Crawford County peach farmer Robert Dickey has been named the 2019 Georgia Farmer of the Year. A fourth-generation farmer, Dickey manages approximately 1,000 acres of peaches and 3,000 acres of timberland with the help of his 90-year-old father, Bob Dickey, his wife, Cynde Dickey, and their son and daughter-in-law, Lee and Stacy Dickey.

Whether you have a well-manicured lawn or a wild preserve, almost every landscape in Georgia shares one feature: fire ants.

Spring is in the air! For me, that also means it is time to update my home. Research has shown that we spend 90 percent of our time indoors, so let’s make our homes as comfortable and beautiful as possible. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension provides the following helpful hints to create wonderful spaces for our homes this season.

According to Lisa Baxter, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension’s newest forage agronomist, an unusually wet winter will cause problems with summer forage crop quality in Georgia.

Three University of Georgia professors were among the 79 individuals who completed the 14th class of the LEAD21 leadership-development program. Scott Jackson, Dean Pringle and Manpreet Singh, all faculty in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, represented UGA in the program, which is designed for land-grant institutions and their strategic partners from across the nation.

Farmers who might face a delayed planting season can thank El Niño for Georgia’s exceedingly wet winter, according to Pam Knox, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agricultural climatologist. Row crop and vegetable producers usually begin planting their crops in late March through May, but excessive rainfall and cloudy conditions in January and February have left many fields soaked and soggy.

Georgia 4-H is searching for adult volunteer leaders for this summer’s 2019 Military Teen Summits coordinated by the Georgia 4-H Military Partnership. The summits will occur in Jekyll Island, Georgia, Dahlonega, Georgia, and Estes Park, Colorado, through funding provided by several entities. The camps begin in June and conclude in early-August.

As we celebrate National Agriculture Week 2019, many in the Southeast are still struggling to recover from hurricanes, tornadoes, whitefly outbreaks and record-breaking rainfall. Nature is both the nemesis and nurturer of agriculture - the ultimate “can’t live with it, can’t live without it” dilemma.

Humans have used herbs since early times for medicinal purposes, for flavoring food and for fragrance. Their magical properties are entwined in the lore of many cultures and their flavor has added distinctive character to numerous regional dishes. Many modern medicines include plant parts from herbs in either a natural or synthesized state. And there is a growing field of research in pharmacognosy, as scientists look again at herbal remedies.