Browse General Agriculture Stories - Page 6

The University of Georgia's Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture (IIPA), a new interdisciplinary unit dedicated to the research and application of new technologies in agriculture, has made three new faculty hires. Leonardo Bastos, Lorena Lacerda and Guoyu Lu joined IIPA full time during fall 2022, each contributing to the strategic mission of the institute to harness the power of technology and big data to sustainably provide for our planet’s growing population.

The Dirt Dawgs, the University of Georgia’s soil judging team, placed third in the recent 2022 regional soil judging contest against 11 other universities. They will move on to compete in the national soil judging competition held in Oklahoma in March.

The winter months are a great time for gardeners to start catching up on projects they have postponed or to begin planning crop rotations and ordering seeds for the upcoming year. One of the most critical steps to ensuring a productive growing season is to test and prepare the soil, as it will be the foundation that your plants — and success — depend upon.

As demand for organic food continues to rise, organic agriculture has attracted both longtime producers and new farmers into the industry. University of Georgia researchers are working on a new study meant to develop best practices for transitioning farmers starting out with land that has been used for grazing or has lain fallow.

University of Georgia alumnus Zachary Brendel gives new life to discarded things. You can see it throughout the streets of downtown Athens — from an old tire store that glows with reimagined life as Creature Comforts brewery or an audio recording school operating at full tilt within a converted shoe store. Both are revitalization projects completed by Athens-based Character Built Construction, which was co-founded by Brendel.

Recent data shows that the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences produced the third-most plant-breeding Ph.D. graduates between 2015 and 2020. With over 80% of alumni employed at public or private institutions, the plant breeding, genetics and genomics Ph.D. program also ranked highly for its graduate employment rate.

University of Georgia Professor Cesar Escalante has been awarded the 2022 Ketchum Prize — the FINRA Investor Education Foundation’s (FINRA Foundation) highest honor — in recognition of his pioneering research and advocacy to advance financial inclusion and alleviate racial and gender bias in agricultural lending.

They have been described as palm-sized, parachuting creatures with the potential to spread up the East Coast. Now dozens of webs are appearing in trees, on fences and in gardens around the Southeast, and social media and message boards are buzzing with Joro spider sightings. Discussions of eradication methods ranging from chemical sprays to “Joro sticks” are rampant. Joro season is here.

The common bean — which includes many varieties of dry beans, from navy and black beans to red, pinto and green beans — are an important nutritional source for many world populations. However, rapidly changing climate conditions are making them increasingly difficult to grow in many locations due to high temperatures and susceptibility to diseases and pests.

As climate variability increasingly affects producers across the Southeastern U.S., Wes Porter spends a lot of time thinking about water — specifically, crop irrigation — and how available tools can benefit farmers threefold.