A UVM blog Out Croppings: Important crop news from the field!

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The Soil Health Research and Extension Center (SHREC) Will Take Root This Earth Day

By outcropn

“If you can manage your soil well, that’s like wealth.”

“If you can manage your soil well, that’s like wealth,” Deborah Neher, Soil Ecologist and Associate Director of SHREC, said when explaining the significance of the new Soil Health Research and Extension Center (SHREC) at the University of Vermont. The SHREC is a cross-disciplinary research and extension hub focused on integrative soil health, offering comprehensive testing services to address stakeholder and researcher needs.

SHREC is set to open on Earth Day, April 22nd, 2025. It was organized as a direct response to farmers in Vermont wanting a more local and state-specific soil testing facility rather than sending soil samples out of state. This reflects SHREC’s farmer-first approach, which is at the center of its work: to prioritize the needs of the agricultural community in Vermont.

With extreme weather patterns becoming more frequent and two consecutive years of devastating floods, farmers are seeking better ways to understand the land they rely on and whether it can withstand the changing climate. To help with these challenges, the SHREC will offer soil testing services such as permanganate oxidizable carbon (POXC), autoclaved citrate extractable (ACE) protein, wet aggregate stability, and total carbon and total nitrogen, with more testing capabilities coming soon.

The SHREC Lab is not the first or the only soil testing lab at UVM. UVM’s Agricultural and Environmental Testing Lab (AEFL) continues to offer home and commercial soil testing. The SHREC Lab differs because it offers different tests than the AEFL. If you’re unsure which lab to send your sample to, email AgTesting@uvm.edu.

The Soil Health Research and Extension Center will begin testing soil samples on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025. Among the first samples tested in the lab will be preliminary soil samples collected ahead of this year’s growing season at the Borderview Research Farm in Alburgh, Vermont, where the Northwest Crops and Soils program team conducts many of their research trials. The SHREC will work closely with NWCS to connect farmers with the newly available resources.  The SHREC team plans to hold workshops, field demonstrations, and focus groups to spread awareness, connect with communities, and improve overall soil conditions in the Green Mountain State.

You can learn more about the SHREC on its website.


SHREC is funded by the UVM’s Food Systems Research Center (FSRC).

The New Hemp Fiber Hackler Has Arrived!

By outcropn

On March 11, 2025 our friends Patricia Bishop and Josh Oulton drove with their daughter Lily from Nova Scotia to the Borderview Research Farm in Alburgh, Vermont to hand deliver a new hemp fiber hackler to the UVM extension NWCS team. They somehow managed to fit it into the back of a sprinter van, and our farmhand, Travis Driver, also somehow managed to lift it out in one piece.

Equipment Manager, Travis, unloading the hackler after its long journey from
Nova Scotia to Alburgh!

The hackler represents the third step in a three-part scutching line that Bishop and Oulton have developed over the years to process long fibers like hemp and flax at a cottage industry scale. The role of the hackler is to take the long fibers, which have already been broken or decorticated, and comb them rigorously to open up the fiber and separate the fiber bundles which are ostensibly glued together by naturally occurring lignin and pectin.

The machine is the first of its kind in the United States. Prior to our purchase, there was only one hackler like it in all of the western hemisphere; that being the one belonging to Bishop and Oulton at their processing facility in the Maritime Provinces known as Taproot Fiberlab.

The hackler uses sharp needle-like teeth to comb through the hemp fibers. The teeth are kept safely behind the yellow cage.

                It is a dream to see our hemp processing capabilities expand as we add mechanized elements to the intensive ongoing hand-processing that is necessary to extract fiber from biomass. We hope that this historical moment will mark just the beginning of our bast fiber processing capabilities in Northeast. Much more infrastructure will be necessary in order to see the industry grow here, but we are in it for the long haul. Many thanks to the USDA Sungrant cycle for sponsoring this project, and you can follow along with this ongoing project by searching award number AWD00001779.

