In a time of public debate over the effectiveness and safety of genetically modified foods, it’s hard to picture the era before crop breeders developed grain varieties that could withstand drought and common diseases.

Wood-rotting organisms can slowly nibble away at tree trunks and buttress roots. Many trees that topple look perfectly healthy before they fall. Afterward, it becomes clear that there were absolutely no structural roots remaining for support.

J. Scott Angle, former dean and director of the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, received the Earl Douglas Harris Memorial AGHON Award from AGHON at UGA. Angle, who now serves as president and CEO of the International Fertilizer Development Center, is one of only a few to be given the award in the past 30 years.

A tiny fly is having a huge impact on American fruit farmers. Known as spotted wing drosophila, the insect is costing famers more than $700 million a year in lost produce and prevention costs.

Despite Georgians’ constant umbrella use of late, most of September 2015 was actually drier than normal.

In 2015, the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) expanded a program that funds graduate student research travel, with remarkable results.

The Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame has two new members: former U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and the late Thomas Richard Breedlove Sr., a pioneering northeast Georgia dairy farmer. Breedlove and Chambliss were inducted Sept. 25 as part of the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Alumni Banquet and Awards Ceremony.

Women own 13.6 percent of America’s active farms and their farms produce almost $13 billion worth of goods each year. Just like male farmers, they need access to business and technical information to help make their farms successful. But while many pride themselves on not needing a “women’s only” class on how to work the land or run a business, many other women simply feel more comfortable learning around other female farmers.

The transition of leaf color symbolizes an end to the growing season, but it is the best time of year to start trees in our landscape. When correctly sited and planted, a fall-planted tree will perform better than a spring-planted tree because the fall tree will establish roots before the warm summer temperatures draw moisture from and cause stress to the tree.