Crop Production

The scope of this NCR-SARE Research and Education project was designed to assist the Roots of Appalachia Growers Association (RAGA) develop a learning network among growers, to close the gap between growers and current research activities, and support RAGA entering the marketplace.

These University of Hawaii fact sheets and virtual field day explain how to use sunn hemp as a cover crop to control weeds, nematodes and other pests, add soil nutrients, prevent erosion, and contribute to a more robust and complex community of beneficial nematodes.

South Dakota farm manager Dan Forgey has improved soil quality and the bottom line by successfully introducing cover crops to his long-term no-till system.

Honeybee losses, compounded with rising rental rates for pollination, are a concern for many producers. Not only are growers looking for alternative pollinators to improve crop security, but they also want to learn how to manage on-farm habitats for native bees and other pollinators. Since 1988, NCR-SARE has supported researchers, educators, and producers who are researching, rearing, and managing species that provide pollination alternatives to the declining honey bee.

Aquaculture is the cultivation of fish and aquatic animals and plants. Aquaponics is a bio-integrated system that links recirculating aquaculture with hydroponic vegetable, flower, and/or herb production. In aquaponics, nutrient-rich effluent from fish tanks is used to fertigate hydroponic production beds. SARE has supported recent advances by producers, researchers, and educators that are helping to make aquaculture and aquaponics into working models of sustainable production.

In Minnesota, Mhonpaj Lee, NCR-SARE Farmer Rancher grant recipient, is researching and documenting information about traditional Hmong herbs. In addition to her job as a translator at Hennepin County Medical Center, Lee farms with her family. They are currently offering shares from the first certified organic Hmong owned and operated Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation.

Backpack sprayers are a boon to farmers on small acreage, but not all sprayers are created equal. Video series.

A printed guide to insect conservation on fruit farms.

Buckwheat has been used to suppress weeds on Northeastern farms for 400 years. This handbook outlines how to use buckwheat as an economical weed-control tool, with recommendations based on extensive grower surveys, original research and on-farm trials.

Building Soils for Better Crops is a one-of-a-kind, practical guide to ecological soil management, now expanded and in full color.

This short documentary follows the story of the Batalden-Smith family, a three generation Minnesota family who grow and locally press organic Camelina Oil.

This research report from Practical Farmers of Iowa presents data about a cover of hairy vetch, tillage radish and rapeseed established in strips by both aerial seeding into standing soybeans and drilling after soybean harvest.

This information sheet gives an overview of how to use cover crops to maintain good levels of nutrients and organic matter in the soil.

This Rodale Institute fact sheet reviews the use of cover crops and no-till in organic systems, including selection, establishment and mechanical termination of cover crops; crop rotations; and energy and production budgets.

In this research report from Practical Farmers of Iowa, a variety of winter small grains were tested as cover crops in the fall of 2010 to determine if these grains could be effective cover crops and also produce a quality grain crop, even though planted at a later than optimal date for typical grain planting. Most of the winter cover crop varieties tested effectively established, overwintered, and yielded grain the following summer.

This Virginia Association for Biological Farming information sheet provides research-based information on a cover crop “toolbox” from which growers can select cover crops most suited to their regions and production systems.

Dr. Sjoerd Duiker presents how cover crops can be used to conserve nutrients over the winter, reduce erosion, and replace nitrogen fertilizer needs in the following crop. Dr. Greg Roth presents an update on the Penn State Cover Crop Interseeder, including results from field trials testing the establishment of different cover crop species when interseeded into standing corn crop.

Cover crop adoption has been increasing rapidly in the last 5 years, with an estimated 1.5 to 2.0 million acres of cover crops planted in the U.S. in 2012. To learn more about this trend, during the winter of 2012-13, the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) carried out an NCR-SARE-funded survey of farmers who have grown cover crops. This analysis includes results from that survey.

Crop rotation is the ancient practice of growing a wide variety of crops in a sequential system throughout a field in order to avoid a buildup of disease and pests. Strategic crop rotations can help producers promote good soil health by alternating crops with different nutrient needs and benefit overall soil structure by breaking up subsoil by alternating deep and shallow rooting plants. NCR-SARE has valued research and education projects that study the applications of crop rotation-including improving soil quality and health, and managing pest, diseases, and weeds.