The team celebrating the hackler’s arrival! From left to right: Laura Sullivan UVM Extension, Steve Kostell UVM, Travis Borderview Research Farm, Heather Darby UVM Extension, Josh Oulton taproot Fibrelab, Lily Oulton, Patricia Bishop taproot Fibrelab

Winter Hemp Retting

By outcropn

Every season is hemp season! This winter, Northwest Crops & Soils Program (NWCS) is exploring winter retting as an option for Vermont farms looking to grow textile-grade hemp. Retting is a necessary process that bast fiber crops must undergo to release and separate the natural fibers found in the stalk. Typically, this process commences in late summer once the crop has been cut. The two main types of retting are field retting and water retting. In field retting, plants are laid on the ground to be colonized by microbes, who then eat the pectin and lignin that bind the fibers into tightly glued bundles. In water retting, the freshly cut stalks are submerged in a tank of water to produce a similar outcome.

NWCS is conducting trials with a third type of retting called winter retting. This method is largely a mechanical process, while field and water retting rely on microbes to break down the stalk. The process of winter retting involves leaving the plants standing dead through the winter months to weather and degrade through exposure. The freeze-thaw cycle softens and loosens the fibers from their natural glues.

The Northeast might be the perfect host for the winter retting technique for one reason alone: we have a winter. Winter retting is touted as having many advantages over the two other retting techniques described. For one, harvesting dead plants is a lot easier than harvesting vigorous hemp plants in their prime, with strong green fibers ideal for wrapping around fast-moving, high-powered equipment. There are also no adverse environmental outcomes to winter retting, while water retting creates hazardous wastewater that must be treated and disposed of properly. NWCS Team members Laura Sullivan and Shannon MacDonald are pictured here harvesting winter retted hemp for analysis.

The winter-retted hemp is being harvested in one-month intervals to observe the fiber over time. Samples will be evaluated using a variety of methods in hopes of creating a comprehensive picture of the winter retting process. Some samples will be sent to Cornell’s Dairy One Forage Lab to undergo a wet chemistry analysis that will look at the degradation of pectin, lignin, and hemicellulose. Other tests will evaluate samples for characteristics like tensile strength. Aside from the data collection, the bulk of the fiber will be processed on our research farm in Alburgh, Vermont, and then sent to Battenkill Fibers in Greenwich, New York for spinning.

Last spring, we sent Battenkill a preliminary batch of hemp fiber from our 2023 season to be blended with local wool, thus creating the first commercially spun, all-local, hemp-wool yarn in the region, or maybe even the country. See picture above.

The overall goal of this project is to learn how to grow and process fiber in the northeast that meets the specifications of established processors like Battenkill to close the loop of regional production and empower farmers to do the same.  Our prototype yarn has given us proof of concept that this work is feasible. We’re excited to see the results of subsequent runs alongside the quantitative data, which should be finalized in July 2025. This work has been made possible with funding from the USDA Sungrant cycle and can be identified as award number AWD00001779.

End of Year Tidings from the E. E. Cummings Crop Testing Laboratory

By outcropn

Glad tidings of the season to all of our farmers, millers, bakers, brewers, researchers and other partners. This is our annual reminder that the E. E. Cummings Crop Testing Lab is closed at the end of December. The UVM campus is closed and there is no mail service from 12/23/2024 through 1/2/2025. If you have any samples that you need processed before the new year, please mail them soon and make sure they will arrive by 12/17.

We’re happy to have been your lab of choice for 2024 and look forward to partnering with you to look at grain quality again in 2025. Please contact us if you have any questions about testing or if there are any tests you’d like on your crops or other grains that you don’t see available on our website. Many of the testing options that we have added over the years have come from your requests.

Vermont-based Food and Fiber- NWCS Goes to the Farm to Plate Gathering

By outcropn

On November 20th and 21st, the 14th Annual Farm to Plate Network Gathering was held in Killington, Vermont. For the first time, the event included a local fiber panel entitled Vermont-based Food and Fiber- Increasing Diversified Farm and Market Opportunities. The panel featured six panelists with a spectrum of expertise in Vermont fibers- from plant to animal. Panelists included shepherd Dave Martin of Settlement Farm in Jericho, Amanda Kievet of Junction Fiber Spinning Mill, Kelly Notterman of Snug Valley Farm, Janet Currie of Villhemp USA, Travis Samuels of Zion Growers, and Laura Sullivan of UVM Extension Northwest Crops & Soils Program.

