Should You File an Estimated Income Tax Return?

Did meeting a March 1 filing deadline give you heartburn this year? If yes, there is something you can do about it. Some farmers are under the erroneous idea that all farm tax returns are due on March 1. This is a misconception. Individual calendar year taxpayers have an April 15 deadline. However, if they owe income tax, they may be subject to a penalty for underpayment of estimated taxes. Farmers have a special provision that allows them to avoid this penalty if they file their return by March 1. There is also another provision that they may use.  Click here to read the full story.

Farmers worry over newly planted corn as rain continues to fall

“The farmland along the river bottoms, a lot of it looks like lakes,” Joe Vestal, Lafayette County extension staff chair for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said Wednesday morning. “It’ll take awhile to get it off the fields,” and that’s where the worry lies.

Vestal said the Red River will also be taking all the water that northeast Texas and southwest Oklahoma have received with this storm, slowing drainage.  

Click here to read the full story.

New Publications on Crop, Insect, Disease, and Soils

Several helpful publications have recently been made available on www.arkansascrops.com.  These are found by subject (crop, insect, disease, soils) on the Publications page accessed by clicking the Publications tab at the top of the Arkansas Crops home page. Click here for the full story.

Managing legal risk workshops for foresters

The second and third in a series of workshops covering agritourism law for landowners and foresters are set for March 16 at Shreveport, La., and April 13 in Monticello.

“Agritourism is one of the fastest-growing alternative uses for forestland and farmland,” said Rusty Rumley, staff attorney at the National Agricultural Law Center. “It can be a very lucrative venture for a lot of people, but it opens landowners to risks they would not normally come across in traditional forestry and farming activities.” Click here to read the story.

Wheat fungus spreads to 17 counties in Ark

LITTLE ROCK – Wheat stripe rust has now spread to 17 counties in Arkansas, up from nine counties last week, and with more rain and winds in the forecast, infections are likely to spread, Jason Kelley, extension wheat and feed grains agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said Friday. Click here to read the full story.

Using Genetics to Manage Dairy Risk

Here's the secret of the modern dairy farm: The essential high-tech advances aren't in machinery. They're inside the cow.

Take a cow like Claudia. She lives at Fulper Farms, a dairy farm in upstate New Jersey. Claudia is to a cow from the 1930s as a modern Ferrari is to a Model T.  Click here to read the full story.

Unclean equipment could introduce new blight into burgeoning Ark peanut crop

Tiny fungal capsules hitchhiking on harvesting equipment from other states could bring an aggressive disease to Arkansas as farmers expand peanut acreage here, say disease experts with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Click here to read the full story.