Dr. Ariana Torres, associate professor in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture and Agricultural Economics, presented at the EQUIP Exposition in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 22. She showed SodCalculator, a new module of Purdue’s free HortCalculator tool built with the Purdue Sod Project. It helps sod growers compare costs, breakeven prices and returns across their production choices.
On October 28, Dr. Ariana Torres led an Indiana Grown webinar on HortCalculator, Purdue’s free financial tool for specialty crop growers. She used case studies of a high-tunnel spinach operation and an Indiana sod farm to show how growers can check whether an investment will pay before they make it. The approach comes from her…Read more about Ariana Torres led Indiana Grown Webinar on HortCalculator[Read More]
Dr. Ariana Torres, Associate Professor in HLA and AGEC, is a co-author on a new paper, “Consumer Preferences for Wildlife-Friendly Native Plants in the United States,” published in the Journal of Environmental Horticulture (44(3):125-133). Using a discrete choice experiment with 2,011 U.S. plant purchasers, the study examines how wildlife-related labels influence willingness to pay for…Read more about New Publication from Ariana Torres[Read More]
Congratulations to Katherine Pivaral Toledo (MS, HLA; now at Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources) on the publication of “From fields to markets: Diversification case studies in the U.S. Corn Belt via a social-ecological systems lens” in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Co-authored with Dr. Ariana Torres the study is part of…Read more about Katherine Pivaral Toledo Publishes Study on Corn Belt Crop Diversification[Read More]
Liz Maynard, Emily DeaKyne and Ariana Torres co-authored with Lauren Asprooth (Univ. Wisconsin) and Michael O’Donnell (Recovery Ag LLC) recent outreach publications from the Diverse Corn Belt project. Diversifying the Corn Belt: Horticultural Food Crops and Diversifying the Corn Belt: Extended Rotations introduce these crop options by providing an overview of benefits; relation to corn-soybean…Read more about New Diverse Corn Belt Outreach Publications[Read More]
Dr. Ariana Torres and members of the Torres Lab, Visiting Scholar Alvaro Hernandez and Postdoctoral Researcher Juliano M.R. Marques, examined how food-label preferences among agricultural buyers relate to sourcing from diversified farms. Using survey data from procurement managers, the study identified distinct buyer segments based on preferences for certified and non-certified sustainability labels and found…Read more about New Research Connects Food Label Preferences to Diversified Farm Purchasing[Read More]
Master’s student Maria Celeste Ortez, mentored by Dr Ariana Torres, evaluated the economics of incorporating cut sunflowers into diversified specialty-crop operations using the Purdue HortCalculator framework. Under the study’s baseline assumptions, a 1,000-ft² sunflower planting generated $4,760 in gross revenue and $629 in net returns, with profitability highly sensitive to marketable yield and price….Read more about Graduate Research Explores Profitability of Cut Sunflowers Using HortCalculator[Read More]
Dr. Ariana P. Torres (Horticulture & Landscape Architecture / Agricultural Economics) has published a new paper with former MS student Jean Pierre Zavala (now at Texas Tech University) in HortTechnology: “HortCalculator: A Web-based Financial Decision-Support Tool for Midwestern Spinach Production in High Tunnels.“ The paper presents HortCalculator, a free, web-based financial planning tool developed for…Read more about New Publication from Ariana Torres and Jean Pierre Zavala[Read More]
Dr. Ariana Torres recently sat down with host Chad on the How We Grow podcast for an episode titled “The number one reason why crops fail!” During the interview, Dr. Torres breaks down the business decisions behind specialty crop farming. She highlights why growing the crop is only half the job—the other half is knowing…Read more about Dr. Ariana Torres Featured on the “How We Grow” Podcast[Read More]
Juliano Martins Ramalho Marques, Ariana P. Torres, Fernanda Machado Fonseca Ramalho Marques, Katherine O. Pivaral and Aslihan D. Spaulding (University of Kentucky) has published a new research paper in the British Food Journal: Inside the hearts and minds of oat milk enthusiasts: consumer preferences and values.