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Agriculture

  • Wait to cover strawberry plants

    One of the last gardening chores before winter is putting the strawberry plants to bed for winter. Strawberry plants have already set flower buds for spring and they need to be protected to ensure those buds don’t freeze during winter’s annual frigid cruelty. A fully dormant strawberry plant can protect its flower buds down to about 15 degrees below zero, however other factors like wind chill, length of the cold spell, and freeze can affect if the flower buds can actually withstand temperatures down to 15 below.

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  • Forage testing is a must for this year's hay crop; weather damages corn

    While driving the highways of Kentucky this fall, the need for testing this year’s hay has become painfully apparent. While driving I see rows and rows of round hay bales stored outside, with green grass growing on top of the bales. This is due primarily to two factors. First, the hay was made at a very mature stage and had a tremendous amount of viable seed in the seed heads of the hay when baled. This seed ensures that the hay was way past an optimal nutrient value when it was harvested thus reducing quality dramatically.

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  • Wait to prune roses

    After the frosts and freezes I have gotten numerous calls on roses particularly knockout roses and when to cut them back.  You wouldn’t believe how many people have knockouts that have overgrown their bounds this year. This means one thing, we had a good year!

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  • 4-H Teen Club to request support for program

    Over the next several weeks, the 4-H Teen Club will be making their annual request for community support of the Food for Kids Backpack program.  Last year, many generous individuals and groups supported the program, and over 130 local students received backpack food on a weekly basis.  

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  • Sign up for energy stimulus incentives

    The Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy announces that American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funds are available to Washington County farmers on approved energy efficiency cost-share items.

    Washington County is one of 49 counties that will not have held or completed a sign-up period for the County Agricultural Investment Program (CAIP) prior to Nov.15, 2009.  Therefore, farmers in Washington County may apply directly to the Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy (GOAP) for these energy stimulus incentives.

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  • Register for Safe Night Washington County

    “Peace, Fun & Safe Night” will be the theme for this year’s Safe Night Washington County program.  This is the 11th year for the Washington County Heartland Youth Coalition to sponsor a night where young people can come to have fun in a safe place with no weapons, no arguments and no drugs and alcohol.  

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  • Learn more about Gibberella ear rot

    The following news article is from Paul Vincelli, Plant Pathology, University of Kentucky College of Agriculture.  

    Last month, I wrote an article about Diplodia ear rot, our most common corn ear rot in Kentucky. Diplodia has no known associations with mycotoxins in corn. Gibberella ear rot is associated with mycotoxins and in some cases may look very similar to Diplodia. Normally, Gibberella ear rot is not a widespread problem in Kentucky, but this is not a normal year.

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  • Farmland enrolled in DCP, ACRE programs

    On Oct. 20, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that approximately 255 million base acres on about 1.7 million farms were enrolled in the Direct and Counter-cyclical Program (DCP) and in the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program. USDA will issue nearly $4 billion in 2009 final direct payments to eligible producers on approved contracts. Producers have already received advance payments of approximately $900 million. Producers who signed up their farm under DCP are eligible for direct payments, counter-cyclical payments and marketing assistance commodity loans.

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  • Taking a look at the bottom line

    The bottom line of a complete budget generally refers to what is left after covering all costs, including depreciation, labor, land, management, etc. But most of the time cow-calf producers operate with a partial budget where the bottom line is “returns to land, labor and management”. In other words, we may be interested in what’s left over after we cover “out-of-pocket” costs. Most economists would say that only works in the short-run but small cow-calf producers stay in business over many years.

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  • Now is good time to divide perennials

    With the end of the growing season looming, it is still a good time to divide your perennials.  If your perennials didn’t perform as well this year as they have in the past even with plenty of rainfall, it is probably because they need dividing.  When perennials get overcrowded they don’t bloom well and usually go into a decline meaning more disease, insect, and disease problems.  This year the extra wet weather caused several more disease issues than normal.

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