The session was well-attended by farmers and fiber enthusiasts alike who are eager to see VT farms build capacity to diversify their revenue streams. The session began with a brief history of wool in Vermont. Dave Martin spoke about Merino wool, a once a prominent industry in VT. Over the course of the session, it became apparent that gaps in regional infrastructure are a huge barrier to expansion for both the cellulosic (plant) and protein-based (animal) fiber industries. On the animal fiber side, there is a need for local scouring facilities; places that specialize in washing wool ahead of processing. Panelists also voiced their desire to generate income streams for waste wool, which would compensate farmers for wool which does not meet market standards for yarn. Two opportunities for waste wool revenue streams include pelletizing waste wool for a soil amendment and wool-based erosion barriers that can be used to prevent soil erosion and stabilize slopes in lieu of metal or plastic materials.

On the plant fiber side, a lack of processing infrastructure was also identified as a barrier to growing this industry in VT and the Northeast at large. Travis Samuels shared his difficulty with securing funding through the state (or other sources) for bast fiber processing equipment despite purchasing two large warehouse buildings in St. Johnsbury and Proctor which stand ready for next steps. Infrastructure aside, Laura shared that Pennsylvania recently managed to designate flax (another fiber plant) as a specialty crop, which will allow flax farmers in the state to access more grant funding and also insure their crops. Laura suggested that a similar measure could be taken here to further support farmers who will take on the initial risks of growing hemp and flax at scale in Vermont.

Over the course of the session, connections between local food and local fiber were enforced by the recognition that both fiber animals and plant fibers can be dual-purpose and serve as protein-rich foods as well as fibers. There was a resounding agreement in the room that becoming more climate-resilient in the years to come will mean increasing our awareness of what fiber-based materials are made of and where they come from. On a global scale today, 70% of fibers are synthetic, which means they are derived from oil, which is extracted from the lithosphere. Fibers like hemp and wool, on the other hand, are soil derived. In a closed-loop system, garments made from these fibers would be designed to return to the soil at the end of their life, and in fact, the soil wants that carbon back as a means to both sink carbon and build soil. Many thanks to Program Director Christine McGowan for setting the stage for such an important and timely conversation, and for making our hemp-based research a part of it.

Corn Stunt Disease and Insect Vector: New Pests in New York State

By outcropn

A corn disease and its insect vector were recently documented in New York State for the first time. Researchers at Cornell University found corn stunt and the corn leafhopper in four noncontiguous New York counties in October 2024. Growers should be aware that both could appear in Vermont in future years and that corn stunt can significantly reduce yield. 

“The causal agent of corn stunt, Spiroplasma kunkelii, belongs to a specialized class of bacteria known as mollicutes,” wrote Gary C. Bergstrom in his November 4, 2024, blog, Corn Stunt: A New Disease and a New Insect Vector for New York State. Professor emeritus of Cornell’s Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science, Bergstrom wrote that these mollicutes live in the corn leafhopper, Dalbulus maidis, and in the phloem sieve elements of specific plant hosts. 

Below, we’ve summarized Bergstrom’s information on the symptoms, history, and management of corn stunt. For more detail, please see his blog.

After feeding on infected plants, the corn leafhopper transmits the pathogen as it feeds on healthy plants, but corn stunt symptoms don’t generally appear until about a month later. The most severe symptoms occur when corn is infected at early growth stages (from VE to V8), and they’re similar to symptoms from other stressors, including drought, soil compaction, and phosphorous deficiency. These symptoms include white, yellow, red, or purple stripes on leaf blades and sheathes, as well as premature senescence. Symptoms more unique to corn stunt include significant ear stunting and abnormalities, such as poorly filled ears, no ears or multiple ears at the same node. 

Corn stunt could occur again in New York in future growing seasons and would cause significant yield losses. In the past decade, the pathogen has been active in some southern and eastern states, but it has only reached epidemic proportions in Texas, Florida, and California, as well as in Mexico and Central and South America. The weather systems that moved from south to north in 2024 likely transported the corn leafhopper farther north than usual. If the same systems don’t recur in future years, corn stunt may not reappear in the northeast U.S. Many people expect that the corn leafhopper can’t overwinter in northern climates, but climate change may alter that. Plant pathologists and entomologists in affected states are collaborating to monitor the pathogen and leafhopper vector in 2025.

