Pivotal Issues Blog

By: Rosalie Trump Last week, I wrote an article about the racoon problem we’ve had on our farm and the live traps we’ve used to catch some of them. We have been using marshmallows as bait, which some people have great success with, but so far the only thing I’ve caught using marshmallows is barn […]

By: David Ekstrom In recent years, the popularity of storage has grown as farmers have taken advantage of higher commodity prices. Yet, only a small percentage of today’s bins are equipped with technology to protect a farmer’s investment. Laurie Bedord talks with IntelliFarms about its current automated bin technology. Then Dave Mowitz heads to an […]

By: Agronomy Insider How Resistance Spreads Surprised at how a field full of herbicide-resistant weeds results? It had its origins years earlier. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, as the old Cole Porter song goes. So why can’t waterhemp (or weeds) do it? That last line probably isn’t funny if […]

By: Ray Bohacz Successful Farming Engine Man Ray Bohacz has engine grease and field dirt under his fingernails from a life spent repairing vehicles and running a farm. When he’s not busy in the shop, he’s working on maintenance articles and videos for Successful Farming magazine and answering questions from readers. The following is a letter […]

By Dave Mowitz Kendall DeJonge’s mission is to take plants’ temperatures. But the crops, like corn, that he is working with don’t have to open up and say, “ahh.” Instead, DeJonge employs an infrared radiometric thermometer (IRT). This is a simple point-and-detect tool that any farmer could own. The USDA Agriculture Research Service (ARS) engineer, who works […]

By Daniel H. Smith and Paul Mitchell Crop insurance policies include various rules with guidelines on the use of cover crops. Recent changes in these rules provide an opportunity to review their application to cover crop practices.  Farmers should always communicate with their crop insurance agent to determine whether or not a specific practice will affect […]

By Tyler Harris In the last 30 years, there haven’t been any new modes of action (MOAs) introduced from chemical companies. However, recently, growers have some new tools available to them to mix up their MOAs using existing technologies, notes Debalin Sarangi, weed science postdoctoral research associate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Many of them […]

By Forrest Laws | Delta Farm Press As if farmers needed more reasons for planting winter cover crops, University of Tennessee researchers have found another one – they appear to significantly reduce the amount of nutrients moving from their fields to nearby streams. Using what is known as a Soil and Water Assessment Tool, scientists […]

By High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal Imagine an agriculture field. Most are planted with row upon row of tidy cash crops. Now imagine that same field with rows of trees between the rows of crops. This forested field concept is called alley cropping. Alley cropping helps famers diversify by growing long-term tree crops alongside short-term cash […]

By Farm Journal Guest Editor Thinking Beyond Farming to Optimize Soil Moisture Using these tools can help maximize the benefits of every raindrop and help preserve our water supply. By the year 2030, global demand for water is projected to outstrip supply by as much as 40 percent, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global […]