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

On Saturday, June 6, 2012 from 10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. there will be a Beef Quality Assurance Workshop at the New Beginnings Fellowship Church, 4377 Route 78 in Hermitage N.Y.  Registration begins at 9:30 a.m.

The program costs $20 per person with any additional family or farm member at $10.  The cost includes BQA manual and lunch.  The Afternoon session will take place at a nearby farm.  With attending the workshop, a beef producer will become Level 1 certified.  With a signed VCPR (Veterinary Client Patient Relationship) form, producers will be Level 2 certified and have the opportunity to purchase a BQA farm sign.  Youth over the age of 14 may participate and become fully certified.

 Send a check payable to CCE, attention Cathy Wallace, 420 E. Main St. Batavia, NY 14020; phone 585-343-3040 extension 138 or email: cfw6@cornell.edu

Register early! Class size is limited.  For Questions, call Nancy Glazier at 585-315-7746.  This workshop is brought to you by Cornell Cooperative Extension with support from the Beef Checkoff.

Driven by favorable prices, U.S. farmers intend to plant 95.9 million acres of corn in 2012, up four percent from 2011, according to the Prospective Plantings report released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). If realized, this will be the largest corn acreage in the United States since 1937, when producers planted 97.2 million acres of corn.

Empire State farmers intend to plant 1,070,000 acres of corn for all purposes (grain and silage) for the 2011 crop year, up 2 percent from last year.

Producers across many of the Corn Belt states are expected to set new record highs in 2012. Farmers in Iowa, the top U.S. corn-growing state, intend to set a new record for the state by planting 14.6 million acres, up four percent from 2011. Growers in Idaho, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota also intend to plant record-high acreages. The largest year-over-year increase is expected in North Dakota, where farmers are recovering from last year’s floods and declared their intentions to plant 3.4 million acres of corn, up 52 percent from last year.

The corn acreage increase, coupled with weather conditions in the Southern Plains resulted in a soybean acreage decrease. U.S. soybean growers intend to plant 73.9 million acres in 2012, down one percent from last year. Affected by the drought conditions that have continued from last year into early March, Texas and Oklahoma farmers plan significant reductions in soybean acreage, expecting to dedicate 24 and 15 percent fewer acres respectively to the crop this year. These decreases are offset by acreage increase in other states, such as New York and North Dakota, where farmers are expected to set new records.

Also affected by difficult weather conditions, U.S. cotton growers expect to plant fewer acres in 2012. The expected cotton area this year is 13.2 million acres, down 11 percent from last year. Heavy precipitation in the Delta Region has already delayed fieldwork in some areas. A mild winter in some cotton-growing states also has producers bracing for potentially higher than normal insect and weed pressure this year.

Prospective Plantings provides the first official, survey based estimates of U.S. farmers’ 2012 planting intentions. NASS’s acreage estimates are based on surveys conducted during the first two weeks of March from a sample of more than 84,500 farm operators across the United States. Prospective Plantings and all NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov.