April and May are traditionally dry periods for farming in North Florida. Unfortunately, this coincides with rapidly increasing water requirements by the crops we grow. Corn is particularly challenging this time of year with rapidly increasing plant water demand and large yield impacts of drought stress. The warm dry conditions throughout May have done little to assist …
Wait! Not so fast! Even though March is National Peanut Month, local farmers are still waiting for the right conditions to begin planting their peanut crop. Recent research at the University of Georgia has cautioned farmers to wait until soil temperatures reach 68 F at the 4” depth. This work has shown that peanut seed …
Corn planters are starting to hit the fields of North Florida and we are seeing emergence on the first planted corn. Conditions have been near optimum for corn seed germination and plant emergence. I am always amazed at the process of a seed to develop into a plant and harvestable crop. The most amazing part is that it begins …
We have been working with Sunn Hemp as a summer cover crop on a production scale for about 5 years now. This is a fast growing, nitrogen fixing legume that thrives in a warm climate. One local farmer plants a couple irrigated fields each year after the corn crop is harvested. These are fields that have two …
In this area of North Florida corn planters are usually rolling by the first week of March. I suspect there may be one or two going already. However, February weather has been a bit unnerving for most as they are ready to get the cropping season underway. I was a bit surprised when I looked at …
My phone often rings with questions about the peanut market. The market conditions are not as clear as the Chicago Board of Trade where farmers can pull up current prices 24 hours a day. They often think I may have some “inside track” of information they are not exposed to. Most farmers know little more than what they see on their farm. However, …
I share this quote that one of our North Florida farmers made this week. “Peanuts at Wadsworth haven’t had rain since around July 15, about 4 weeks, starting to see signs of needing water. Lafitte is not doing well at all, showing a lot of stress.” Moisture stress has been the name of the game …
I have opened countless articles this year that described the important role that drones will play in farming and consulting. From my professional standpoint I wanted to know, “Can a drone play a role in Extension?” I teamed up with Dr. Dan Dourte, UF/IFAS Ag Engineering and Dr. Wendy-Lin Bartels, UF/IFAS Food and Resource Economics to consider the suitability of the …
Throughout North Florida farmers are busy with planters chasing the combine as small grains are being harvested and cash crops planted. We have been blessed with consistent rainfall the entire spring, and there has been plenty of moisture to get crops established without any issues. Most seasons farmers feel like they give up a little yield …
We are starting to see corn shooting tassels in a few fields. Although most of the crop was planted later, a few local fields were planted in the first two weeks of March. As a general rule of thumb I usually say it takes 68-70 days for tassel emergence in our earliest planted corn. I went …