agriculture

For the first time in years, it’s a wonderful time to grow Christmas trees.

Christmas tree growers say 2019 has been the industry’s best year in decades — in part because of a number of bad years, says Chal Landgren, a Christmas tree specialist at Oregon State University.

Landgren grows trees on a five-acre farm north of Portland, Oregon, and says seedlings planted in 2019 have seen good rates of survival. That wasn’t the case from 2015 to 2018, when dry, hot summers led growers to plan for losses.

In Florida, more than two invasive species get established every month, brought in through cargo or by visitors. But researchers are making progress in the battle against one major pest: the Brazilian peppertree.

On a cattle ranch near Fort Pierce, a team from the University of Florida recently released 1,500 tiny insects called thrips, or Pseudophilothrips ichini.

"That is the biological control for the Brazilian pepper," Kate Rotindo said.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services expressed concern Wednesday about a virus dangerous to tomatoes and peppers that has been found in tomatoes imported from Mexico.

Humans must drastically alter food production to prevent the most catastrophic effects of global warming, according to a new report from the United Nations panel on climate change.

The panel of scientists looked at the climate change effects of agriculture, deforestation and other land use, such as harvesting peat and managing grasslands and wetlands. Together, those activities generate about a third of human greenhouse gas emissions, including more than 40% of methane.

University of Florida researchers have made some headway in their quest for cultivating vanilla plants that would thrive in the state.

Hemp in Florida is one step closer to legality. A measure legalizing hemp production passed its first legislative hurdle Wednesday.

Eric Perez and his wife, Mari, live with their five children in the Wenatchee Valley in central Washington state. Their house is just feet from an orchard. A couple of years ago, the kids were having an Easter egg hunt in the yard when they smelled something "plasticky," Perez remembers — like "rotten eggs."

Perez says they realized the orchard must have been sprayed while the family was away for their Easter lunch.