June 2018

  We’re fortunate that Goss’s wilt doesn’t challenge the corn crop every season like it did in 2011, and again in 2015.  But it’s advisable to scout this season’s fast-growing corn for early signals of this bacterial disease. Symptoms vary, and a good refresher is to browse this article written by Alison Robertson, Department of Plant Pathology and […]

Rapidly growing corn can sometimes outrun its ability to extract and deliver nutrients from the soil. That hidden hunger can be supplemented with foliar fertility. Foliar application is a highly efficient way of delivering NPK and trace elements.   June 14, 2018 — University of Nebraska research shows that only 10% to 40% of soil-applied nitrogen

Usually, the visual differences in corn growth caused by planting dates or early fertilizer fade as corn accelerates into its rapid growth phase from V5 through early tassel. But so far this spring, corn given an in-furrow microbial boost, Environoc 401, is showing a consistently widening growth advantage over untreated corn in adjacent rows. This comparison represents entire

A June 8 Wall Street Journal feature by Jo McGinty reports that researchers documented a 76% drop during 1989-2016 in the number of flying insects living in 63 German nature preserves. June 9, 2018 — Entomologists around the world are aware that insect numbers, and the range of species, has been declining for decades. But

Non-chemical weed control takes a lot more management than back in the “see ’em, spray ’em” days before resistant weeds. But organic growers are showing it’s possible to raise good soybean yields, herbicide-free. Research results indicate that a few weed escapes don’t have as much impact on yield as they probably do on the grower’s pride in a

The fastest-growing food label amendment in America is the “Non-GMO Verified” sticker. In Germany, growth of a similar non-GMO verified seal is soaring by more than 25% annually — and accelerating. June 7, 2018 — A headline today on the international Feed Navigator website: “Germany expects to see record Non-GMO food sales.” If you follow this link and read

Jill Carlson is a book author, mother of three married children and grandmother of seven children. Here she reviews the eye-opening new book: What’s Making Our Children Sick? by Michelle Perro, MD and research scientist Dr. Vincanne Adams. What would you do for these kids?  Mike… at age ten became angry and rebellious. His family of six was close-knit: boy

French artist Jean-François Millet painted “The Man With a Hoe” in 1862. The oppression of that image inspired American poet Edwin Markam to create in 1889 a poem with the same name. June 4, 2018 — First we’ll take a look back in time. Then, forward to a more hopeful future. Here are just four of

The photo below just arrived from Vatché Kuftedjian, manufacturer of the Pursanova systems for structuring/energizing water. One of his farmer clients in southeastern Minnesota, Chris Sauer, has been watching a corn experiment emerge and grow this spring, and today sent Vatché a report. We followed up with Chris. June 4, 2018 — The two cornstalks

Ten years ago, Renewable Farming demonstrated to a neighbor how foliar feeding corn with slow-release nitrogen, mobilized with WakeUP, could add yield to an already excellent crop. That was our first “demo” of foliar feeding. Since then we’ve done thousands of foliar nutrition trials with a wide array of NPK, traces, biologicals and biostimulants. That accumulated data offered our