Crop Management

Innovations Improve Pepper Handling

Ed Hughs is determined to save chili peppers and cotton for New Mexico growers. Hughs is an agricultural engineer with Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) Southwestern Cotton Ginning Research Laboratory near Las Cruces. Heavily grown in... more »

Brassicas Have Multiple Values As Cover Crops

For many vegetable crops, three- to five-year rotations are ideal. Rotations provide a "time out," during which disease spores, insects and nematodes decline because they are deprived of a host. The idle time can be... more »

Pennsylvania Leads Nation in Rescuing Farmland

It wasn't Jane Gordon Fletcher's fault she got rich. Over the years since her birth in 1901, the value of the family farm near Malvern, Penn., just kept rising as people pressure from Philadelphia, 24... more »

Company Says It Will Not Turn to Biotech

When Monsanto announced Jan. 24 that it would buy Seminis, the first question on everyone's mind was, "What kind of biotech vegetables can we look for and when?" Monsanto Co., its name synonymous with biotechnology... more »

Taste, Tolerance Remain Popular Trends For Vegetable Industry

Eating quality, disease resistance and shelf life are the three key talking points in the vegetable seed industry right now, according to industry insiders. However, there are other characteristics seed officials are excited about. Each... more »

Law: Farmers Receive 100 Percent Tax Credit On Development Rights

This story is the fourth in a series about farmland preservation. A federal law changed recently, and in California a vineyard owner who worked hard for its passage stepped forward to be one of the... more »

Few Gripes Come From Fruit, Vegetable Producers

President George W. Bush's proposed 2006 budget for U.S. Department of Agriculture operations brought protests from many farm groups, but little criticism from the fruit and vegetable industries. President Bush proposed a 5 percent, or... more »

We’re Paying the Price of A Poor Energy Policy

With gasoline prices nearly double what they were a year ago, it's clear we're paying the price of our poor choices in the past 15 years. And we'll pay more dearly, too, because high gas... more »

Little Farmer Learns To Survive In Big World

In many ways, Matt Roloff is your average farmer. He's 44. He owns Roloff Farms, a u-pick peach and pumpkin farm near Portland, Ore. He has a wife, Amy, and four kids: Jeremy, Zach, Molly... more »

Produce companies announce merger

Heeren Brothers and J.A. Besteman Co. announced Oct. 9 that they plan to merge, creating one of the largest family-owned produce wholesalers in Michigan. The asset purchase will create a company with approximately 175 employees,... more »