Although now teenagers, while in Ephrata’s elementary school my three daughters learned about hydropower generation, electricity and the dams owned and operated by the Grant County Public Utility District. This is good. I believe that…
No-till corn with surface residues (photo: McGuire) Organic matter is the key to soil quality, but building soil organic matter levels can be slow and expensive. There is an alternative. Research shows (Franzluebbers, 2002) many…
17 species cover crop blend. Photo: A. McGuire. In a recent post, I argued that we should cast aside the ideas of "balance of nature" and "nature knows best" in designing farming systems. If nature…
Behind many efforts to make agriculture more sustainable is the idea that our farming systems need to be more like nature. According to agroecologist Miguel Altieri, “By designing farming systems that mimic nature, optimal use…
This post follows Chad Kruger’s introduction to the discussion of GMOs and sustainability. In a past post, I argued that killing a cover crop with an herbicide was better for building soil than killing it with…
As noted in colleague Chad Kruger’s informative posts about soil carbon sequestration (1, 2), it takes a long time to reap the benefits of building up soil organic matter. There is, however, a quick way…
When I was a college student, almost every ag-related class I took mentioned the benefits of the "rotation effect" (better yields, fewer pests, etc.). However, aside from insect pests, how the "rotation effect" actually worked…
Here is the secret to building soils – manure and diverse crop rotation. Underwhelmed? Researchers in Iowa (Delate et al, 2013) came to this conclusion after conducting ten years of field research. Only this wasn’t…
mi·cro·man·age: to manage or control with excessive attention to minor details. As a means to improve soil management, I commend the high interest in soil biology among farmers and gardeners. However, I have noticed the…
Last November, at the WSU Building Soils for Better Crops conference, farmers from Kansas, North Dakota, and Colorado all spoke on the benefits they were seeing from using multi-species cover crops. These cover crop “cocktails”…