General Agriculture Resources
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This bulletin contains guidelines to determine irrigation scheduling for vegetable production in Georgia. Irrigation scheduling varies with water management and growers may require different technologies to properly manage water application. This information is supplied to help irrigation managers schedule and operate irrigation systems to optimal capacity, applying water precisely to the crop for maximum effectiveness and high efficiency.
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Properly maintaining, calibrating, and adjusting a seed drill before planting is an important part of ensuring the successful establishment of forage or cover crops. Seed may be placed at a depth that is too deep or too shallow if the equipment is not properly prepared and set. Too much or too little seed may be planted if the equipment is not properly calibrated. These planting mistakes may result in a poor stand, greater weed competition, lower yields, and/or reductions in forage quality. Conversely, planting more seed than required can unnecessarily increase establishment costs and can sometimes result in reduced yields. After investing in the seed and committing the time to plant a field, taking a few extra steps to ensure that investment bears fruit is well worth maintaining, calibrating, and adjusting the drill.
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Drip, trickle, microemitters, and subsurface irrigation systems are considered low-volume irrigation. Low-volume irrigation systems are designed to improve irrigation efficiency, delivering water to the crop accurately with minimal water loss. Irrigation efficiency can be categorized into two main concepts: water loss and uniform application. If water loss is significant, or application uniformity is poor, efficiency will be low. Generally, the most significant loss of irrigation water is from overwatering, where the water percolates below the root zone, or from runoff. With good management, losses due to leaks, system drainage, and flushing of filters and lateral lines should not exceed 1%. Low-volume systems have the opportunity to achieve efficiency, and under careful management, will minimize losses from overirrigation. However, using low-volume systems requires increased irrigation frequency and soil moisture monitoring should be used to improve water-use efficiency. This publication covers system design, system efficiencies, components, chemical applications, diseases related to irrigation, and soil moisture monitoring.
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Private forest owners control most of the southern forest resource and are critical to maintaining forest health in the South. Record droughts, rising temperatures, increased frequency and intensity of wildfires, insect and plant invasions, and more intense storm events all pose threats to the health of Southern forests. Scientists project that increases in temperature and changes in rainfall patterns will cause these disturbances to become more common, occurring with greater intensity or duration. This pamphlet reviews healthy forest strategies and approaches to decrease the risks associated with these disturbances on your forestland.
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J. Holly Campbell and David R. Coyle, Southern Regional Extension Forestry
Littleleaf disease is a forest health concern for several pine species in the southeastern United States. This disease is a particular problem for shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) and is one reason why this species is less widely planted compared with other pines. Littleleaf disease results from a combination of biological factors and site characteristics, when combined with a susceptible host tree. Some factors are more important – i.e., they have a primary role in disease formation – while others have a secondary role, and mostly contribute to making disease symptoms worse.
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Experimental power determinations are very important to agriculture and other applied sciences. It is necessary to be able to detect
small differences when human and animal health or production profitability are in question. Yet textbooks on biostatistics for
agriculturalists generally barely introduce the subject of how to design an experiment to detect some important difference between
treatments. To come to meaningful conclusions, researchers need to know how to plan both plan and conduct experiments. Entirely different
questions may be asked of an experiment depending on who is to interpret the results. Developers may be most interested in showing
that their new product gives responses not statistically significantly different from some standard. Potential consumers, on the other
hand, should be more interested in demonstrating that expected responses from a new product are equal to the standard|
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Cover crops are in essential part of an organic production system. Cereal rye and crimson clover are cover crops that are commonly used. If organic cover crop production is a viable enterprise for growers, it could improve the availability of varieties adapted to the Southeast; provide a source for locally grown seeds; and be another profit center for growers, seed cleaners, and local seed companies.
This bulletin discusses what farmers need to know about producing cover crops organically and gives example enterprise budgets for cereal rye and crimson clover. A two-year on-farm trial indicated that producing organic cover crop seed may be profitable.
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This publication contains an Excel spreadsheet to help researchers determine the correct poultry population size for their experiments.
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Weed management is one of the most critical and costly aspects for container nursery production. High irrigation and fertilization rates create a favorable environment for weed growth in addition to crop growth. Weeds can quickly out-compete the crop for light and other resources, reducing the rate and amount of crop growth as well as salability. Weed management in nursery production is most effectively achieved by preventative practices, primarily with the use of pre-emergent herbicides. However, there are valid reasons for managing weeds using alternatives to synthetic herbicides. Weed management alternatives to synthetic herbicides include sanitation, exclusion, prevention, hand weeding, mulching and use of cover crops, heat and non-synthetic herbicides. Only some of these alternative methods can be used to control weeds in containers, but all can be used to manage weeds around containers and in non-crop
areas.|