Wheat residue on field near Ritzville, Washington, which is part of the a grain-fallow cropping system. (Photo: D. Kilgore) In non-irrigated areas that are too dry to support annual cropping, fallow (the practice of leaving…
Anne Schwartz is a long-time CSANR Advisory Committee member, former Tilth Producers of Washington president, proprietor of Blue Heron Farm, and lifelong advocate for sustainable agriculture. Anne is a guest blogger, challenging College of Agricultural,…
Farmer and long-time CSANR advisory committee member, Dale Gies. Photo: S. Kantor. What are the climate impacts of a given farm practice? While we know lots of strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions on farms,…
Biochar as a soil amendment has been the subject of much attention in recent years because of its ability to sequester carbon and to improve aggregation, water holding capacity, and organic matter content of soil…
Building on our long-term efforts relating to dairy nutrient management, we now have a new publication that summarizes the various approaches being explored for nutrient recovery on dairies – and what we know about the current costs and performance that are associated with each strategy. The publication, Approaches to Nutrient Recovery from Dairy Manure, was […]
Australian minnows, or Mountain Galaxias, part of a 15-species cryptic hyper-complex. Photo: CC http://fishesofaustralia.net.au/home/species/3677 Imagine this. You are an avid fisherman in south-eastern Australia. You relish getting away to the many lakes in the nearby…
2017 was an incredibly busy and productive year for us at CSANR, and I’m pleased to be able to share some of what we accomplished through our 2017 annual report PDF. Among the highlights: Laura…
What is regenerative agriculture? Why is it different from sustainable agriculture? And how do I reconcile what practitioners of this system are claiming with the scientific evidence? These were all going through my mind when, a couple weeks ago at an advisory committee meeting of the WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, we watched a YouTube video of Gabe Brown’s TEDx talk in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Brown farms near Bismarck, ND, and has become the American face of regenerative agriculture in the past decade. Here is what I learned.
Karen Hills and CSANR Associate Director, Georgine Yorgey co-wrote this post. Dryland areas are historically used for wheat production. Photo: USDA, ARS. Across the dryland areas of the inland Pacific Northwest, soil erosion and the…
Green manures have a lot in common with the other kind of GM crops (GMOs), though there are also some differences. Both green manures and GM crops produce pesticides in their plant cells, yet green…