EnvironmentNutrien Ag Solutions' Eric Snodgrass says an El Nino that has already passed the 2015 record helped bring up to 30 inches of rain to parts of the Corn Belt in August and September, with a drier window and a warm northern winter ahead.
AgribusinessGovernor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2646, lifting the minimum agricultural wage to $19.75 an hour from January, above the $16.90 H-2A rate; growers say it will raise labour costs by hundreds of millions of dollars.
CropsIowa confirmed its first two cases of the soilborne soybean disease this year; pathologists say losses can reach 50 to 70 percent in bad patches and urge farmers to scout, test and stop soil moving between fields.
EnvironmentIn Capital Press's Ag 250 series, tribal and Washington State University experts describe how Pacific Northwest peoples built food security through salmon weirs, shellfish beds, root gardens and fire-managed prairies, and why tribes are reviving those food ways.
CropsThe National Association of Wheat Growers says diesel near $7 a gallon, dearer fertilizer and low wheat prices are pushing family farms toward a breaking point as the latest 2018 Farm Bill extension expires.
Market ManagementNational average loan rates rise to 24.00 cents a pound for raw cane sugar and 32.77 cents for refined beet sugar, and the fiscal 2027 marketing allotment is set at 85 percent of forecast US consumption.
VegetablesA Texas A&M AgriLife team created a full-length DNA copy of a pepper-infecting TSWV strain that produces infectious virus on demand, giving breeders a standard tool to screen tomatoes and peppers for resistance.
LivestockUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers fed heifers silage diets with raw or roasted soybeans or modified distillers grains for 84 days: distillers grains gave the fastest gains, roasted soybeans the best feed efficiency.
HealthComparing nearly 27,000 pet dogs, 59 hunting dogs and more than 260 wild canids, Penn State researchers found wildlife carried more parasites and detected a tapeworm that can infect people, using a DNA-based test.
AgribusinessA final rule with comment period for the Rural Energy for America Program simplifies applications for farmers and rural small businesses, limits oversized solar on productive farmland and bars components from foreign adversaries.
AgribusinessWith on-highway diesel at a national average of $6.38 a gallon and farm diesel near $6 in the Corn Belt, the American Farm Bureau Federation wants the federal highway diesel tax suspended during harvest.
LivestockThe Norwegian livestock tech company's solar-powered cattle collars will warn farmers when a cow is calving and map how hard each pasture is grazed, as it grows in the US and doubles its warranty to ten years.
American Vanguard's AMVAC is acquiring the US registrations and trademarks for Caparol, Evik, Prime+ and Agri-Flex, which it expects to add more than $7 million in annual net sales.
