Environmental advocates in states along the Mississippi River have won a round toward a long-term goal of having federal standards created to regulate farmland runoff and other pollution blamed for the oxygen-depleted “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, and problems in other bodies of water.

Fall is an excellent time to test soil pH and determine whether any lime needs to be applied for future crops. Proper soil pH is important for nutrient availability, herbicide activity, and crop development. For most soils, additional lime is not needed every year. Consider these points before liming your fields:

After 30 years of rapidly expanding agriculture, South America is turning its focus from developing new fields to taking better care of those already in production. Victor Trucco remembers his father saying that soybeans would never be grown in their area. Yet Trucco became the first person to grow soybeans not long after he returned to the home farm in the mid-1960s.

Proper setup of no-till drillers is critical to getting a successful crop of winter legumes seeded into warm season grasses, said Dirk Philipp, assistant professor for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. After months of being idle, the first step is a good cleaning, he said.

The following management practices have been proven to maximize soybean yields and profitability.

Delayed maturity of corn due to late planting or simply cool growing seasons often translates into delayed or slow drydown of mature corn grain prior to harvest and, consequently, higher than desired grain moisture contents at harvest.

As corn silage harvest comes to a close and grain harvest nears, growers need to be aware of safety precautions to prevent grain engulfments, according to safety experts from Ohio State University's College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

A team of scientists from the University of Missouri, the University of Georgia and the Beijing Genome Institute have used next-generation sequencing to identify two genes, out of approximately 50,000 possibilities, that defend soybeans from damage caused by the root-knot nematode (RKN) parasite.

Every year Iowa State University (ISU) Extension and Outreach provides private pesticide applicator training covering a variety of pesticide safety and pest management issues.

Changes in the economics of grain production after drought led to record-high farm incomes in 2012 could mean a shift in the demand for and prices of agricultural inputs for the 2014 crop, a Purdue Extension agricultural economist says.