Crop Rotation on Organic Farms: A Planning Manual provides an in-depth review of crop rotation, including how it improves soil quality and health and helps manage pests, diseases and weeds.

Dan Forgey uses no-till, cover crops and crop rotations to build soil health, manage weeds and maximize rainfall.

This study was conducted to develop an effective method for management of internal discoloration of horseradish roots. Internal discoloration of horseradish is a disease complex caused by at least three fungi, Verticillium dahliae, V. longisporum, and Fusarium solani. These fungi are carried in the propagating roots (set-borne inoculum) and also survive in the soil (soil-borne inoculum). 

This bulletin describes some of the many agronomic crop alternatives, with plentiful examples of on-farm successes.

Funded in 2005 through the Farmer Rancher Grant Program, Pov Huns’ high tunnel project, “Can Screened High Tunnels Extend the Growing Season of Bitter Melon in the Midwest?” (FNC05-551) aimed to determine whether pest control and season extension could make a tropical vegetable such as bitter melon protable by using a high tunnel on his Kansas City farm.

University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student, Herika Kummel, conducted an experiment in two restored prairies in southern Wisconsin to assess their carbon sequestration potential under a gradient of warm-season grass (C4) to cool-season (C3) pasture grass ratios. The sites were the Bison Ridge Ranch in Marquette County and the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial (WICST) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Arlington Agricultural Research Station in Columbia County. 

Research at Iowa State University (ISU) may be good news for swine producers who have been facing high grain prices. Coordinated by Jim Fawcett, the team’s recent research at ISU has demonstrated that field peas can be utilized as a partial substitute for soybean meal or corn in swine diets.

Nebraska farmers Keith and Brian Berns found they could use cover crops in dryland farming to increase corn yields, and now are sharing their knowledge.

As opportunities have emerged to increase both the production and processing of elderberry across the value chain, the historically medicinal plant is gaining popularity among farmers. With the resurgence of elderberry cultivation in the North Central region and the rest of the United States, NCR-SARE has funded a variety of projects featuring elderberries.

This Oregon State University fact sheet explains the basics of plant-available nitrogen (PAN); when to kill cover crops for the maximum PAN benefit; step-by-step instructions on how to perform site-specific measurements to predict PAN from your cover crop; and case studies from the Willamette Valley.

The primary short-term goal of this graduate student grant project was to test a strategy for utilization of  native plants to increase biodiversity in a perennial fruit system. This project is of particular relevance to specialty crop farmers that are under pressure to reduce pesticide inputs while also producing the highest quality food. 

A grassroots apple-breeding program has released its first apple variety, EverCrisp. The variety was bred by the Midwest Apple Improvement Association (MAIA), a group of more than 140 apple growers who are interested in developing new varieties for the Midwest.

These in-depth training manuals, produced by the University of California Santa Cruz, help instructors conduct hands-on teaching in organic farming and gardening, direct marketing, and small-farm business planning.

The Center for Environmental Farming Systems has produced a wealth of valuable data through its farm systems research units.

University of Vermont Extension Specialist Heather Darby partners with colleagues and farmers to advance research in biofuel production, organic grains for dairies, and value-added wheat for local bakeries.

Practical Farmers of Iowa compared two cropping systems for three years in northwest Iowa to examine differences in the energy expended and the biofuel produced. Analysis of fossil fuel flow reveals that a more diverse cropping system was significantly more energy efficient than continuous corn.

Dan and Bonnie Blackledge have started a canola oil business on their farm in Marion, Michigan. B & B Farms Canola Oil’s first pressing was only about 50 gallons, but it stands out as the first canola oil grown and pressed in Michigan.

Overcoming weed challenges, Georgia farmer Relinda Walker brings the Southeast's first crop of certified organic peanuts to market.

It all began in 2002 with a $6,500 SARE grant and the seed of an idea: a no-till tractor implement that rolls, crimps and kills cover crops, creating a weed suppressing mulch.

To support the producer decision-making process for on-farm and value-added elderberry enterprise opportunities, the University of Missouri has developed a production and marketing guide, a financial decision support tool, videos on elderberry wine production, and more.

Dan Forgey describes how he grows cover crop mixes in synch with a cash crop of corn, and gets strong yields without chemical fertilizer.

