Crop

As Jamie Brown shifts his gaze upward and squints at a pair of tall barns backed by a cloudless October sky, the reverence in his voice is nearly as clear as the autumn sun's rays. All around him at Triadelphia Lake View Farm, families are taking advantage of an unusually pretty day to pet farm animals, take hayrides and pick pumpkins. Layers of peeling red paint on the barns distinguish the two oldest structures on the 100-acre Glenelg farm at the end of meandering Triadelphia Road.

The first crop of tech startups have launched at the new business accelerator program run by Silicon Valley-based Wasabi Ventures at Loyola University Maryland. The tech startups are varied. One is CodePupil , a website that teaches people how to build websites through exercises and games; PointClickSwitch.com , a site that helps homeowners easily switch their energy providers; and Vidstructor , a video platform for the sports and fitness training industries. The accelerator's office is in the Govans community of North Baltimore, a few minutes away from Loyola's campus.

LOS ANGELES -- The cold snap that has devastated this year's California citrus crop could also dramatically curtail the number of lemons, oranges and avocados produced next year, farmers and agricultural officials said yesterday.Some farmers expect their citrus production to be half of normal next year because the persistent cold weather is killing young orange and lemon trees and decimating new growth on older citrus trees.Avocado production in Tulare County is likely to be wiped out completely for 1991, said the county agricultural commissioner, Lenord Craft.

An all day scrapbooking fundraiser will be held Saturday, May 19, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Phelps Center, 701 Montgomery St. Proceeds will go toward the Tuition Stabilization Fund for St. Mary of the Mills School. Cost is $30, which includes personal crop space, prizes and lunch. Forward your payment by May 11 to St. Mary of the Mills, 106 St. Mary's Place, Laurel, MD 20707, and include your email address. For information, contact Tanya Holt, 202-409-6092 or tholt@thectgroupllc.com , subject St. Mary's Crop.

Connoisseurs of the peach may be disappointed this year -- tasty, locally grown peaches are in short supply.According to the Maryland Department of Agriculture, two-thirds of the state peach harvest -- which would be coming to market just about this time -- fell victim to a brutal January freeze that destroyed tree buds early in their development.Most of the crop in Carroll, Frederick and Washington counties -- the state's main peach-growing region -- "was wiped out," M. Bruce West, head of the department's crop reporting service, said yesterday.

WAYSON'S CORNER -- Claude McKee scanned the crowd of 200 or more that gathered at the sprawling Triangle Tobacco Warehouse for the opening session of the annual Southern Maryland tobacco auction and said that he had never seen so many people at previous sales."

The government reduced yesterday its estimate of the size of the corn crops in Maryland and the United States, signaling concern over higher food prices next year and a shakeout of local grain farmers. In Maryland, farmers are looking at a corn crop that will be 44 percent smaller than last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's crop reporting service. For the country as a whole, the USDA is projecting a corn crop of 8.85 billion bushels. This is 7 percent lower than last year and 1 percent lower than the government's estimate last month.

David L. Conrad's state government job puts him in an unusual position. While Gov. Parris N. Glendening crusades to snuff out tobacco use in Maryland, Conrad is busy distributing seeds to the state's 1,200 tobacco farmers and researching ways to help them improve their crops. Conrad recognizes the irony of his job as tobacco specialist for the University of Maryland, College Park cooperative extension program. But he says he's filling a traditional role by helping a segment of Maryland's farmers.

Amish farmers from Cecil County were among those attending the opening of last week's tobacco auction in Charles County, where the Farmers and Hughesville warehouses are the state's only remaining tobacco auction sites. Although the number of tobacco farmers has fallen in almost every county since Maryland started its buyout of farmers in 2001, the number is increasing in Cecil County, traditionally a nontobacco area. The reason is the Amish. Amish tobacco farmers - who for religious reasons do not participate in government programs - have crossed the Pennsylvania border into Cecil to try their luck at tobacco in Maryland.

As temperatures rose yesterday, California's Central Valley orange growers were in a sunnier mood after initial inspections showed that last week's big chill may have spared more of their crop than they first feared.Instead of facing catastrophic losses, farmers were cautiously optimistic that they might be able to salvage 50 percent or more of their crops. That could be good news in the long run for consumers, who nevertheless face a short-term spike in orange prices at the supermarket as soon as today.

