August 28, 2018; from CCE Essex News Bulletin:

The Reduced Tillage in Organic Systems Field Day event held on July 31st was a hit! We had 6 stations and about 70 attendees rotating among each, where a roller-crimper, a zone tiller, and weed management machinery were demonstrated among a variety of discussion topics related to incorporating reduced tillage management into crop production.

Check out the resource booklet that covers some of the topics and also incorporates related information here: Reduced Tillage Field Day Handbook (requires Acrobat Reader 9 or higher; alternate link:
https://rvpadmin.cce.cornell.edu/uploads/doc_699.pdf

This day was a collaboration of the Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture CCE team, Willsboro Research Farm, North Country Regional Ag CCE team, CCE Essex, Cornell Small Farms program, NYS IPM program, University of Vermont, and Champlain Basin Program. Expert guest speakers included Jean-Paul Cortens of Roxbury Farm and Jack Lazor of Butterworks Farm.

Thank you to the NY Soil Health program, Champlain Basin Program and the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program for your support. Great job, Amy Ivy, for pulling it all together!

Previously reported on this website:
The overall focus of the day (free to attend) on improving soil health was developed to meet grower requests. While the event is geared toward organic vegetable, row crop, and small grain growers, the practices discussed will also benefit conventional growers.

“Decreasing soil disturbance maintains diverse and active biological activity that is critical for well-functioning, healthy soil. Reducing tillage intensity and mechanical soil disturbance can improve soil health. Over time, this helps maintain or increase crop yields, while reducing production costs due to saved labor, equipment wear, and fuel,” notes organizer Amy Ivy, a vegetable specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Clinton County.

The field day topics include roller-crimping, zone tillage in high residue, in-row cultivation tools, stale seedbed and weed seed bank management strategies and grower experiences with reduced tillage on their farms.

The field day speakers are Jean-Paul Courtens, Roxbury Farm, Kinderhook, NY; University of Vermont Agronomist Heather Darby; Cornell Willsboro Research Farm Manager Mike Davis; Jack Lazor, Butterwork Farm, Westfield, VT; Chuck Bornt, Cornell Cooperative Extension Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Program; Bryan Brown and Ryan Maher, Cornell Small Farms Program; Kitty O’Neil, Cornell Cooperative Extension North Country Regional Ag Team; and Cornell University Weed Ecology and Management Professor John Wallace.

Participants at the day-long event will rotate between three demonstration and discussion stations in the morning and three in the afternoon. Lunch is included. The first 50 attendees will receive a program resource booklet.

The Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Program, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County and the Cornell Willsboro Research Farm coordinated this field day with funding support from the New York State Soil Health Initiative, Lake Champlain Basin Program, and the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program.

For more information, contact Amy Ivy, Cornell Cooperative Extension Clinton County, 518-561-7450, adi2@cornell.edu.

 

Thank you, Mountain Lake PBS! Click on dated link to see the segment.

Plattsburgh, NY; August 27, 2018. In a Friday, June 24, 2018 broadcast, PBS television affiliate Mountain Lake PBS in Plattsburgh, NY, featured a first-of-its-kind research site, made possible with funding from the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program, in Willsboro, NY.

The weekly news magazine program, Mountain Lake Journal highlighted the first Juneberry research nursery in New York State and one of the largest living collections of Amelanchier in the U.S.

Amelanchier is the scientific name for Juneberry, considered a “super fruit” for its antioxidant value.

A grant from the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP) providing research and technical assistance to farms in the six northernmost counties of New York State provided the funds that created the Juneberry nursery at the Willsboro Research Farm. The farm is a Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station.

“The farmers who review grant requests to the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program put value on the potential of Juneberry to become a significant new fruit crop for regional growers,” says NNYADP Co-Chair Jon Rulfs.

Mountain Lake PBS Senior Producer Thom Hallock says, “We wanted to feature this research and the Willsboro Farm Juneberry nursery to give our viewers a look into the fascinating work that is going on to develop several varieties of Juneberries for commercial scale production that may, in the not-too-distant future, be available for farmers markets across New York State.”

Viewers heard about the Juneberry research from project leaders Dr. Michael Burgess a botanist and assistant professor of biology at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, and Willsboro Farm Manager Michael H. Davis, Ph.D.

To start the project, Burgess and Davis collected cultivars of wild Juneberry growing in multiple states in 2013 and 2014. Burgess grew the cuttings out in his greenhouse laboratory at SUNY Plattsburgh for transplant to the new nursery site at Willsboro. The nursery also includes commercially-available varieties of Juneberry.

Farms in the Northern NY region have begun adding on-farm Juneberry plantings.

The Associated Press and such publications as Fruit Growers News, Nursery Management, Producer Grower, and the international Horti-Daily have reported on the progress of this Northern New York-based Juneberry research.

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

More information is posted on this website under the Horticulture tab.

Mountain Lake PBS has been the public media station for the Adirondacks and Champlain Valley region for more than 40 years. Its reach includes audiences in New York, Vermont, and Quebec and Ontario, Canada. Mountain Lake Journal airs on Friday at 8 pm, Saturday at 7 pm, Sunday at 10 am, and on all the Mountain Lake PBS social media platforms. Learn more at www.mountainlake.org.

