Agriculture

USDA sequestration

reduces programs

USDA’s Farm Service Agency is reminding farmers and ranchers who participate in FSA programs to plan accordingly in Fiscal year 2014 for automatic spending reductions known as sequestration.

It’s time to clean up the bramble patch. In order to maintain healthy and productive blackberries and raspberries, we need to prune out the old to make room for the new.

Most brambles are biennial, which means they fruit on second-year growth. Blackberries are easy to deal with, just remove the arching canes that fruited this year and trim up and trellis the new growth from this summer, which will bear next summer’s fruit. Repeat the same thing next year.

The American holly, Ilex opaca, is celebrated for its berries in shades of red, orange and yellow and its glossy green foliage and perfectly pyramidal shape.

The deciduous holly (Ilex decidua) and the winterberry (Ilex verticillata) lose their leaves but reveal thick clusters of berries along their stems for dramatic effect through much of the winter. Once the berries come ripe enough for the birds to eat in February, they are usually gone in a day.

McCoun, Witt nominated for FSA county committee

The USDA Farm Service in Shelby County is in the process of electing its county committee for the coming year.

The election, which began Monday, will continue through Dec. 2 at the FSA office on Breighton Boulevard in Shelbyville.

County committee members serve as links between producers and the USDA and help deliver FSA programs at the local levels. Committees operate under specific guidelines to maintain federal law.