By Blake Jackson
Nearly 80 farmers, commercial producers, home gardeners, and agricultural professionals gathered on July 8 at Cornell University's Willsboro Research Farm for a field day focused on research designed to strengthen farming in Northern New York's unique growing environment.
Held every two years, the event featured hay wagon tours that introduced visitors to research projects underway at the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station (Cornell AES).
Located between the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain, the Willsboro Research Farm offers distinctive soils and climate conditions that make it an ideal site for testing practices suited to the region.
Attendees explored ongoing studies covering soil health, nutrient management, specialty crops, and sustainable production systems. One featured project highlighted long-term soil and nutrient management research led by Harold van Es.
Since 1988, the program has used the farm's representative soils and specially designed drainage plots to evaluate practices that improve soil performance and crop productivity.
The farm has also expanded its specialty crop research in recent years, adding variety trials for chestnuts, hazelnuts, honeyberries, and aronia berries to identify crops with strong potential for Northern New York growers.
Additional demonstrations showcased overwintering onions grown in high and low tunnels, cover crops paired with high-tunnel tomato production, winter field pea breeding, biochar as a soil amendment, corn and alfalfa research plots, apple scab resistance studies, and the Essex County Cornell Cooperative Extension Master Gardener demonstration garden.
Researchers from Cornell, Cornell Cooperative Extension, PRO-DAIRY, the Eastern New York Commercial Horticulture Program, the Adirondack North Country Association, and the Lake Champlain Basin Program participated in the event.
The field day highlighted practical research that supports more resilient, productive, and profitable farms across Northern New York.
Photo Credit: gettyimages-nes
Categories: New York, Education, General