How to Manage the Blue Orchard Bee explains how to use this alternative pollinator successfully, including nesting, rearing and wintering, how to manage predators, and more. Available only online.

Researchers at the University of Illinois are using sorghum-sudangrass as a summer smother crop in the battle against aggressive perennial weeds.

In this webinar by Dr. Mary Barbercheck and Maggie Douglas, learn the basics about key early-season insect and slug pests that can pose problems in conservation tillage systems with high amounts of cover crop residues and how crop management practices can help reduce pest damage. Also, learn about ongoing research into naturally-occurring predators of early season insects and slugs and how best to conserve them.

In Missouri Valley, IA, Vaughn and Cindy Pittz have been developing the opportunity for small family farms to utilize the aronia berry as a sustainable organic alternative crop at Sawmill Hollow Organic Farms, located 6 miles north of Missouri Valley, Iowa in Harrison County.

Jeff Mitchell of the University of California Kearny Agricultural Center, was awarded a Western SARE Professional + Producer Grant to evaluate and refine strip-till and no-till planting systems for corn forage production and no-till drill winter forage planting at the San Joaquin Valley in terms of crop establishment, weed control and profitability.

While every farming system is unique, the principles of ecological pest management apply universally. Manage Insects on Your Farm highlights ecological strategies that improve your farm’s natural defenses and encourage beneficial insects to attack your worst pests.

Managing Alternative Pollinators: A Handbook for Beekeepers, Growers and Conservationists is a first-of-its-kind, step-by-step, full-color guide for rearing and managing bumble bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees and other bee species that provide pollination alternatives to the rapidly declining honey bee.

Managing Cover Crops Profitably explores how and why cover crops work and provides all the information needed to build cover crops into any farming operation.

In Ashland, MO, Dan Kuebler is creating an affordable, efficient, and sustainable irrigation system for a two acre organic vegetable operation. Since 1977, Dan Kuebler has been running a certified organic garden operation in Ashland.

In Kingsville, MO, a perennial and native seed crop producer has been developing and processing energy crops and agricultural residues into biomass engineered fiber fuel, and now he and other producers in MO could help determine the future of cellulosicbased biofuels.

This video series describes measures nursery producers can take to improve sustainability in the areas of irrigation, energy use, runoff, recycling and more.

Weeds can be challenging without rightsized mechanization.

Charlie White, of Penn State Extension, presents case studies of how mixtures of different cover crop types performed at supplying nitrogen to a following corn crop and reducing nitrate leaching into the subsoil. Tools to assess nitrogen supplied by cover crops to the next cash crop are also discussed.

Dan Forgey has farmed for 40 years based on the belief that if you take care of the land, it will take care of you, evidenced by his commitment to no-till, cover crops and crop diversity.

A series of eight handbooks for new farmers or established producers seeking to transition to organic or improve their current practices. Print only; order from Chelsea Green.

A group of farmers in Wimbledon, ND are working to turn a conventional chemically dependent farm into a fertile, sustainable, organic, farming unit. What started as a farm restoration project for the sake of their beef market ended by using all of the livestock to restore the soil.

These Cornell University agronomy fact sheets describe soil and corn stalk testing, nitrogen use and other aspects of nutrient management in corn production.

In this webinar, Hanna Poffenbarger of the University of Maryland and Steven Mirsky of the USDA-ARS Sustainable Agriculture Systems Lab discuss optimizing cover crop mixture composition and manure application to achieve weed suppression and adequate, efficient nitrogen delivery in a cover crop-based no-till corn system.

An interactive website to assist ag professionals in developing and demonstrating successful organic education programs, teaching principles in organic agriculture.

Practical Farmers of Iowa and Rural Advantage partnered to disseminate information to farmers and key participants through farmer field schools utilizing hands-on experience and practice, crop field days, and workshops to tell neighbors about cover crops. The project began in 2009, and the outreach is resulting in more landowners understanding the multiple benefits of installing these conservation practices.

A publication to foster recognition of the Appalachia region and encourage preservation of heirloom seed varieties.

This video from Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society explains how to plan, layout, and plant a home corn breeding nursery.

Honeybee losses, compounded with rising rental rates for pollination, are a concern for many producers. Not only are growers looking for alternative pollinators to improve crop security, but they also want to learn how to manage on-farm habitats for native bees and other pollinators.

