I remember reading about a brainstorming session where the group was trying to reduce egg breakage in a packing facility and after a lot of discussion that went nowhere, one group member threw up her hands and said, “Why can’t the chickens just do a better job?” And...
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Hot Season Disrupts Grapevines’ Veraison – What Can You Do?
Veraison is the critical shift in the grapevine's physiology from vegetative to reproductive growth, as the vine begins to dedicate its resources to maturing the fruit. This critical point is when all the "quality" goes into the fruit - sugars accumulate, acids change...
The Biostimulant Boost: Augmenting the Power of Fertilizers and Other Products
Biostimulants are part of the new agriculture taking shape as we’re discovering the power of combining materials to achieve superior results. Biostimulants aren’t fertilizers but they play a considerable role in assisting plants in many positive ways, from nutrient...
Getting the Most Out of Your Soils Including More Nitrogen!
Many aspects of organic production remain poorly understood. Researchers from the University of California Cooperative Extension and UC Davis looked at the transformations of N that occur in the soil and organic amendments/fertilizers that ultimately produce plant...
Root Exudation – The Route to Crop Health
As plants gather energy from their “soil panels” and exudate, or secrete, that energy through their root systems into the soil, microorganisms use this energy to improve soil fertility. Root exudation is a fundamental process in building organic matter in our soils,...
No Longer Business As Usual
No Longer Business As Usual It’s no longer acceptable to take a “business as usual' approach to agricultural practices. Whether you’re a believer in manmade climate change or not, high temperatures and drought conditions are issues we’re increasingly having to...
Helping Crops Beat the Heat
It’s not just humans and animals that suffer when the mercury rises. Plants feel the heat, too. Heat stress is a major issue in agriculture, as it can significantly reduce crop yield and quality. Even small increases in temperature or short episodes of high...
Get Your Plants Off The Couch!
“Viruses seem to be parasites by nature. So one would conclude, therefore, that their ability to reproduce must be affected by changes produced in the metabolism of the host plant caused by variations in nutrition,” Bawden and Kassanis (1950). This makes a lot of...
Foliar Applications – Essential to Any Crop Program
Soil applications of nutrients are necessary and the most common practice in crop fertilization, but it has many limitations with respect to nutrient bioavailability for plants. Plants use different inorganic nutrients in addition to CO2 and water for their growth and...
The Plants Are Talking …
Plants produce all kinds of chemical signals in response to their environment. These signals, both airborne and through the soil ecosystem, can be picked up by like plants or even eavesdropped on by other plants, especially when the plant is under attack by insects or...