June 26, 2024: Organic Transition Webinar
Join eOrganic and the Organic Farming Research Foundation for a webinar on June 26, 2024: Developing Organic Crop Budgets for Producers Moving to Organic Production, presented by Dr. Gregg Ibendahl of Kansas State University. The webinar is free and open to the public and takes place at 11AM Pacific, 12PM Mountain, 1PM Central and 2PM Pacific Time. Advance registration is required.
Register now at https://oregonstate.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m7ctt0LlTEahFRjrb8HSIw
About the Webinar
This webinar will showcase a crop budgeting tool that organic crop producers can use to evaluate both the cost of production and the expected net return of organic production for various crops. The budgeting tool can also be used to compute the costs and returns for producers looking to make a transition into organic production. The featured tool makes it easy to develop a crop budget for almost any crop and production practice including both organic and conventional crop production. The budgeting tool has a built-in database of inputs and machinery costs. Producers just need to pick what operations and inputs are needed to produce a crop and the budgeting tool will calculate the cost per acre to produce that crop and the expected net return.
The webinar will be presented by Dr. Gregg Ibendahl, who is is an Associate Professor at Kansas State University. His appointment is in Extension specializing in farm management and agricultural finance. Dr. Ibendahl grew up on a grain/beef farm in southern Illinois and has worked in both private industry as well as academia. He enjoys analyzing farmer profitability issues and helping farmers make better decisions.
Funding for this webinar is provided by a grant from the USDA NIFA OREI program.
Electric Weeding in Organic Orchard Crops in New York
In this video, Aleah Butler-Jones, PhD student at Cornell University, discusses experiments with electric weeding in organic orchards in New York. This is the third in a series of interviews with graduate students working on the multi-state NIFA-OREI funded project "Performance and Economics of Electric Weeding in Organic Perennial Crops". Watch the video at https://eorganic.info/node/35946 or on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMP0DCBiISw
New Hydromulch Video
Greta Gramig of North Dakota State University is leading a NIFA OREI project on sprayable hydromulch in organic horticultural crops. In this video, she explains the concept of hydromulches, discusses some of the findings from the research about hydromulch materials, application methods and how hydromulches suppress weeds and effect crop growth-- and she poses questions for future research. Watch the video at https://eorganic.info/node/35094 or on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RZXniWJqlw
Organic Seed Growers Conference Call for Proposals
The Organic Seed Growers Conference is a biennial gathering by and for agroecological seed communities in the U.S. and across the world. The 2025 Conference will be offered as a hybrid event with the in-person gathering to be held February 26 – March 1, 2025, at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR. Until July 5, 2024, the Organic Seed Alliance is inviting all seed enthusiasts to shape the conference by submitting proposals and ideas that showcase your skills, research, questions, and creativity related to organic seeds. Learn more about the session types and find more information at https://seedalliance.org/conference-call-for-proposals/