Managing corn stunt begins with awareness, accurate diagnosis, and regional monitoring. Though plant breeding has developed corn varieties resistant to the pathogen, they aren’t suitable for northern climates. “Management of corn leafhopper populations with insecticides at corn vegetative stages to reduce corn stunt deserves further investigation,” Bergstrom wrote. “My principal advice to New York growers in 2025 is to plant corn at the earliest recommended date to avoid arrival of leafhoppers at the most vulnerable plant stages for infection by spiroplasma.”

Figure 1 (left). Corn leafhopper, Dalbulus maidis, the insect vector of corn stunt spiroplasma, is characterized by two prominent dark dots between its eyes and a deeply imbedded V-pattern on its upper thorax. Photo courtesy of Dr. Ashleigh Faris, Oklahoma State University.

Figure 2 (right). Corn plants testing positive for corn stunt spiroplasma showed stunting, leaf reddening, and abnormal ears in (A) Erie County and (B) Jefferson County, New York, near the end of the 2024 growing season.

NEW YORK and VERMONT CORN SILAGE HYBRID EVALUATION PROGRAM

By outcropn

The 2024 Corn Silage Hybrid Evaluation report for NY and VT has been completed and is posted on our UVM Research Reports webpage https://www.uvm.edu/extension/nwcrops/research

Hybrid evaluation at multiple environments helps in decision making and expands the reach of this type of data to more farmers. Cornell, UVM, and seed companies collaborate to provide this evaluation. Hybrids were either entered into the 85-98 day RM group (Early-Mid; n = 29) or were entered into the 99-110 day RM group (Mid-Late; n = 31). All hybrids were planted at two locations; the Musgrave Research Farm in Aurora, NY (Cayuga County) and Borderview Farm in Alburgh, VT (Grand Isle County). Harvest dates were staggered by maturity group at each location. Weather data, growing degree days (GDD; 86-50°F system), and precipitation, for both the current year and long-term averages, can be found in Table 1 for all locations.

The NY and VT corn silage evaluation program is made possible with support from dairy producers, participating seed companies, Cornell University, the University of Vermont, and the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station. Seed companies were invited to submit hybrids into either maturity group (two locations per maturity group) for a fee.

View this research report for the details and results at https://www.uvm.edu/sites/default/files/Northwest-Crops-and-Soils-Program/2024%20Research%20Rpts/2024_NY_VT_Corn_Silage_Hybrid_Evaluation_Report_11.11.24.pdf.

2023 Cost of Production on Grass-fed Dairy Farms in the Northeast

By outcropn

Since 2018 our research team has been collecting and analyzing financial data from 100% grass-fed dairy producers in the northeast with the goal to better understand the cost of producing milk in this production system. With several years of data, we have been able to create a useful benchmark for northeast grass-fed dairy producers.1 This article will summarize the 2023 dataset and begin to explore management system and production practice impacts on cost of production and profitability.

Dairy farms located in NY, NH, and VT that are shipping 100% grass-fed milk were able to participate in the study. Data are presented as an overall average for all farms in the study and also divided into groups by total cost of production. Three groups were created representing low ($55) production costs on a hundredweight equivalent (cwt eq.) basis. Total cwt eq. shipped for each farm was determined by converting dairy-related non-milk income (i.e., crop sales, calf sales, etc.) into an equivalent number of milk hundredweights which is then added to the milk hundredweights sold. While our focus is on the cost to produce grass-fed milk, the data collected included information on changes in inventory (herd, equipment, etc.), and asset values allowing net farm income from operations (NFIFO), return on assets (ROA), and operating profit margin (OPM) to be calculated. These data are reported in Table 1 found in the online article on the Grass-fed Dairy webpage – https://www.uvm.edu/extension/nwcrops/grass-fed-dairy

2023 Farm Demographics – Participating farms were selling milk to Organic Valley (58%), Maple Hill Creamery (19%), and other local markets (23%). The herd size ranged from 30 to 123 milking cows with an average of 60 cows per farm. Farms were managing an average of 295 acres resulting in 4.5 acres available per mature cow (Figure 1). The farms estimated they purchased on average 34.2% of their herd’s forage needs. Herds were mainly composed of crossbreeds, however, there were farms milking pure-bred Holstein, Jersey, and other breeds which differ in milk and fat production. While most farms milked year-round, there were some fully seasonal herds (16%) and herds milking at frequencies other than twice daily (16%).

