Month: September 2011

September 17, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Northeast farmers warn of Halloween pumpkin shortage after rains from Irene devastate crops

NEW YORK — Northeastern states are facing a jack-o’-lantern shortage this Halloween after Hurricane Irene destroyed hundreds of pumpkin patches across the region, farmers say.

Wholesale prices have doubled in some places as farmers nurse their surviving pumpkin plants toward a late harvest. Some farmers are trying to buy pumpkins from other regions to cover orders.

Many area farms have fared well through the wet weather while some Northeastern states face a pumpkin shortage.

“I think there’s going to be an extreme shortage of pumpkins this year,” said Darcy Pray, owner of Pray’s Family Farms in Keeseville, in upstate New York. “I’ve tried buying from people down in the Pennsylvania area, I’ve tried locally here and I’ve tried reaching across the border to some farmers over in the Quebec area. There’s just none around.”

Hurricane Irene raked the Northeast in late August, bringing torrents of rain that overflowed rivers and flooded fields along the East Coast and into southern Canada. Pray saw his entire crop, about 15,000 to 20,000 pumpkins, washed into Lake Champlain.

But pumpkin farmers had been having a difficult year even before the storm. Heavy rains this spring meant many farms had to postpone planting for two or three weeks, setting back the fall harvest, said Jim Murray, owner of the Applejacks Orchard in Peru, N.Y.

A late harvest can be fatal to business because pumpkin sales plummet after Halloween on Oct. 31. Wholesalers need to get pumpkins on their way to stores by mid-September.

Another spate of rain about two weeks before Irene caused outbreaks of the phytophthora fungus —a type of water mold — in many fields, said Jim Stakey, owner of Stakey’s Pumpkin Farm in Aquebogue, on New York’s Long Island.

Continue reading
September 6, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

County seeks ‘best of the best’ vendors for March flower show

WAILUKU – Maui County is seeking island vendors to participate in the Philadelphia International Flower Show, March 4 to 11.

An informational meeting is set for 8 a.m. Wednesday in the ninth-floor Mayor’s Lounge in the Kalana O Maui building. The list of participants must be completed by Oct. 1.

The show’s theme is “Hawai’i, Islands of Aloha.” Show organizers have offered vendors from all Hawaii counties the opportunity to participate in the event designed to

showcase local Hawaii-made products and cultural crafts. The Hawai’i Tourism Authority and Maui Visitors Bureau also will be participating to promote Hawaii and Maui County.

The Maui County Office of Economic Development announced it has purchased 10 booths at the Philadelphia flower show, the largest fresh flower and products show in North America. The nine-day event is expected to draw 300,000 people.

The office also is offering qualified Maui companies financial assistance.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to market the many fine local products and services we have here in Maui County,” said Mayor Alan Arakawa, adding that the county is seeking applicants that are “the best of the best we have to offer.”

Eligible products include Maui County-made food products, cultural crafts, Hawaiian music compact discs, fresh flowers or packaged nursery products, value-added soaps and lotions, fresh fruit and packaged coffee.

The county expects to pick a diverse group of vendors with a large amount of products ready to ship to Philadelphia in March. The requirements include that at least 51 percent of the value of the product must have been derived within Maui County, and the companies need to have a website with an active shopping cart.

For more information, call 270-7710.

County
seeks ‘best of the best’ vendors for March flower show – Mauinews.com |
News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News

September 4, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Dry again: drought back to stalk farmers

FOR bull breeder Tim Vincent it is a bitter irony that his beloved country can change from drought to flooding rains, and back again, in just a few short months.

His family’s 850ha property outside Gunnedah in northern NSW was like a “little bit of paradise” after last season’s early rains. Today its ragged hills and plains are thick with parched grass, the nutritional value of cardboard, he said.

Mr Vincent, who shares the property with his wife Margaret, their two children and his now-retired parents, has been hand-feeding most of the family’s 450 prime cattle for months.

“I didn’t expect, after we had fences washed out and cattle all over the road in December, that it would change back so quickly,” he said. “Spring is our growing season, but I can tell you there’s not much growing happening here now.”

Mrs Vincent agreed: “Everyone thought we would have at least one or two good years.” Rainfall gauges in nearby Gunnedah recorded barely 250mm in the year to date, compared with an annual average of more than 600mm.

The Bureau of Meteorology puts the chance of making up the difference between now and summer at perhaps 25 per cent.

Even though most dams in the area are almost full, an ugly ochre patch on the NSW Department of Primary Industries agricultural conditions map for last month marks drought in central-northern NSW. Parts of three districts were drought-declared last month, and five more downgraded from satisfactory to marginal.

A spokesman for NSW Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson said she was aware small pockets of the state had slipped into drought. “The minister has noted that there are small portions of NSW that have not received the rain that everywhere else has. But in a state as big as NSW you won’t get a good season (for) everyone.”

Continue reading
September 3, 2011 General Ag News and Notes, Maui Gold Pineapple Post a Comment

Full Schedule: Grown on Maui in September

Throughout September Maui farmers, ranchers, local food producers and friends of agriculture are teaming up to celebrate local food. We do this because we believe that agriculture matters on Maui.

