Every year California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) produces their yearly report which is always interesting although the amount of information can be overwhelming. Lots of food for thought to ponder with no pun intended: The sales value generated by...
News
Plant Immune Systems
I'm frequently talking about how technologies greatest impact on agriculture could be in new measurements. New research has uncovered a previously unknown means by which plants are able to regulate how their immune systems respond to pathogens. "A group of small...
New findings on how plants manage immune response
New research, being published January 20 in the journal Science, has uncovered a previously unknown means by which plants are able to regulate how their immune systems respond to pathogens. A group of small peptides, referred to as RALFs (Rapid ALkalinization...
Chitin is a promising soil amendment for improving soil quality, plant growth, and plant resilience.
In the current study, we demonstrated that the chitin soil amendment strategy which was previously known to be effective against plant pathogens (e.g., Dutta and Isaac, 1979; Hallmann et al., 1999; Cretoiu et al., 2013) also is able to control Salmonella on leafy...
Future Water Management
As of Jan. 10, all of northern California, everything north of Sacramento, is no longer in drought, according to the federal government. South of Sacramento, with the exception of a sliver of land along the coast north of Monterey Bay, remains in some level of...
Water and Soil Treatment Breakthru
We highly value our capability to contribute to our client’s growing practices by providing you with options and solutions that deliver distinguishable advantages. Hence, we’re very excited about our new partnership with Bio-Organic Catalyst (BOC). BOC manufacturers a...
UNH Research: Microbial Traits, not Plants, Determine Abundance of Soil Organic Matter
Healthy soil is rich in organic matter, but scientists have yet to fully understand exactly how that organic matter is formed. Now a team of University of New Hampshire scientists have uncovered evidence that microbial pathways – not plants – are the chief originator...
Organic Growing Practices Outperform Conventional Growing Practices
We've been espousing the benefits of sustainable and organic growing practices for a long time. Growers that have committed to these practices over extensive periods are telling us that they are experiencing excellent results and witnessing their organic crops...
Pruning To Avoid Frost Damage
Delayed pruning is an effective strategy for delaying bud burst and reducing risk of frost injury. Delayed pruning or double pruning techniques take advantage of a characteristic that all grapevines have called apical dominance. This term means that the buds on the...
Why We Should Foliar Feed Our Crops
Many organic and sustainable farms still operate under the NPK principle but are choosing and apply fertilizers from organic sources. Growers realize that having pristine farmland requiring no additional inputs is an unrealistic scenario. Providing a plant with...