A developing drought across the eastern half of Maryland could worsen without a few periods of soaking rain, and drizzle like that seen Wednesday won't be enough to cut the rainfall deficit. At Carter and Draper Farms on the Eastern Shore, John Draper is used to dealing with a summer drought once every few years. But rarely has he been in his current predicament: There has been so little spring rain, he fears if he plants 225 acres of corn as planned, it quickly will die. A few inches into the sandy soil, there is moisture.

What is this new weed all over my place? It has a thin stem and little white flowers. The little leaves are in a circle around the plant base. Weirdly, it also has needles on the stems. There are so many of these stems in my lawn and beds, I thought they were grass! What do I do? Weed quickly! Those "needles" are seed pods that will explode open and project their seeds everywhere. Welcome to hairy bittercress, a weed having a banner year. Though flourishing now, this is a winter annual weed and most of its seeds germinated last fall.

Abused and neglected children often wind up in foster care, and while they're given love and comfort by their foster families, they also often need someone to watch over facets of their lives. In a swearing-in ceremony at Towson's Historic Courthouse March 12, several local residents were among the seven who volunteered to take on that role as newly-appointed Court Appointed Special Advocates. Christy Valeri of Timonium knows the challenges of the job. As one of the newest CASAs, Valeri realizes the children she'll be working with haven't had the advantages of her four grown kids.

Natasha Brown-Wainwright, 41, still calls it The Twitter. She doesn't upload photos to Facebook without her 16-year-old daughter's help. Her grasp of the Web is fuzzy. But last summer, she decided to get a clue and join the latest, buzziest social media bandwagon around, Kickstarter, a site that connects entrepreneurs with small-scale donors. Her brittle business, barely making a profit after four years, needed a lift, even if it came from a source she still found baffling. "I think people in their 40s are beginning to realize their future is on the Internet, on Twitter, on Kickstarter," she says.

As Jamie Brown shifts his gaze upward and squints at a pair of tall barns backed by a cloudless October sky, the reverence in his voice is nearly as clear as the autumn sun's rays. All around him at Triadelphia Lake View Farm, families are taking advantage of an unusually pretty day to pet farm animals, take hayrides and pick pumpkins. Layers of peeling red paint on the barns distinguish the two oldest structures on the 100-acre Glenelg farm at the end of meandering Triadelphia Road.

A Halloween without pumpkins? Good grief! But before you race to the grocery store for canned pumpkin to mold into fall's favorite orange orb, consider this: While the soggy residents of Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont are facing a shortage of jack-o-lanterns, Maryland's trick-or-treaters will be spared the trauma. "We definitely lost some, but pumpkins will be around," said Dwight Baugher, who has started harvesting more than 70 acres of oversized squash at Baugher's Orchard and Farm inWestminster.

FAHANE, Somalia -- Until a few weeks ago, Haji Shekhey Abdi's people were facing starvation. Civil war combatants had stolen their cattle, their tractors and their food. Terrorized villagers were afraid to work in the fields or take their produce to market.But Mr. Abdi, his four children, six grandchildren and the rest of the village recently brought in a crop of corn, their first in two years. As they have for centuries, they thanked the god of Islam. But this year they also thanked the United States.

The gentle rainfall that sprinkled about an inch onto Maryland fields over the past few days was just the right kind -- slow and steady enough to sink down to the thirsty roots of young corn plants and newly planted soybeans.It may have saved some crops from total loss, but without more of it throughout the summer, farmers will be hurting."Everything looks good right now," said Robert Bounds, a past chairman of the Maryland Soybean Board and a Uniontown farmer. "But let that sun come out for four or five days of 90-degree weather, and then you'll see the lawns will start drying up and turning brown again."

The National Weather Service's new 30-year temperature and precipitation averages, which are used by farmers, utilities and meteorologists, show a warmer, drier and snowier Baltimore. Compared with the previous data, the updated numbers show that: • The city's average annual temperature has increased by 0.5 degree Fahrenheit. • Annual precipitation has dropped by 0.06 inch. • Average annual snowfall has jumped by 2 inches, to 20 inches per year. Climate scientists say the warmer trend and even the snow data are consistent with a warming planet.

U.S. Customs agents intercepted a 24-ton shipment of Pakistani rice infested by a destructive crop pest this week at the port of Baltimore — just days before a federal quarantine on such imports was scheduled to begin. The Customs and Border Protection agency reported that its agents found dead Khapra beetles, a species that has been showing up in rice imports with growing frequency, aboard a ship Tuesday. The agency said a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the identification of the insect the following day. Restrictions on imports of rice from countries where Khapra beetle infestations are known to occur go into effect Saturday.