Fruit Crops Edition

Seasonal updates on diseases, insects, weeds impacting tree fruit and small fruit (blueberry, cranberry, and wine grape). Fruit Pest Alerts are also available via this category feed.
 
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December 18, 2024

Hurry – Apply for the Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops (MASC) Program– Applications Due January 8, 2025 – Contact Your Local FSA Office Now

The MASC program, administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) using Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funds, provides eligible specialty crop producers with marketing assistance payments to help them engage in activities that aid in expanding domestic specialty crop markets or in developing new markets for their specialty crops in 2025.

SPECIALTY CROPS ELIGIBLE – Fruits (fresh, dried) Nursery crops, Christmas trees, and floriculture, Vegetables (including dry edible beans and peas, mushrooms, and vegetable seed) Culinary and medicinal herbs and spices, Tree nuts, Honey, hops, maple sap, tea, turfgrass, and grass seed. Payments are capped at $125,000 per producer, and if demand exceeds the allocated $2 billion, payments may be prorated. Final payment factors will be determined after the application period closes.

To be eligible for payments, persons or legal entities must:
• Be in the business of producing a specialty crop at the time of application and be entitled to an ownership share and share in the risk of producing a specialty crop that will be sold in calendar year 2025;
• Be a U.S. citizen, resident alien, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, or other organizational structure organized under State law, Indian Tribe or Tribal Organization, or a foreign person or foreign entity who meets certain eligibility requirements;
• Comply with the provisions of the “Highly Erodible Land and Wetland Conservation” regulations, often called the conservation compliance provisions;
• Not have a controlled substance violation;
• Submit a complete MASC application form (FSA-1140) and provide all required documentation as specified in the documents section below.
To be eligible for payments, a person or legal entity must have an average adjusted gross income (AGI) of less than $900,000 for tax years 2021, 2022, and 2023, unless the person or legal entity’s average adjusted gross farm income is at least 75 percent of their average AGI.

Eligible producers can apply by completing the FSA-1140, Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops (MASC) Application, and submitting it to any FSA county office by January 8, 2025.

FSA-1141, Marketing Assistance For Specialty Crops (MASC) New Producer Expected Sales Worksheet (New producers only)
New producers must complete and sign the new producer expected sales worksheet and provide along with their FSA-1140 to any Farm Service Agency county office nationwide.

See link for more information: https://www.fsa.usda.gov/tools/informational/fact-sheets/marketing-assistance-specialty-crops-program 

Filed Under: Blueberry, Christmas Trees, Commercial Ag Updates, Cranberry, Food Safety, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Nursery, Organic Production, Strawberry, Tree Fruit, Turf, Uncategorized, vegetable, Vegetable Crops, Wine Grape Tagged With: ,
December 4, 2024 , , and

Draft Rules For Dual-Use Solar Energy Pilot Program & Public Information Session

On December 2, 2024, the NJ Board of Public Utilities posted draft rules for the Dual-Use Solar Energy (agrivoltaics) Pilot Program that was enacted by the NJ State Legislature. The purpose of the posting is to elicit public input by the January 31, 2025 deadline. The draft rules in the NJ Register are available to review here:  https://go.rutgers.edu/Dual-Use-Solar-Rules
There will be a public information session (presentation and Q&A) about the draft rules on the morning of December 17. More details about this session are available here: https://www.nj.gov/bpu/newsroom/public/
Filed Under: Agrivoltaics, Christmas Trees, Commercial Ag Updates, Field, Forage & Livestock, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Vegetable Crops Tagged With: , , , , , ,
December 4, 2024 and

Webinar: FSMA PSR, Pre-Harvest Water – Wednesday, January 8, 2025, 12 pm – 1 pm

During this one-hour lunchtime webinar, learn the ins and outs of the Food Safety Modernization Act: Produce Safety Rule (FSMA: PSR), Pre-Harvest Water changes. The final rule establishes requirements for systems-based pre-harvest agricultural water inspections and assessments for hazard identification and risk management decision-making on covered farms.

Covered farms – those that are subject to the requirements in the FSMA: PSR – that use pre-harvest agricultural water for covered produce are required to conduct agricultural water inspections and assessments at least once annually, or whenever a significant change occurs that increases the likelihood that a known or reasonably foreseeable hazard will be introduced into or onto produce or food contact surfaces. As part of their pre-harvest agricultural water assessments, farms must evaluate certain factors that could impact produce safety as a result of pre-harvest agricultural water use (e.g., agricultural water use practices, crop characteristics, environmental conditions, etc.).

The deadline to register is Monday, January 6, 2025. To sign up or for more information go to https://onfarmfoodsafety.rutgers.edu/trainings/.

