NDSU Sets Fruit, Hemp, Vegetable and Woody Plants Field Day

Aug 21, 2024

The North Dakota State University Department of Plant Sciences will host a fruit, hemp, vegetable and woody plants field day on Thursday, Sept. 5, at the NDSU Horticulture Research Farm and Arboretum near Amenia and Absaraka, North Dakota. The field day will begin at 4 p.m.

“This event will showcase some of the exciting research being conducted in our horticulture department at NDSU and give field day participants a chance to see how some of the projects we are working on might be suitable for their gardens, orchards or farms,” says Harlene Hatterman-Valenti, NDSU Department of Plant Sciences professor and field day organizer.

The field day will include presentations on caterpillar tunnel grapes, high tunnel tomatoes, apples for fresh eating and hard ciders, hydro-mulching for weed control, evaluating new brassica cultivars for yield and stress tolerance, evaluating garlic cultivars, floral hemp research, grape and juneberry breeding research, and woody plant breeding research.

Source : ndsu.edu

Video: No-Till vs Tillage: Why Neighboring Fields Are World Apart

“No-till means no yield.”

“No-till soils get too hard.”

But here’s the real story — straight from two fields, same soil, same region, totally different outcomes.

Ray Archuleta of Kiss the Ground and Common Ground Film lays it out simply:

Tillage is intrusive.

No-till can compact — but only when it’s missing living roots.

Cover crops are the difference-maker.

In one field:

No-till + covers ? dark soil, aggregates, biology, higher organic matter, fewer weeds.

In the other:

Heavy tillage + no covers ? starving soil, low diversity, more weeds, fragile structure.

The truth about compaction?

Living plants fix it.

Living roots leak carbon, build aggregates, feed microbes, and rebuild structure — something steel never can.

Ready to go deeper into the research behind no-till yields, rotations, and profitability?