Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler sits down each week with Southern Farm Network’s Rhonda Garrison to discuss “Today’s Topic.” Hemlock trees across Western North Carolina are being devastated by the hemlock woolly adelgid, an insect that sucks the sap of young twigs, which leads to tree death. The N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is […]
As temperatures decrease across North Carolina, you’ve probably noticed that insect activity has also decreased. Insects are not warm-blooded like we are; rather, their bodies fluctuate with the temperatures surrounding them. This is why on sunny days you see more insects flying around or sunning themselves and on cold winter nights you see less and […]
Across western North Carolina, the landscape is changing. Mountainous forests once ruled by hemlock trees are left with gray shadows where the evergreen giants previously stood. The culprit to this massive forest fatality is the tiny hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive insect from Asia. The adelgid has already infested and killed many of North Carolina’s […]
Each week we round up the latest N.C. agricultural headlines from news outlets across the state and country, as well as excerpts from the stories. Click on the links to go straight to the full story. “With prices up, more farmers may plant peanuts,” Charlotte Observer: Drought and strong prices could push more peanut production […]