A tiny, voracious fly called the swede midge, which already has eaten its way across eastern Canada's cabbage and broccoli fields, now is threatening to descend on crops in states along the northern U.S. border. On Feb. 11 an educational session on the swede midge will be held for registered growers at the 2003 New York State Vegetable Conference in Liverpool, N.Y
Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what one Cornell University agricultural scientist calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.
Potentially damaging soybean aphids have been detected in several central and western counties of New York state, according to Cornell University entomologists.
By observing the battle between bacterial speck disease and tomatoes, biologists have discovered how plant cells resist some ailments. Researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research Inc. and Cornell can now demonstrate how disease-causing organisms deliver destructive agents to plants, and how the plants fight back.
For many dairy cows, summertime living isn't easy. In the northeastern United States, heat stress can make the animals more susceptible to mastitis, laminitis and acidosis. It can also adversely affect the growth rates of unborn calves and reduce a cow's capacity to make milk by as much as one-third.
Russia is teetering on the brink of a large-scale potato crisis ignited by the same virulent, fungal-like pathogen, Phytophthora infestans, more commonly called late blight, that was responsible for the 19th century Irish potato famine.
Cornell University will host the "2000 Greenhouse Management Conference: Grow Your Greenhouse" conference Nov. 9 and 10 at the Holiday Inn, Batavia, N.Y. The conference is being held in conjunction with the Country Folks Grower Trade Show and Garden Plant Education Day. The conference is for anyone interested in starting or expanding a greenhouse business or for those involved in the horticultural industry, either as managers or as service providers, and for horticultural educators.
The young cheddar cheese at McCadam Cheese Co., Heuvelton, N.Y., has been judged the top cheese in New York state for 2000, beating out cheeses in all categories. The judging took place at Cornell University in mid-August and was on Aug. 28 at the New York State Fair's Dairy Day.
The genetic mechanism that through millennia of evolution has created plump and juicy fruits and vegetables could also be involved in the proliferation of human cancer cells. Plant biologists and computer scientists at Cornell University have essentially made a direct genetic connection between the evolutionary processes involved in plant growth and the processes involved in the growth of mammalian tumors.
