A New Online Tool to Help Growers Select the Right Cover Crop

"Whether you’re a home gardener or a commercial grower of vegetables, cotton, or other agricultural crops, as soon as the growing season is over, you may want to consider planting cover crops—grasses, legumes and small grains that protect and improve the soil.

Cover crops, which are typically grown off season, help reduce soil erosion, increase organic matter and control weeds. At the same time, they can lessen the effects of extreme weather conditions such as drought and help improve water and air quality as well as wildlife habitat.

But how do you know which cover crops are right for you? Although a lot of information is available about individual cover crops, there’s a need to show how these crops could potentially complement one another when grown together.

An online tool developed by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists is a good place to start..."

Cover crop

School Meals: Child Nutrition Programs

"The Food and Nutrition Service administers several programs that provide healthy food to children including the National School Lunch Program, the School Breakfast Program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Summer Food Service Program, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, and the Special Milk Program.  Administered by State agencies, each of these programs helps fight hunger and obesity by reimbursing organizations such as schools, child care centers, and after-school programs for providing healthy meals to children..."
School meals

USDA's National Agricultural Library Releases 2011 Edition of Thesaurus
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library (NAL) has released the 2011 edition of the on-line NAL Agricultural Thesaurus and Glossary (NALT), which adds 3,441 new terms and 321 definitions.

Terminology in the new edition has been especially expanded in areas associated with nanotechnology, food safety risk assessment and sustainable agriculture.

Among the terms added are:

*Quantum dots — Nanometer-sized fragments (30 nm to 1 micron) of semiconductor crystalline material that holds a discrete number of electrons and emits photons. The number of electrons can be altered by modifying the electrostatic environment of the dot.

*Fomites — Inanimate objects that carry pathogenic microorganisms and can serve as the source of infection. Microorganisms typically survive on fomites for minutes or hours. Common fomites include clothing, tissue paper, hairbrushes, and cooking and eating utensils.

*Ecolabeling — A symbol, graphic or statement that appears on products or their packaging to convey an environmental aspect of that product to the consumer.

The thesaurus and glossary are primarily used for indexing and for improving the retrieval of agricultural information, but they can also be used by students—from fifth-grade up—teachers, writers, and others who are seeking precise definitions of words from the agricultural sciences..."

Healthy Animals: ARS Scientists Find Solutions to Help Keep Catfish Healthy
"Innovation is the key for Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists looking for ways to keep farm-raised catfish and other aquatic animals healthy and productive. Their research accomplishments, which include superior vaccines to fight pathogens and the fine-tuning of oxygen management systems for ponds, help protect and sustain America's aquaculture industry.

There's More than One Way to Hatch an Egg

For example, an ARS scientist in the Mississippi Delta is on a mission to help commercial growers improve farm-raised catfish production.

Fish biologist Les Torrans is constructing an innovative egg incubator he calls the "see-saw" to provide a better mix of dissolved oxygen for vulnerable catfish eggs. Torrans works in the ARS Catfish Genetics Research Unit of the Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture Center located at the Mississippi State University (MSU) Delta Experiment Station in Stoneville, Miss..."

USDA Releases 2008 Annual Summary for Pesticide Data Program
" Jan. 11, 2010 -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service today released the Pesticide Data Program Annual Summary, Calendar Year 2008, on the Internet. The data collected through this program provide the most comprehensive database available on actual levels of pesticide residues found in the U.S. food supply.


The Pesticide Data Program is a partnership with cooperating state agencies that are responsible for sample collection and analysis. The following 12 states participated in the program during 2008: California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Ohio, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin..."

The Costs of Benefit Delivery in the Food Stamp Program: Lessons From a Cross-Program Analysis
"This study compares the Food Stamp Program (FSP) with eight other public assistance programs across four measures of program effectiveness—administrative costs, error payments, program access, and benefit targeting. The comparison includes two other USDA nutrition assistance programs, three cash assistance programs, and three programs providing noncash benefits other than food or nutrition assistance. Results show that the FSP and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) present contrasting patterns. The EITC program has lower administrative costs and higher program access rates than the FSP, but the FSP is more successful in limiting overpayments. Missing information makes it hard to generalize across the other programs, but there is some evidence suggesting that programs with higher errors have lower administrative costs. Low administrative costs also appear to be inversely associated with good program access for recipients. Also, programs that are more highly targeted tend to have higher benefit delivery costs."