The New Agriculture Network's on-line newsletter with seasonal advice for field crop and vegetable growers interested in organic agriculture.
Next issue will be posted in April. Read previous issues through our calendar of issues.
| Our 2009 publishing season gets underway Welcome to the start of the 2009 season for the New Agriculture Network (NAN). We are looking forward to providing you with more biological farming information developed by farmers, researchers and educators. Grant funding is not available this year to support our farmer and university conference calls that generated the farmer reports posted here in previous years. Please be assured that we are continuing our farmer-based advisory board and continue to collaborate with farmers in our research and education projects. We are using this opportunity to update the New Ag Network, looking for areas to avoid duplication of effort and expanding into new areas for useful growth. If you have topics you would like us to address, please send them to: newagnet@msu.edu and we'll do our best to develop articles. From your network organizers: Dale Mutch and Joy Landis, Michigan State University Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant, University of Illinois Elizabeth Maynard, Purdue University |
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Dale Mutch
SARE Coordinator
Michigan State University Extension
March is a good time to frost-seed red clover into wheat or spelt. Seeding red clover will help you control weeds and provide your field with nitrogen for next year’s crop. Farmers use several seeding rates when frost seeding. Our research at MSU indicates 10 to 12 pounds per acre consistently works best in Michigan.
Farmers frost seed in many different ways, including using spinners with ATVs, trucks and tractors. Time is running out this year; so you’ll need to move quickly.
There is an excellent bulletin on frost seeding by Jim Stute and Kevin Shelley from the University of Wisconsin. You can view it at: http://tinyurl.com/aqpn60
Tips
- Select high quality seed.
- Decide your clover seeding rate.
- Calibrate your seeding equipment.
- The ideal time to seed is when the ground is frozen in the morning and warms up in the afternoon.
- Most years, frost seeding is done during the first week of March, but you can successfully seed throughout the month.
- If you do not seed in March, you can drill red clover into wheat in April (the earlier the better).
Liz Maynard
Dept. of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
Purdue University
The New Ag Network has started a new electronic listserv. The purpose of the listserv (or mail list) is to provide a means for easy communication among farmers, educators, researchers, and others involved in organic and sustainable farming in the Great Lakes Region. Once you join the list, you may send and receive messages, and view the message archive.
How to join the new listserv
There are two ways to join:
1) Fill out the online form at:
https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-ag-network
2) Or, send a message containing the single word 'subscribe' (without quotes) to:
new-ag-network-request@lists.purdue.edu
Once you sign-up, you will receive an email from new-ag-network-request@lists.purdue.edu asking you to confirm your sign-up by replying to the email. You will know you have successfully confirmed and joined the list when you receive a welcome message.
Hope to hear from you on the list!
No changes with email article announcementsIf you just want to receive announcements about new articles on the New Ag Network, but don’t wish to participate in more general discussion, just sign up for the announcements only listserv (instructions at http://www.new-ag.msu.edu/email.htm). If you received announcements last year, you are already on this announcement list. Those of you who use RSS readers will also find this option available at our site later this spring.
Joy N. Landis
Michigan State University IPM Program
The Extension Service and other partners within USDA host several web sites that can help you monitor pests. Check out these resources and bookmark your favorites:
- Soybean rust and soybean aphids: http://www.sbrusa.net/
- Soybean aphid suction trap network: http://www.ncipmc.org/traps/
- Sweet corn Pestwatch: http://www.pestwatch.psu.edu/sweetcorn/tool/tool.html
- Cucurbit downy mildew forecasting: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/pp/cucurbit/
- Insect Migration Risk Forecast: http://www.maplecity.com/%7Esand/cew/imrf.html
- Maps of average dates of growing degree day accumulations (base 50F): http://ipm.msu.edu/gdd50maps.htm
- MELCAST, a system for melon growers to determine the best time to apply fungicides.
- VegEdge links to Midwestern university newsletters: http://www.vegedge.umn.edu/
Information about permission to reprint or post our articles. Funding to initiate this network was provided by the American Farmland Trust and EPA Region 5. Web site hosted by the MSU IPM Program. Contact webmaster. |
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