a great source of information at this meeting.

Dinner will be provided; a $5-$10 donation is asked of to help cover cost of event depending on sponsor support.  RSVP before Thursday, October 24 to Craig Southworth, NYBPA President Region 8/9, at 518-651-4390, c.southworth43@gmail.com.

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Sugaring for Profit Course w/NNY Maple Specialist Adam Wild Begins Nov. 5

November 5-December 10, 2019
Intro To Maple Syrup Production for Profit:
Tap into the Syrup Possibilities on Your Farm
6-week course includes 7 pm-8:30 pm Tuesday webinars
Course taught by Cornell NNY Maple Specialist and Uihlein Maple Research Forest Director Adam Wild. Assess the potential for maple sugaring on your land, alternative trees (including birch and black walnut) for production, understand costs and benefits of different systems for collection, processing, and packaging. Bulk of the course happens on your own time with discussions, readings and assignments in Teachable online course platform with weekly webinars. Learn more: https://smallfarmcourses.com/p/bf-152-intro-to-maple-syrup-production

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NNY Tile Research: Rain & Drains, Loss & Gains

Surface runoff is sampled and gauged from an undrained cornfield in Clinton County at this monitoring station as part of tile drainage research funded by the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program. Photo: Leanna Thalmann/Miner Institute

Chazy, N.Y.: October 8, 2019.   Field-level research funded by the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program is responding to the need to better understand how tile drainage influences nutrient efficiency, water quality, crop production, and farm economics.

Results from the most recent data collection from tiles installed at the Lake Alice Wildlife Management Area in Chazy, N.Y., and on a working farm in Clinton County are adding to a database designed to quantify surface and underground movement of nutrients beyond field boundaries. The work has also begun identifying opportunities to develop best practices for nutrient conservation to support both crop production and environmental stewardship.

Project leader Laura Klaiber, Nutrient Management Researcher at W.H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute, Chazy, N.Y., explains, “Although tile drainage naturally exports some level of nutrients, until the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program established these research trials there had been very few in-depth year-round studies in this region designed to investigate how the use of tile drainage directly impacts runoff and nutrient cycling in agricultural fields.”

For some farms, the use of tile drainage significantly benefits crop yield, yield consistency, and crop quality; allows farmers to access fields sooner for spring planting and later in the fall for harvesting and cover crop planting; and can reduce soil erosion.

Photo: Leanna Thalmann/Miner Institute

In the on-farm study, corn yields were 30 percent greater from the tile-drained field than an adjacent undrained field. Klaiber says the improved drainage may have created better conditions for root development and increased nitrogen mineralization rates in the soil, resulting in greater nitrogen availability for crop growth.

Overall, phosphorus losses across all trial plots were below thresholds for freshwater eutrophication.

However, Klaiber points out, “The data indicates that there is a pool of phosphorus at the soil surface which could pose a risk for higher losses during a year with more precipitation, particularly in the undrained field where there is a greater risk of surface runoff and erosion. These northern New York trials suggest that continued development, and use, of best management practices, such as cover cropping, would support efficient nutrient uptake and minimize nutrient loss, particularly in the spring season.”

Separate projects funded by the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program are assisting farmers with whole farm nutrient balancing and refining precision manure and fertilizer application guidelines that help reduce the amount of phosphorus available for runoff, while supporting successful crop development and potential cost savings.

The complexities of weather interaction with different crops, cropping systems, field management, soil types, soil fertility, and topography are in the wings for next-step research and evaluation.

“As we all know, weather events can be highly variable and extreme, so multi-year data collection that increases our knowledge base is the foundation for developing the best management recommendations to positively impact nutrient use, farm economics, and environmental stewardship,” Klaiber points out.

The results of the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program-funded tile drainage projects are posted at https://nnyagdev.org/index.php/field-crops/drainage-management/, and have been presented at regional Crop Congresses; at watershed events in New York State; to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets Tile Drainage Advisory Group; and to the House Agriculture and Forestry Commission, Montpelier, VT.

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

 

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NNYADP Apple Research Supports Recovery Fire Blight Epidemic

USDA/Peggy Greb

Peru, N.Y.; September 12, 2019. Apple research funded by the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program and conducted by Srdjan G. Acimovic, Ph.D., of the Hudson Valley Research Laboratory, has helped regional growers recover from the 2016 epidemic of fire blight in the Champlain Valley region, and the project data has informed growers statewide.

“The impact of this research is depicted in the fact that growers did not have any new fire blight epidemics in 2017 or 2018 in the same or nearby orchards nor any new tree or fruit losses,” said Acimovic, a Senior Extension Associate in the Cornell University School of Integrative Plant Science Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section, based at the Hudson Valley Research Laboratory, Highland, N.Y.

Fire blight is a bacterial disease that infects apple flowers, shoots and, sometimes, entire trees, with the potential to cause severe economic damage to orchard businesses.

Cornell researchers estimate the damage, including yield loss and tree death, from a fire blight epidemic in the northern NY apple orchards in 2016 at more than $14 million.

Seven NNY apple farms and one Hudson Valley apple grower have worked with Acimovic as his research team refines the development of fire blight detection and prediction tools and associated management recommendations.

The detection of the fire blight pathogen in rootstocks in the NNY orchards helped growers identify infected trees for removal, and, in some cases, which orchard blocks needed replanting after the 2016 epidemic.

“A year ago, in September 2018, when we rated trees in the NNY apple orchards for tree death caused by fire blight, we detected very little change in six of the seven farms and only slightly more dead trees on one farm,” Acimovic noted.

On-farm monitoring, location-specific fire blight prediction interpretation, and e-mail alerts with management recommendations have kept growers ahead of the disease curve, encouraged precision application, and, therefore, reduced spraying.

The NNY orchard owners allowed Acimovic to use their data to support alerts to growers statewide.

However, Acimovic advises caution as the fire blight pathogen can linger at low levels beyond the detection of current tools. He has worked with NNY growers in 2019 to enhance the sensitivity of the detection equipment.

The current precision apple orchard research funded by the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program is also developing a more in-depth understanding of the strains of fire blight bacterium to learn their virulence and ability to infect orchards not only in NNY, but anywhere in New York State.

“Characterizing the various strains of fire blight will inform us more about the susceptibility or resistance an orchard may have, and how well it might respond to treatment,” Acimovic said.

The NNYADP-funded apple research in 2019 is applying new apple disease prediction models to time and reduce spraying, measuring the efficacy of copper applications to manage fire blight, and analyzing the dynamics of the pathogen development in tree cankers over the two years of data collected in the NNY orchards.

Apple growers interested in more information on this research may contact Cornell Cooperative Extension Tree Fruit Specialist Michael Basedow at 518-410-6823. The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program website at www.nnyagdev.org includes a link to the Acimovic Lab disease management and modeling blog.

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

Click here for the complete NNYADP fire blight research report

Acimovic Lab Disease Management & Management Blog