Grown on Maui Chef Demos at Whole Foods Market
Maui every Monday in September, 5:30-6:30 p.m.
September 6 Tylun Pang, The Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui
September 12 Garret Fujieda, The Westin Maui Resort & Spa
September 19 Caroline Schaub O’o Farm
September 26 Ryan Luckey, Pineapple Grill at Kapalua Resort

Grown on Maui Flower Demos at Whole Foods Market
Maui every Tuesday in September, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
September 6 Sue Cuffe, Hana Fantasy Flowers
September 12 Carver Wilson, Maui Floral
September 19 Dan Judson, Orchids of Olinda
September 26 Maui Flower Growers Association

Wednesdays From 8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. the Weed & Pot Club activities at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens will focus on Hawaiian food plant propagation and maintenance.

Monday-Friday Maui Pineapple Tour presents pineapple heritage tours at the newly established Hali’imaile Pineapple Plantation.

Tour Da Food: Experience the dishes that characterize Maui cuisine, learn about the traditions and people behind the plates, soak up a sense of place with intimate excursions to Maui’s off-the touristpath culinary treasures and come away with a deeper understanding of Maui’s multicultural community and history.

Every Tuesday – Ali’i Kula Lavender is offering $1 cups of tea and 50% off guided tours.

Eat Local Challenge 2011! – Maui residents and businesses participate in the statewide initiative organized by Kanu Hawai‘i.

Continue reading
September 2, 2011 General Ag News and Notes, Papaya Post a Comment

Japan approves genetically modified papayas

Japanese consumers will likely be seeing genetically modified papayas on their grocery shelves beginning in December.

The Japanese government’s Consumer Affairs Agency on Thursday approved rainbow papayas for sale in that country.

The papayas had previously been approved by Japan’s Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; and Health, Labour and Welfare ministries. The strain was approved for sale in the U.S. in 1998 and in Canada in 2003.

The Japanese labeling approval was the last step to get the papayas introduced into Japan — there will be a three-month waiting period before the papayas are available.

“The approval by the Japanese government has been slow but thorough,” Delan Perry, the vice president of the Hawaii Papaya Industry, said. “They asked a lot of questions.”

It’s a process that’s taken 10 years.

“It’s an important approval as far as the technology,” said Perry, who is a papaya grower in Kapoho.

The papayas were engineered to resist papaya ring spot virus, which was discovered in the Puna area in 1992 and severely damaged crops there.

To create the resistance to the virus, scientists fused the DNA of the virus into the genetic makeup of a papaya, creating a new strain.

Dennis Gonsalves, the director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service’s Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, said it’s similar to a vaccination in animals.

The rainbow’s introduction “controlled the virus in Hawaii,” Gonsalves said. “It essentially saved the industry in Hawaii.”

While Gonsalves — who worked with a group of fellow public sector scientists to create the genetically modified fruit — and others say the introduction of rainbow papayas was essential, some disagree.

Continue reading
September 2, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

New flu virus infects two U.S. children, CDC reports – The Washington Post

Two U.S. children were infected with a previously unknown flu virus that apparently formed when a pig influenza virus picked up a gene from the strain that caused the swine flu pandemic in 2009, federal health officials reported Friday.

Both of the children recovered, however, and there is no evidence that the virus is spreading easily among people, meaning that it does not appear to pose a threat of becoming a significant public health concern, officials said.

“We want people to be aware of these things and we want physicians to be aware,” said Lyn Finelli, chief of surveillance and response at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Influenza Division. “But we don’t think that these cases in themselves are alarming.”

Both children are 2 years old, and both apparently were infected by exposure to pigs at county fairs. In one case, a boy in Indiana was apparently infected by a “caretaker” who had been showing pigs at a county fair a few days before the boy became ill, Finelli said. In the other, a girl in Pennsylvania appears to be have been infected when she went to a county fair and petting zoo, she said. No one else, including family members of the two children, appears to have become infected.

“We see four or five of these cases every year. They are commonly reported during times of state fairs and county fairs when there is more contact between people and pigs,” Finelli said. “These infections are similar to those that have been reported before.”

The Indiana boy developed a fever, cough, shortness of breath and diarrhea July 23. Because he had other chronic health problems, he was hospitalized the next day, but returned home three days later and completely recovered.

Continue reading
September 1, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Faye Blackstone, rodeo trick rider, dies at 96

Faye Blackstone, a rodeo trick rider who was elected to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and was best known for her saddle-dangling signature move, the reverse fender drag, and who helped launch the career of country singer Reba McEntire, died Aug. 30 at a hospital in Bradenton, Fla.

She was 96 and had complications from cancer, said her great-niece Deanna Blackstone.

Mrs. Blackstone was 3 when she began riding horses on her family’s Nebraska ranch. She taught herself how to do tricks while riding her horse to school.

She and her late husband, Vic, a bow-legged bronc rider from Texas, married in 1937 on horseback in the center of a rodeo arena in Bladen, Neb. They performed on the rodeo circuit during the 1940s and ’50s. During that time, she also rode in a traveling show with Gene Autry and entertained crowds in New York’s Madison Square Garden and as far as Havana with her gymnastic feats.

Mrs. Blackstone could do headstands while her quarter horse galloped at full stride. She could drop down from the saddle, let her boots kick the arena dust and spin to the horse’s other side.

Diana Vela, the associate executive director of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, said that Mrs. Blackstone is credited with inventing three maneuvers:

Continue reading