Virginia Cooperative Extension - Northampton County

Virginia Cooperative Extension - Northampton County Contact the Northampton County VA Coop. Extension office for all of your Agriculture, Natural Resources and 4H needs

Who we are:
Ursula Tankard Deitch -ANR Agent/ Unit Coordinator
Erin Morgan - 4-H Youth Development Agent
Amanda Hurley - Unit Administrative Assistant

Four Days of Learning to Better Serve Our Community----🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒One of the greatest resources available to our agricultura...
09/04/2026

Four Days of Learning to Better Serve Our Community----🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒
One of the greatest resources available to our agricultural community is Virginia Cooperative Extension. As Extension agents, we are continually learning, training, and connecting with specialists so that we can bring the most current research, regulations, resources, and practical solutions back to our local producers, homeowners, and community.
This week was a great example of that commitment. From September 1–4, ANR Extension agent Helene Doughty participated in four days of professional development covering food safety, agricultural regulations, Integrated Pest Management, and pesticide safety.
●September 1 – Food Safety & Regulation Update for Agents
The week began in Rustburg with training on food safety and regulations affecting Virginia producers and food entrepreneurs. Topics included cottage food laws, home-based producer regulations, produce safety, water regulations, and meat science and food safety.
●September 2–3 – Integrated Pest Management Conference
Next came the IPM Conference, where we expanded our knowledge of strategies for managing agricultural pests while considering effectiveness, economics, environmental stewardship, and pesticide resistance.
●September 3–4 – Pesticide Safety Conference, Roanoke
The week concluded with the Pesticide Safety Conference, providing the opportunity to stay current on pesticide safety, regulations, application practices, and resources that can be shared with our agricultural community.
A special highlight of the week:
Helene Doughty was honored to receive an award recognizing the 2025 Pesticide Disposal Program. This program is one example of how Extension works with our community to address an important need while helping protect people, farms, water resources, and the environment.
And this is why professional development matters.
The information gained at these trainings doesn't stay in a conference room. It comes back to the Eastern Shore. It becomes answers to producer questions, educational programs, demonstrations, publications, referrals to specialists, and resources that can help our community make informed decisions.

🌾 Have an agriculture, pest management, pesticide safety, food safety, or production question? Your local Extension office is a resource. We may have the answer, or we can connect you with the specialists and research-based information to help find it.
Four days of learning. New connections. New resources. And more knowledge to bring home to Northampton County and the Eastern Shore.

🌽 Growing Knowledge: Field Corn Harvest — From the Field to the Grain BinIt’s harvest time on the Eastern Shore! 🌽🚜When ...
09/01/2026

🌽 Growing Knowledge: Field Corn Harvest — From the Field to the Grain Bin

It’s harvest time on the Eastern Shore! 🌽🚜

When you see combines moving through Northampton County cornfields, there is much more happening than simply “picking corn.”

🌽 When is field corn ready to harvest?
Unlike sweet corn, field corn is harvested after the kernels have reached physiological maturity. A good indicator is the development of the black layer at the base of the kernel, which signals that the kernel has reached maximum dry weight. Farmers then consider kernel moisture, weather conditions, field losses and grain quality when deciding when to harvest.

💧 Moisture matters!
Corn can be harvested at moisture levels considerably higher than the moisture needed for safe long-term storage. Grain harvested wet can be dried at a grain facility, but drying requires energy and adds cost.

For long-term storage, Virginia Cooperative Extension recommends progressively lower moisture levels as storage time increases. At about 60°F, corn at roughly 15% moisture can be stored for about six months, while longer-term storage requires even lower moisture.

That is why you may see corn coming out of the field that doesn't look particularly “dry” yet—the grain can be dried, cooled and conditioned before storage.

📊 Corn is an important part of Northampton County agriculture.