Across the region, farmers are planting cover crops,  method of revitalizing soil, curbing erosion, and managing pests. Steve Sutera, an Extension educator at South Dakota State University (SDSU), saw an opportunity to bring together Bon Homme County’s Extension service, FFA Chapter, 4-H Club, and ongoing research at SDSU.

Crop management,fact sheets, and extensive appendices.

In West Branch, Iowa, Scattergood Farm converted pasture from perennial alfalfa and clover to vegetable crop ground from summer 2010 to spring 2011. This research report from Practical Farmers of Iowa summarizes the effects of two cover crops or no cover crop on numbers of weeds and compaction measured by soil density in a vegetable crop following a transition from a pasture. Farm manager, Mark Quee, felt the cover crops assisted his conversion from pasture ground to vegetable plots. He felt the cover crops helped build soil and reduced weed pressure significantly in preparation for vegetable plants.

Order an entire set of SARE Outreach books and bulletins for one low price.

Marvin Baker, Theresa Podoll, and Steve Zwinger received an  NCR-SARE Farmer Rancher grant to increase the number of open-pollinated vegetable varietal choices well-suited to organic production systems and local markets in North Dakota. They screened and identified dozens of varieties of interest to North Dakota market growers. 

Semiochemical-based trapping methods were developed for the control of the banana weevil (Cosmopolites sordidus), the New Guinea sugarcane weevil (Rhabdoscelus obscurus) and the sweetpotato weevil (Cylas formicarius) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Photos of trapping systems, as well as trapping dates, were collected and developed into an instruction manual along with the developed methods.

Corn growers across New York have together cut their use of starter phosphorous by tens of millions of pounds, thanks to SARE-funded Cornell University research.

As producers throughout the nation grow increasingly concerned about water scarcity, farmers, ranchers and agricultural educators are beginning to explore new, conservation-oriented approaches to water use.

This publication provides a guide for selecting best management practices that consider both production and environmental-sustainability goals for corn production in South Dakota.

From Aronia berries to apples, wine grapes to bitter melon, NCR-SARE-funded research is hepling specialty crop farmers across the region use sustainable practices to battle pests, tap into lucrative markets, and increase yields. Sixteen percent of NCR-SARE’s 20-year research portfolio has been devoted to growing fruits, nuts, vegetables and other specialty crops in ways that boost profits, protect the land, and strengthen communities.

Dr. Ray Weil and Natalie Lounsbury have been investigating the possibility of no-till planting early spring vegetables such as spinach and lettuce after a forage radish cover crop without the use of herbicides. They discuss soil moisture, temperature and nutrient status in early spring as well as seedling emergence and yield.

Weed control demands time, labor and expense for every farmer every year. Steel in the Field shows how today's implements and techniques can control weeds while reducing—or eliminating—herbicides. Available only online.

Michigan State University (MSU) graduate student, Jesse Sadowsky, received an NCR-SARE $9,900 Graduate Student Grant to conduct an observational study to examine the effects of both organic and conventional management on plant health and soil biology in blueberry fields in Michigan.

Anu Rangarajan, of Cornell University, is advancing the next generation of organic agriculture through research, training and by connecting farmers and educators.

The purpose of this book is to critically evaluate the phenomenon of compost tea from three general perspectives: growers, researchers and industry. By integrating these perspectives into a cumulative experience, the authors hope to improve the understanding of the potential and limitations of this technology from scientific, economic and practical points of view.

Hailing from small vegetable farms, cattle ranches and grain farms covering thousands of acres, the producers in The New American Farmer, 2nd edition have embraced new sustainable approaches to agriculture.

Tucked away in the sprawling prairies of Northwestern Kansas is a town not unlike thousands of other rural communities spread across the country. It is a town built on agriculture that has subsisted for over 130 years on the determination of its citizens and their love of the land. The only outward sign that sets this community apart from the other towns around it is that its citizens are predominately African American. They have their roots in the post-Civil War movement which freed millions of individuals from plantation slavery. Their town is called Nicodemus.

As the drought in the Texas High Plains continues to intensify, a unique partnership of producers and researchers is working diligently to find economically viable alternatives to the region’s irrigation-dependent crop monocultures.