Every two years, professional greenhouse growers and garden retailers from throughout New England and New York gather at the Northeast Greenhouse Conference and Expo to learn about new developments in their field and products and equipment useful for their work.
Cold Spring Orchard Farm Stand Prospers During Challenging Year
Despite the challenges of a very late spring frost, the orchards, farm stand, and wholesale sales at Cold Spring Orchard Research and Education Center in Belchertown have had a good season.
Thanks to the work of UMass researchers, 4-H members, volunteers, and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, hundreds of hungry families in western Mass. are receiving locally grown potatoes in time for their holiday meals.
Farming Finds a New Home at the Agricultural Learning Center
The 40-acre parcel of land formaly known as the Adams-Wysocki field is in the process of being transformed into the new Agricultural Learning Center, a working farm designed to give students hands-on training in everything from running a tractor to transplanting trees to making cheese from the milk of the cows they’ve raised.
With mapping now completed for all 351 towns and cities in Massachusetts, the Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System (CAPS) is equipped to help citizens and agencies throughout the state make smarter and more sustainable environmental choices.
Researchers at the Center for Agriculture are using their expertise to help combat one of the most serious pest infestations in recent memory—the local colonization of the spotted wing drosophila, a type of vinegar fly.
Hatching is now occurring in Eastern MA and most of RI. Last year it defoliated about 80,000 acres in eastern MA. We have addressed the issue of what the abnormal winter effect may be on this pest in the press release.