Farmers love tools. The prospect of a fully stocked tool shed ranges from badge of honor to true obsession.  Plants, too, can be used as tools. Integrating cover crops into a farmer’s toolbox can offer many benefits – and it’s a tool given to us by nature! Getting farmers to adopt cover crops as various tools can be hard. To do that, …

The value of California’s 2020 utilized vegetable production dropped 0.9% to $7.68 billion compared to 2019’s value of $7.74 billion according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Pacific Regional Field Office. Despite the decrease in state’s overall total value of utilized production, crops showing an increase included broccoli, cantaloupe, lettuce of all types, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes. California fresh market and …

USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist and director of the Western Regional Research Center (Albany, CA), Tara McHugh and her team in the Healthy Processed Foods Research Unit are experts at solving food-manufacturing problems. Using cutting-edge processing technologies, they have helped numerous small businesses, such as Ripple Foods, turn ideas into products for the consumer. ARS is helping Ripple Foods optimize its current pea protein drying process to …

Plant breeders are constantly working to develop new bean varieties to meet the needs and desires of the food industry. But not everyone wants the same thing. Many consumers desire heirloom-type beans, which have great culinary quality and are visually appealing. On the other hand, farmers desire beans with better disease resistance and higher yield potential. The bean varieties that …

Two of the nation’s great agricultural regions are the focus of new research that aims to head off emerging threats and improve sustainability. Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are joining colleagues to create and use artificial intelligence to help farmers in the Colorado River Basin and Salinas Valley, CA, improve their management of irrigation, fertilization, and pests. USDA’s National Institute of …

To identify and prepare the next generation of Western Growers (WG) members for positions of leadership within the Western fresh produce industry, WG has inaugurated the sixth class of the Future Volunteer Leaders Program (FVLP). This year, for the first time in program history, the FVLP welcomes a future leader from Colorado, which became the third membership state in the …

Replicating another of its Salinas Valley programs, the Grower Shipper Association of Central California (GSA) has established a COVID-19 training prevention program for food facility and farm employees in the Yuma in cooperation with the Regional Center for Border Health clinic. The program brings health professionals directly to work sites to provide multi-lingual information on virus prevention practices while on the …

On Tuesday, December 8, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released the 2019 Census of Horticultural Specialties report, the only source of detailed production and sales data for floriculture, nursery, and specialty crops for the entire United States. The data show that horticulture operations in California sold a total of $2.63 billion in floriculture, nursery and …

Christopher Valadez — As president of the Grower Shipper Association of Central California (GSA), I talk to farmers, farming companies, farm labor contractors and farm workers about the challenges faced when protecting essential employees from COVID-19 exposure. These conversations and hearing the needs firsthand formed the impetus for many of the programs established by GSA over the last few months to …

Burton John Hoyle passed away in McKinleyville on Nov. 9, 2020, just weeks from reaching his 101st birthday. Burton (Burt) was born in Saranac Lake, NY, in 1919. He grew up in the Jamestown, New York, area. He graduated from high school in 1938 and spent several years pursuing odd jobs before starting college in 1941. He did not serve in …