Growth Spurts

Two new sugarcane cultivars specifically developed for Florida’s sand soils have been released by the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
The new cultivars, CP 00-1446 and CP 00-2180, were developed at the ARS Sugarcane Field Station in Canal Point, Florida, as part of an effort to provide growers with more cultivars that yield well on sand soils. [...]

In the six years since New York growers began adopting high tunnels — 20-by-100-foot unheated movable plastic structures that can cover 300 plants — tomatoes have been the most commercially successful.
In high tunnels, heat-loving tomato plants that can be trellised vertically and will bear continuously. A 25-pound box of U.S. #1 top-grade tomatoes sells for [...]

Sinalbin, the same compound that gives white mustard its pungent flavor, could also prove useful in fighting weeds.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) studies suggest sinalbin and other compounds released into soil by applications of white mustard seed meals can kill or suppress certain weedy grasses and annual broadleaf weeds.
The studies evaluated the effects of three mustard [...]