According to the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture, Northampton County had:

• 4,877 acres of corn for grain
• 732,504 bushels produced
• An average of approximately 150 bushels per acre
• Corn was the third-largest row crop in the county by acreage, behind soybeans and wheat.

And agriculture as a whole has tremendous economic importance here. Northampton County's farms sold $109.3 million in agricultural products in 2022, with crops accounting for approximately $73.2 million of those sales.

🏭 So where does all that corn go?

Much of our locally produced grain stays within the regional agricultural system.

Northampton County has local grain infrastructure, including Mountaire Farms' grain elevators in Eastville and Painter. Mountaire's Prime Quality grain operation purchases grain from farmers throughout the region, with corn ultimately moving through the Delmarva poultry feed system.

The Eastern Shore also has a long history of local grain handling. The former Associated Grain facilities in Exmore and Parksley became part of Perdue AgriBusiness in 2021, continuing the region's local grain storage and marketing network.

🚜 From seed → field → combine → grain bin → feed mill → chicken house

That is agriculture working as a connected system.

The next time you pass a cornfield being harvested, remember that those kernels aren't simply leaving the farm—they are entering a regional agricultural economy that connects Northampton County farms with grain elevators, transportation, feed mills and poultry production across Delmarva.

That’s Growing Knowledge! 🌽

08/22/2026

🌱 WALK THE GARDEN WITH ME | Virginia Cooperative Extension Northampton County

Ever wonder what’s happening in your garden when you’re not looking? 👀🌿

Walk the Garden with Me is a Virginia Cooperative Extension series designed to help you look a little closer at the plants, insects, diseases, and other things you encounter in your garden.

Each post takes you into the garden to help answer questions like:

🐛 What is this insect—and is it friend or foe?
🍃 Why does this leaf look different?
🌱 Is this a problem I need to manage?
🦋 What beneficial insects should I be looking for?
🌻 What can I do now to keep my garden healthy?

The goal isn't just to tell you what you're seeing—it's to help you understand why it matters and what you can do about it, using research-based information from Virginia Cooperative Extension.

So grab your coffee, step outside, and walk the garden with me. 🌿🔎

08/21/2026

Our August Perk Up & Learn Coffee Hour brought together 35 amazing gardeners for a morning of learning, sharing, and swapping seeds + plants 🌱✨

Speakers covered:
• Cool‑season veggies + succession planting, Fall pests & diseases, Building soil health (Helene Doughty, ANR agent)
• Garlic planting (Doris Lajoie, Extension Master Gardener)
• Winter seed sowing + cold stratification (Gena Swisher, Extension Master Gardener)
• Native plant seed collection (Laurie Jones, Wild Ones Eastern Shore)

Huge thanks to our presenters — and to everyone who joined in the seed/plant exchange and helped make this such a vibrant community event!

Want updates on future programs?
🔗 https://forms.gle/GSdgvNFDfMXC1Ev87

Interested in becoming a Master Gardener?
🔗 https://esvmg.com/

Our August Perk Up & Learn Coffee Hour brought together 35 amazing gardeners for a morning of learning, sharing, and swa...
08/21/2026

Our August Perk Up & Learn Coffee Hour brought together 35 amazing gardeners for a morning of learning, sharing, and swapping seeds + plants 🌱✨

Speakers covered:
• Cool‑season veggies + succession planting, Fall pests & diseases, Building soil health (Helene Doughty, ANR agent)
• Garlic planting (Doris Lajoie, Extension Master Gardener)
• Winter seed sowing + cold stratification (Gena Swisher, Extension Master Gardener)
• Native plant seed collection (Laurie Jones, Wild Ones Eastern Shore)

Huge thanks to our presenters — and to everyone who joined in the seed/plant exchange and helped make this such a vibrant community event!

Want updates on future programs?
🔗 https://forms.gle/GSdgvNFDfMXC1Ev87

Interested in becoming a Master Gardener?
🔗 https://esvmg.com/

08/20/2026

☕️Join us for coffee hour on establishing a fall/winter garden Friday August 21st from 9am to 10am. A seed and plant exchange will also take place. Great community conversations, fresh coffee and pastries! What could be better?