Review the full factsheet on the Grass-fed Dairy webpage at https://www.uvm.edu/extension/nwcrops/grass-fed-dairy. You will review information on the income and expenses, average farm summary statistics, labor efficiency, and farm financial health metrics.

As we gain a better understanding of this production system and the range of management practices within it, we continue to refine our data collection and analysis to gain better insights into the most widely successful strategies for grass-fed dairy farms in the northeast. The information presented here is just the beginning of more in-depth analysis that will continue to develop over the next few years as we explore the connections between management, cost of production, and profitability.

New Curriculum for Climate-Smart Solutions for Agriculture

By outcropn

Summary

University of Vermont Extension’s Northwest Crops and Soils program is excited to share a new, no-cost curriculum and educational resources to prepare 21st-century students for climate-smart solutions for agriculture. With this engaging and interactive curriculum, middle and high school students will learn how to use scientifically informed approaches to sustainability in agriculture. It and other materials are available at no cost on the University of Vermont’s Northwest Crops and Soils program Resources for Educators webpage: https://www.uvm.edu/extension/nwcrops/resources-educators.

Resource Details

The On Common Ground: Expanding Agricultural Literacy with Citizen Science (OCG) Resource Hubbrings agriculture into the classroom with student-driven experimental design and implementation.

The OCG Resource Hub provides a 13-lesson curriculum that builds student knowledge in agriculture and develops critical thinking about the practical application of the scientific method to real-world problems. The suite of resources hosted on the OCG Resource Hub also includes the following.

AgConnect is a free, teacher-controlled platform that guides students through lab and field-based experimental design and the scientific method with an agricultural focus.

360° photo tours will introduce your students to no-till and high-tunnel crop production systems in Vermont.

WE FARM (Water & Environment Farm Assessment and Risk Management),  transports your students to a virtual farm. There, students’ goals are to identify potential environmental risks and choose the management practices they think will best mitigate potential issues.

Prepares Students for 21st-Century Jobs

These tools will help students prepare for today’s job market. A 2020 report for the 2020-2025 outlook summary by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and Purdue University estimated that there would be an average of 59,400 annual job openings in the food, renewable natural resources, and environmental fields from 2020 to 2025. Current graduation rates in these fields indicate that only 61 percent of these new positions will be filled. In the most recently updated U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report (2022), there were 804,600 workers employed in the agricultural industry sector. In today’s global economy, education is the currency that helps students get good jobs. Not only is there a need for highly qualified individuals in the domestic labor market, but our students must also be prepared to compete in the international market.

Increases Agricultural Literacy

The overarching goal of the OCG Resource Hub is to increase agricultural literacy. Less than a century ago, in 1935, when employment in U.S. agriculture was at its highest, 1 out of every 25 people was employed in agriculture. The most recent data show that the number is now fewer than 1 in 100 (Roser, 2019). This decrease reflects an American public that is losing a connection to agriculture, reducing Americans’ ability to make informed decisions about their agricultural purchases and policy.

Contact

Learn more about the On Common Ground: Expanding Agricultural Literacy with Citizen Science Resource Hub at the Resources for Educators webpage of the University of Vermont Extension’s Northwest Crops and Soils Program: https://www.uvm.edu/extension/nwcrops/resources-educators. If you would like to schedule an agricultural literacy professional development workshop or field trip to Borderview Agriculture Research Farm in Alburgh, contact Lindsey Ruhl at lindsey.ruhl@uvm.edu or 802-656-7622 or 802-656-7610.

On Common Ground curriculum and suite of teaching tools were developed with generous funding from the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Award No. 2020-67038-31043.

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