News Stories - Page 166

Once a top agricultural commodity in Georgia, the Southern pea’s presence in the state is now minimal. Growers are reluctant to plant the crop due to a tiny weevil, the cowpea curculio.

Rice has been a staple food crop around the world for millennia, but little was known about the wild origins of the world’s most widely produced crop until the recent mapping of the genomes of 13 ancestral rice species. Scott Jackson, director of the University of Georgia Center for Applied Genetic Technologies (CAGT) in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, helped to map these genomes as part of The International Oryza Map Alignment Project.

Pruning young pecan trees is a necessity and, if done properly, can save farmers the hassle of pruning older, much larger trees, according to University of Georgia Cooperative Extension pecan specialist Lenny Wells.

Commodity updates for high-value row crops like peanuts and cotton highlight this year’s Georgia Ag Forecast meetings, which are currently being held statewide.

Georgia is due for another blast of arctic air this week and, while Georgians themselves might be groaning about the cold weather, it’s beneficial for the state’s peach crop. These chilly days provide the cold temperatures that Georgia’s fruit crops need for healthy production this summer.

Nestled just south of the world’s busiest airport, there’s a 38-acre camp where generations of young Fulton County, Georgia, residents can connect with nature. For the last 10 years, Camp Fulton/Truitt 4-H Center hasn’t received much attention, but now a team of volunteers from south Fulton County and University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agents are working to make it an oasis once again.

The University of Georgia has received a $14 million grant from the U.S. Agency of International Development to manage the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut Research, known as the Peanut Lab, a global peanut research program that works to alleviate hunger by helping farmers in developing countries grow healthy crops. The agreement builds on UGA and USAID’s long-standing partnership on global peanut research dating to the 1980s.

University of Georgia entomologists advise farmers to kill crops capable of hosting whiteflies after the crop is harvested a final time. Crops left in the field could continue to serve as hosts.

Georgia’s supply of sodded turfgrass will sufficiently cover demand this year, and the delivery cost is not expected to rise, according to the Annual Georgia Sod Producers Inventory Survey conducted by Clint Waltz, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension turfgrass specialist, and the Georgia Urban Ag Council.