If potato growing is new to you hilling may be a bit more of an art than a science. As tubers swell, especially if they have good moisture and adequate nutrients they will begin to push out of the soil. Hilling keeps the developing potatoes from being exposed to sun, which turns them green and bitter. Green potatoes contain a chemical, solanine, which is toxic in large amounts. This may not be as visible in dark fleshed varieties like blues but is just as dangerous.

Here are some hints for success:

• When To Hill: When the plants are about 6 to 8 inches tall. Repeat in about 2 to 3 weeks.
• How to Hill: Hoe soil loosely around the base of the plants to within about an inch of the lower leaves from both sides of the row. You may want to make additional hillings, gradually building a 6- to 8-inch ridge down the row. Do not cover leaves or stem with soil as this will cause decay over time.
• Instead of Hilling You Can…. Shallowly plant seed pieces in the soil and cover with a thick layer of clean straw or other weed-free mulch that the plants will be able to penetrate. Add more mulch as needed to keep light from reaching potatoes. A foot or more of mulch may be required. Tubers grown this way can be easily harvested by pulling back the mulch after the plants die.

Deeply plant seed potatoes 7 to 8 inches deep and skip hilling or deep mulching. The potatoes are slower to emerge, but this method requires less effort during the growing sea-son. Deep planting is not good in cold, damp soils and it requires more work to dig the potatoes at harvest.

See attached diagram.

Are you looking for a way to stay up to date on field crops information in New York State? Cornell University campus faculty and staff in collaboration with CCE field crops county extension agents have developed a news blog on current field crops information in NYS which can be accessed at http://blogs.cornell.edu/ccefieldcropnews/.

Blog postings will include announcements about emerging pest and disease issues, news articles, seasonally relevant extension articles and programming opportunities related to field crops in NYS including a weekly weather outlook, county scouting reports, county based research information and the NYS IPM Weekly Pest Report.

In addition to being able to access the blog directly at the address above, viewers may find a news feed to the blog at http://fieldcrops.org. An email subscription to the blog is also available and can be found on the home page of the blog. Subscribers will be emailed updates as new postings are made eliminating the need to keep checking the blog for new information.

For more information about the NYS CCE Field Crops News blog, please contact Mary McKellarmem40@cornell.edu.

Maize was likely domesticated in Mexico around 10,000 years ago, and since then humans have continued to radically alter the plant's genetic makeup.

Two new papers by a consortium of international researchers, including many at Cornell, identify genes that played a role in corn domestication as well as variations and similarities between domesticated maize and its wild relatives.

The results, published June 3 in Nature Genetics, will help breeders and geneticists make further advancements.

Cornell researchers, led by Edward Buckler, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Station (USDA-ARS) geneticist in Cornell's Institute for Genomic Diversity and Cornell adjunct professor of plant breeding and genetics, organized the effort. The USDA-ARS and Cornell researchers also led many aspects of the sequencing, statistics and bioinformatics.

A new online resource is available to help answer farm safety and health questions. eXtension, a national research and educational based website supported by 74 land grant universities, has launched a website specifically for Farm Safety and Health. http://www.extension.org/farm_safety_and_health

The new Community of Practice, Farm and Ranch eXtension for Safety and Health (acronym is FReSH), is a refreshing resource needed for today's farming population. Besides providing answers to frequently asked farm safety questions, this site also contains relevant articles on a variety of safety and health topics, and a calendar of farm safety events.  "Our goal is to become a one stop clearinghouse for all agricultural safety and health information," said Aaron Yoder, a Community of Practice leader for this site.

Take time now to visit the site and see the variety of topics available and read several of the posted articles for this season. Go ahead and bookmark the site for quick reference to future questions that may come up throughout the year.

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in New York is piloting a Conservation Activity Plan (CAP) to assist farmers in meeting revised Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations intended to prevent fuel and oil spills on farms.

“An important part of our mission at NRCS is helping farmers develop plans to protect human health and the environment, including assistance to meet new Federal regulations,” said Donald Pettit, NRCS New York State Conservationist. “This pilot program will provide funding assistance to help agricultural producers meet regulatory requirement designed to reduce the dangers of on-farm oil spills.”

The program is designed to help farmers who have above ground petroleum storage facilities with the capacity to store more than 1,320 gallons of fuel. This does not include milk or milk product storage containers. The EPA mandates that agricultural operations with concentrated fuel depots have a Spill Prevention Containment and Countermeasure (SPCC) plan and an Agricultural Secondary Containment Facility. NRCS assistance will help develop or update existing spill prevention plans that avoid and mitigate on-farm oil spillage.

There are two opportunities for assistance. For those facilities that have more than 10,000 gallons of fuel, oil and lubricants, NRCS will provide up to $2,200 for the development of a SPCC plan. The plan must be developed by a provider that has registered with NRCS as a Technical Service Provider (TSP) and possesses the technical knowledge, skills and abilities to complete all facets of the plan. For those operations that have an SPCC plan but do not have an Agricultural Secondary Containment Facility, NRCS will assist with the installation of the practice up to $10,000.

Although applications for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) are accepted year round, one ranking period will be offered for this SPCC pilot. Eligible applications received by June 11, 2012 will be ranked and approved as funding is available. Additional information is available online at the NRCS New York Programs Web page. Applications can be submitted at your local USDA Service Center.

Cornell Cooperative Extension will host a farm field day at the Valatie Research Center on Tuesday, June 19 from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. The event will feature the cutting edge of the latest research.

Included in the field day are these topics: sulfur for alfalfa, establishing and maintaining winter forages, short season corn for double crop, nitrogen for your corn, emergency early season forages, red clover, 82-day one-cut sorghum, winter triticale and two new insects threatening crops.

For more information, contact Steve Hadcock at 518-828-3346. The event will be held rain or shine and no pre-registration is required.

The Cornell Nutrient Management Spear Program has developed and made available a new factsheet: "Can Manure Replace the Need for Starter N?" The factsheet's number is 67 and may be obtained at  http://nmsp.cals.cornell.edu/publications/factsheets/factsheet67.pdf. 

In addition, other new articles and projects of the Cornell Nutrient Management Spear Program are available.

An On-Farm Energy Production (Oilseed Press/Grass Pellet) Demonstration is schedule for Wednesday, July 11th at the farm of Ed & Eileen Scheffler in Groton, NY. The oilseed press and how it functions will be the featured discussion. Several organic dairy farmers will also join in the discussion of the potential marketing options for oilseed press products.

More details about and more information about the Small Dairy Project are available.

Photo from eXtension Ag Energy

Advanced Dairy Nutrition Short Course will be held on June 4th-7th. Contact Heather Darrow, Cornell University, 272 Morrison Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, E-mail: hh96@cornell.edu, Phone: (607) 255-4478 for more info.

Alfalfa snout beetles ...Protocol effective versus invasive crop pest

More than 13 percent of NY farmland invested by insect

 Cornell entomologist Elson Shields, here holding an alfalfa plant showing good root development and no damage by alfalfa snout beetle at a farmers' field day event in Belleville, NY., helped develop a strategy to combat the pest using resistant varieties of alfalfa and nematodes that eat the pest.

Cornell entomologist Dr. Elson Shields and the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program have battled an invasive farm crop pest since 1989.

In April 2012 they posted the definitive guide to raising and applying native nematodes (microscopic worms) to control destructive alfalfa snout beetle (ASB) online.
 
More than 13 percent (500,000 acres/9 counties) of New York farmland has been infested by ASB.

 For more on the ag development program, please click the following link:
Protocol effective versus invasive crop pest