The Delaware Department of Agriculture announced that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) awarded $300,000 to seven projects intended to improve the competitiveness of local specialty crops.
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These include fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture and nursery crops.
The projects include:
The University of Delaware Cooperative Extension vegetable program is partnering with the FMC Company to evaluate the potential for sourcing food colorants and additives from vegetable waste from Delaware farms.
Research will be conducted by the University of Delaware Cooperative Extension Fruit and Vegetable Program to test strategies to reduce the effects of heat stress on a variety of vegetable crops and demonstrate successful techniques to growers.
Utilizing the lima bean genome, the University of Delaware’s Department of Plant and Soil Science will identify disease resistance genes from their diversity panel and improve the marker system developed to deploy durable disease resistance genes in lima bean cultivars.
Charlotte’s Secret Garden will plant a high density, diverse orchard with approximately 350 trees on 1 acre of land to demonstrate how small farms can provide community supported agriculture, farm markets, and farm stands with fresh, locally grown fruit from spring through the fall.
The Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association of Delaware will seek to improve awareness with consumers of its members and the specialty crops that they grow in Delaware, including a coordinated marketing and promotion effort.
University of Delaware Weed Science will conduct research on weed control related to lima beans and pumpkins.
Colonial School District will develop farm-based education programming on Penn Farm with a goal to increase child and adult knowledge and awareness about gardening, agriculture, healthy eating, local foods and seasonality. ■
A trailing cold front in connection with a low pressure system currently moving east across the Great Lakes toward New England will bring a chance of rain into the eastern U.S. on this first day of November following an exceptionally dry October for this part of the country.