 

Filed Under: Commercial Ag Updates, Food Safety, Fruit, Organic Production, vegetable, Vegetable Crops
December 4, 2024

Farmworker Housing and Firefighters: Free Webinar, Dec. 6

Something to share with your colleagues at local fire companies, from www.morningagclips.com –

Many first responders are unaware of the various mandates surrounding farmworker housing

ONLINE — Farmworker housing poses unique challenges to rural fire departments in terms of both fire code inspections and emergency response. Furthermore, many first responders are unaware of the various mandates surrounding farmworker housing.

A free webinar, noon-1 p.m. (Central Time) on Dec. 6, will introduce firefighters, other first responders, and health and safety professionals to incident prevention and emergency response considerations, and increase understanding about farmworkers and relevant housing standards so that the agricultural community can better engage in risk mitigation and emergency pre-planning activities.

The webinar is being co-hosted by the Rural Firefighters Delivering Agricultural Safety and Health (RF-DASH) team at the National Farm Medicine Center, Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, Marshfield, Wis.; and the National Center for Farmworker Health. The webinar is free but registration is required. To register, and for more information, visit Farmworker Housing and Firefighters Webinar – RF-DASH

Speakers include:

  • Casper Bendixsen, director, National Farm Medicine Center
  • Bethany Alcauter, director, Research and Public Health Programs, National Center for Farmworker Health
  • Aaron Andre, fire prevention coordinator, Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services
  • Kathryn Mueller, chief, Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Program and Planning Section, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development
  • Dennis Dederich, chief, Vesper Volunteer Fire Department
  • Jerry Minor, chief, Pittsville Fire Company

There are approximately 2.9 million agricultural workers in the United States, including seasonal and migrant farmworkers. It is estimated that nearly a third of farmworkers live in crowded housing conditions and as many as 15 percent live in employer-provided housing.

–National Farm Medicine Center

Filed Under: Commercial Ag Updates, Field, Forage & Livestock, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Vegetable Crops Tagged With: , , , , ,
December 2, 2024

Does your farm, ranch or ag business host visitors?

Be counted! If your farm, ranch, or agricultural business is open to visitors, please take 5 minutes to complete a short survey from our colleagues at the University of Vermont. The deadline for the survey is Friday, December 13.

Click here to take the survey or copy and paste this link into your browser: http://go.uvm.edu/agt24

The goal of this survey is to understand how many agricultural operations in the U.S. welcome visitors for direct sales and experiences, including pick-your-own, farm stands, tours, overnight farm stays, recreation, etc. This information will be used to inform future programs and support.

This research study is led by Dr. Lisa Chase, Extension Professor at the University of Vermont and Director of the Vermont Tourism Research Center. If you have questions about the survey, please contact Lisa.Chase@uvm.edu or 802-656-7532. If you have questions about your rights as a participant in a research project, please contact the Research Protections Office at the University of Vermont at 802-656-5040.

 

Filed Under: Christmas Trees, Commercial Ag Updates, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Vegetable Crops Tagged With: ,
November 27, 2024

Get Ready for the 2025 NJ Ag Convention – February 3-6

It is that time of year again to sign up for the annual NJ Agricultural Convention, co-sponsored by the Vegetable Growers Association of New Jersey, Rutgers Cooperative Extension, and the New Jersey Department of Agriculture. Visit the VGANJ website at https://vganj.com/convention-tickets to register.

For 2025 there are new and exciting opportunities to learn about all aspects of the agricultural industry at the educational sessions and from vendors at the trade show. If you came last year, you also saw many new improvements to the convention – more vendors, more educational sessions, a complimentary lunch (limited free tickets) on Tuesday highlighting “what’s new from industry”, a complimentary hot buffet at the Tuesday happy hour/charity auction, youth programs for FFA, and co-convention events with the NJ Department of Agriculture. These offerings and more are coming for 2025. New events like Monday afternoon workshops, a livestock session, an agricultural policy session, an environmental session, and others are confirmed for this coming year. Licensed pesticide applicators will see an increase in recertification credits on the program for 2025. 

To check out the educational programming and NJDEP recertification credits for pesticide applicators see https://go.rutgers.edu/ConvProgram2025 – this is a draft program. Also, note that some events need special sign-up so read the program carefully to see what events need pre-registration.

NJ State Board of Agriculture information for the convention is coming soon. Check out their website at Department of Agriculture | Conventions.

If you have any questions about the VGANJ registration, go to https://vganj.com/#contact. If you need more information about the educational programs please contact the Rutgers Co-Chairs for the convention – bamka@njaes.rutgers.edu Bill Bamka, Agricultural Agent in Burlington County, or minfante@njaes.rutgers.edu Michelle Infante-Casella, Agricultural Agent in Gloucester County.

Filed Under: Agrivoltaics, Blueberry, Christmas Trees, Commercial Ag Updates, Disease Forecasting, Field, Forage & Livestock, Food Safety, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Nursery, Organic Production, pesticide credits, Strawberry, Tree Fruit, Uncategorized, vegetable, Vegetable Crops, Wine Grape, work shop Tagged With: ,