For University of Georgia Cooperative Extension specialists and agents, blogs are a vital tool for quickly getting information out to Georgia producers.

Pollinators are essential to the production of native plants and food crops. To help pollinators like bees and butterflies do their jobs of moving pollen, home gardeners can provide a habitat that provides water and shelter.

Once again, it is that time of year when bucks start chasing does, and deer hunters hit the woods. You guessed it: It is time for the rut, or breeding, season. But the question to be answered is, “How do biologists predict when the rut is going to be?”

This time of the year, everyone is thinking of decking the halls with hollies and their colorful red berries, but you just may want to consider adding a touch of gold. Can you even imagine hollies with bright golden berries? These would show out in the landscape like small trees or shrubs adorned with a thousand little golden lights — and the same for the mantel! My preference, however, would be to see birds celebrating with a Christmas feast.

Cooler temperatures are needed this winter to avoid another disastrous peach season, according to Jeff Cook, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension County coordinator in Taylor and Peach counties. 

Tropical Storm Irma broke pecan tree limbs, knocked trees down and blew nuts off the trees and out of their shucks when it moved through Georgia in early September, yet University of Georgia Cooperative Extension pecan specialist Lenny Wells is still optimistic about this year’s crop. He estimates yields ranging from 85 to 100 million pounds.

Using grant funds from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the University of Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture has developed safety training for green industry employees. To date, these programs have reached more than 4,000 workers.

If this October’s temperatures didn’t have you craving pumpkin spice, you’re not alone. The entire state was about four degrees warmer than normal this year. While the dry, warm weather may have made it hard to celebrate the beginning of fall, it was great for Georgia agriculture, aiding in the harvest of cotton, peanuts and soybeans across the state.

University of Georgia natural resource economist Craig Landry will use his portion of a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how the economy and the environment are affected when humans and coastal regions commingle. The four-year project is a team effort with researchers from Colorado, North Carolina and Ohio.