🌱 GROWING KNOWLEDGE: SOYBEANS - High Maintenance at this time of the year!Soybeans can look deceptively easy to manage. ...
08/18/2026

🌱 GROWING KNOWLEDGE: SOYBEANS - High Maintenance at this time of the year!

Soybeans can look deceptively easy to manage. Once established, they can seem like they're simply growing on their own. And there’s a good reason for that.

🫘 One of the biggest advantages of soybeans is their relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Soybeans form a partnership with Bradyrhizobium bacteria in nodules on their roots. These bacteria take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it into a form the soybean can use.

That means a well-nodulated soybean crop can obtain most of the nitrogen it needs without the grower applying nitrogen fertilizer. Instead, the plant supplies carbohydrates to the bacteria, and the bacteria supply nitrogen to the plant.

Soybeans still need other nutrients—including phosphorus, potassium and sulfur—and soil fertility should be monitored with soil testing. But routine nitrogen fertilizer generally isn't recommended for well-nodulated soybeans.

🌱 But as soybeans enter the reproductive stages (R3–R6), the game changes.

The crop is now putting significant energy into producing and filling pods and seeds. This is when insect scouting becomes especially important.

🐛 CORN EARWORM

Corn earworm larvae can feed on soybean flowers, pods and developing seeds.

🟤 STINK BUGS

Stink bugs use piercing-sucking mouthparts to feed through soybean pods and damage developing seeds. Feeding during reproductive growth can result in damaged or poorly developed beans and, when populations are high enough, yield loss.

📊 So how much is too much?

That's where scouting and economic thresholds come in.

Rather than automatically treating a field, growers use sweep nets and established thresholds to determine whether insect populations are high enough to justify an insecticide application.

For example, Virginia recommendations use approximately 5 stink bugs per 15 sweeps for grain soybeans, while thresholds are lower for seed/edible soybean production.

For corn earworm, the economic threshold varies with factors such as soybean value, treatment cost, row spacing and the number and size of larvae present.

🔎 The takeaway:

Soybeans may require relatively little attention during much of the growing season, especially when they have good nodulation and adequate soil fertility.

But once they reach reproductive growth, “low maintenance” doesn't mean “no maintenance.”

This is the time to scout.

Grab the sweep net. Look for corn earworm. Check for stink bugs. Know your economic threshold.

A well-timed scouting trip can help protect yield while avoiding an unnecessary insecticide application.

That's Integrated Pest Management: Scout → Identify → Use the threshold → Treat only when economically justified. 🌱

☕Join us for this month’s Perk Up & Learn Coffee Hour on Friday, August 21, 9–10 AM at the Virginia Cooperative Extensio...
08/14/2026

☕Join us for this month’s Perk Up & Learn Coffee Hour on Friday, August 21, 9–10 AM at the Virginia Cooperative Extension office 7247 Young Street, Machipongo!

We’re covering fall & winter garden planning and hosting a community plant & seed exchange. Bring something to swap if you’d like—participation is welcome even if you come empty‑handed.

We’ll cover:
• Fall garden planning
• Cool‑season vegetables
• Succession planting (Aug–Oct)
• Overwintering crops with a focus on garlic
• Fall insects & diseases
• Soil health, testing & cover crops
• Cold stratification of seeds, particularly native plants

Enjoy hot coffee, practical tips, and great conversation with fellow Eastern Shore gardeners.
Free & open to the public.

Questions? Contact [email protected] or 757‑678‑7946 ext. 3.





Address

16392 Courthouse Road
Eastville, VA
23347

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Tuesday 8am - 4:30pm
Wednesday 8am - 4:30pm
Thursday 8am - 4:30pm
Friday 8am - 4:30pm

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