News Stories - Page 59

It may be a while before robots and drones are as common as tractors and combine harvesters on farms, but high-tech tools may soon play a major role in helping feed the world’s rapidly growing population.

UGA cotton breeder Peng Chee’s groundbreaking research in molecular genetics provides Georgia cotton farmers with root-knot-nematode-resistant cotton varieties. It has also garnered Chee national recognition.

For decades, farmers who have embraced conservation production have seen increased soil health, reduced irrigation demands and lowered economic risk. For the past 17 years, Georgia farmers interested in adopting new conservation practices for their farms – including those looking to swap best practices with other conservation tillers – have gathered at Georgia’s annual Conservation Production Systems Training Conference.

Facing severe drought and hay shortages, northeast Georgia cattle farmers were as eager as anyone to see 2016 in the rearview mirror.

Relatively unknown outside of health food stores in the United States, millet has served as a staple food for families in Eastern Africa and Asia for thousands of years.

Kudzu bugs are not native to Georgia, but in the past seven years, they’ve made their homes in soybean fields across the southeastern U.S.