SAN ANTONIO — A meeting to discuss the draft version of new federal guidelines for ensuring the safety fresh fruits and vegetables will be held Dec. 8 in the Helotes 4-H Center, 12132 Leslie Road in Helotes. The meeting will be from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and…
COLLEGE STATION — Sometime just before Thanksgiving 1999, the ultimate Texas sweet potato may be pulled from the ground and shipped to market — it and tens of thousands just like it. One of the best sweet potatoes produced in 1996 was successfully cloned this year — making about 16,000 copies of it — and…
COLLEGE STATION — If someone is needling you about not getting enough vegetables, you’ve got something in common with the state’s produce growers. They, too, aren’t getting enough vegetables — per acre that is. That’s one reason Texas A&M University’s Vegetable Improvement Center was formed — but there’s more. Researchers are trying to get more…
LUBBOCK — Behind every perfectly grooved, unscarred, well- proportioned Jack-o-lantern is a farmer coupling tricks of the trade with treats from Mother Nature. And Texas pumpkin growers this year seem to have both in the bag. The orange globes — ranging in size from 3 ounces to perhaps 25 pounds — now are being hoisted…
DALLAS — Dr. Wayne Mackay, a Texas A&M horticulture researcher who helped bring the long-stemmed bluebonnet to the Texas floral trade, has joined the research staff at Texas A&M-Dallas. “Dr. Mackay brings to the Dallas Center a good balance between basic science and applied horticulture,” said Dr. Tim Davis, resident director of research at the…
NOTE TO EDITOR’S — “Texas Sapphire,” a long-stemmed bluebonnet developed by scientists at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, will be officially displayed today during a U.S. Patent Office news conference in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to commemorate issuance of the 10,000th plant patent. The long-stemmed bluebonnet series, “Big Bend Bluebonnet,” was patented on July 15. A…
COLLEGE STATION — Flowers, shrubs and trees in surroundings frequented by humans for years have been considered an environmentally healthy choice. But researchers now are finding that those plants also improve the mental, physical and social health of people as well. “There’s no reason why anyone who wants to participate in gardening shouldn’t be able…
FORT WORTH — A Texas Agricultural Extension Service horticulturist takes delivery this month on the first load of composted mail from a Postal Service project and begins tests on tomato crops in the field. Horticulturist Nancy Roe also plans greenhouse studies looking for any possible toxicity to plants. The composting project between the U.S. Postal…
COLLEGE STATION — Managing production risk will be the focus for the Texas A&M University agriculture program’s annual rice field days for Southeast Texas July 16 and 23. The events will be held at Texas Agricultural Experiment Station facilities in Eagle Lake on the 16th and Beaumont on the 23rd. The Eagle Lake field day…
HOUSTON — The aesthetic rewards and employable skills of gardening and horticulture are only two of the benefits being introduced by the Texas Agricultural Extension Service-Harris County’s new handicap-accessible demonstration gardens. The gardens, which feature raised beds and paved rampways for wheelchairs, open with the First Harvest celebration at 10 a.m., July 2, at the…