 

 

Weighing the 2018 Juneberry Crop in Willsboro

July 2018.  The research team at the Cornell Willsboro Research Farm has been busy picking and weighing (and tasting) the 2018 crop of Juneberries in the nursery there. The nursery, which contains a number of different varieties of the high-antioxidant berry, was established with funding from the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program. Juneberries (amelanchier) are sold as fresh fruit and u-pick, and are popular for making jams and jellies.

The co-leaders of this project are Dr. Michael Burgess, SUNY Plattsburgh, and Cornell Willsboro Research Farm Manager Michael H. Davis. Read more about this project under the Horticulture tab, Juneberries section of this website.

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How Does Summer Heat Impact Dairy Cows on Northern New York Farms? See NNYADP-Funded Research by Miner Institute

Chazy, NY: July 16, 2018. Heat stress in dairy cattle in the United States costs the dairy industry $1.5 billion annually according to a 2003 study by Ohio State University (St. Pierre et al.) and the University of Illinois. A 2012 study by the University of Florida (De Vries) estimated the economic loss for heat-stressed cows under minimal heat abatement to vary from $72 per cow per year in Wisconsin to more than $600 per cow per year at dairy farms in Florida.

“Dairy cattle respond to heat stress in several ways, including greater standing time, reduced eating activity and less rumination, increased water consumption, and reduced milk production,” said Katie Ballard, Director of Research at the W.H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute, Chazy, NY.

With funding from the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program, Miner Institute has conducted a number of studies evaluating how climate stress impacts dairy cows and calves and the work continues this summer. The results of past studies are posted in the Dairy section of the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program website at www.nnyagdev.org.

In 2017, Miner Institute assessed the impact of episodic heat stress on dairy cows managed within varying farm management systems with different degrees of heat abatement.

The research team evaluated the impact on cow behavior; productive response, lameness, milk yield and milk components production from June through September on four dairy farms in Northern New York.

“The results of this study made it clear that dairy cows in the northern region of New York State are adversely impacted by episodic bouts of heat stress even during a summer without any true heat waves. All the farms participating in the project were impacted to varying degrees regardless of the type of heat abatement employed,” said Ballard.

The heat abatement measures used in the housing systems during the study included natural ventilation only, fans over stalls, naturally-assisted ventilation, and forced ventilation. The study included both free stall and tie-stall barns, sand bedding and rubber mats with shavings, and different cow stocking densities.

While all cows spent more time standing and less time lying during heat events, the cows with only natural ventilation were impacted the most and exhibited decreased resting time, increased lameness, and decreased milk protein content, resulting in an expected negative impact on farm profitability.

With a 2018 Northern New York Agricultural Development Program grant, this research into the impact of heat stress on dairy cows in NNY continues with the addition of a farm using fans and water sprinkler system over the cows’ feedbunk. Evaluation of factors that influence cow bunching behavior is also part of the 2018 project.

“This summer is certainly starting out to be much hotter and more humid than last summer, and more stressful for cows and humans,” Ballard said.

Click here for the complete 2018 research report on “The Impact of Episodic Heat Stress on Lactating Dairy Cows on NNY Farms.”

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

 

Willsboro, NY; July 3, 2018.  In-field demonstrations with agricultural specialists and growers from NY and Vermont and six learning stations are all part of the Reduced Tillage in Organic Systems Field Day to be held Tuesday, July 31, 2018, from 9 am to 3 pm at the Cornell Willsboro Research Farm, 48 Sayward Lane, Willsboro, NY. The event is free to attend.

The overall focus of the day on improving soil health was developed to meet grower requests. While the event is geared toward organic vegetable, row crop, and small grain growers, the practices discussed will also benefit conventional growers.

“Decreasing soil disturbance maintains diverse and active biological activity that is critical for well-functioning, healthy soil. Reducing tillage intensity and mechanical soil disturbance can improve soil health. Over time, this helps maintain or increase crop yields, while reducing production costs due to saved labor, equipment wear, and fuel,” notes organizer Amy Ivy, a vegetable specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Clinton County.

The field day topics include roller-crimping, zone tillage in high residue, in-row cultivation tools, stale seedbed and weed seed bank management strategies and grower experiences with reduced tillage on their farms.

The field day speakers are Jean-Paul Courtens, Roxbury Farm, Kinderhook, NY; University of Vermont Agronomist Heather Darby; Cornell Willsboro Research Farm Manager Mike Davis; Jack Lazor, Butterwork Farm, Westfield, VT; Chuck Bornt, Cornell Cooperative Extension Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Program; Bryan Brown and Ryan Maher, Cornell Small Farms Program; Kitty O’Neil, Cornell Cooperative Extension North Country Regional Ag Team; and Cornell University Weed Ecology and Management Professor John Wallace.

Participants at the day-long event will rotate between three demonstration and discussion stations in the morning and three in the afternoon. Lunch is included. The first 50 attendees will receive a program resource booklet.

The Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Program, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County and the Cornell Willsboro Research Farm coordinated this field day with funding support from the New York State Soil Health Initiative, Lake Champlain Basin Program, and the farmer-driven Northern New York Agricultural Development Program.

For more information, contact Amy Ivy, Cornell Cooperative Extension Clinton County, 518-561-7450, adi2@cornell.edu.