Ideas for Vegetable Growers Sure To Boost Off-Season Sales
We asked protected agriculture suppliers for tips on increasing our income during the colder and darker months. Here’s what they had to say.
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How can growers improve their chances of increasing crop sales in the off season?
Several environmental conditions in off-season growing lead to plants struggling to function day length, temperature, energy production, moisture, and nutrient utilization. This stress can affect their productivity.
Technologies like arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) provide stress mitigation. AMF creates a healthier plant, and a healthier plant can handle those large swings better. It also helps plants acquire water and nutrients and manage its energy requirement.
Are upstate farms equipped to become the Amazon of food?
Are upstate farms equipped to become the Amazon of food?
Pandemic forces many farmers into e-commerce, but not every farm is ready to turn their produce into a click-to-buy product
Robin Catalano
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For upstate New York farmers, being able to sell online was a game changer during the pandemic. But the fees involved in e-commerce and lack of high-speed internet access in rural locations posed problems.Amy Scott Photography
Dale-Ila Riggs knew a monumental change was in the works the moment the Troy Farmers Market one of the region’s oldest and largest closed down in March 2020. For the past several years, Riggs, the owner of The Berry Patch in Stephentown in Rensselaer County, had made the bulk of her annual sales there. In the earliest days of the pandemic, as many farms scrambled to come up with a solution to getting their products into customers’ hands, she recalls, “I just put out an email b
Sheep at Blue Pepper Farm in Jay (News photo Andy Flynn) A shopper stops by the Reber Rock Farm table at the 2018 Adirondack Harvest Festival in Westport. (News photo Andy Flynn) Pictured from left are agriculture protection planner Jeff Kehoe with the state Department of Agriculture and Markets, Essex County Cornell Cooperative Extension Agriculture Resource Educator Carly Summers, Juniper Hill Farm owner Adam Hainer, North Country Creamery co-owner Steven Googin and Asgaard Farm & Dairy co-owner Rhonda Butler at the Hand House in Elizabethtown in December 2019 during an information session on the county’s new strategic plan for agriculture. (News photo Elizabeth Izzo)