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…
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…
This year CSANR sponsored registration for several WSU students to attend the Tilth Conference. We will post reflections written by the students over the next several weeks. Please feel free to comment and give these students your feedback.…
This year CSANR sponsored registration for several WSU students to attend the Tilth Conference. We will post reflections written by the students over the next several weeks. Please feel free to comment and give these students your feedback.…
Models suggest that climate change in our region will involve an annual temperature increase of 3-4°F by the 2050’s, accompanied by changes in precipitation patterns, including drier summers despite a 5-15% increase in annual precipitation (Kruger et al. 2017). Even with this information, uncertainty still exists about what climate change will mean for agriculture, in […]
About a year ago I declared in a post, “Cover crop best bet is monoculture, not mix.” It stirred up quite a few comments and discussion, but no scientific evidence that countered my assertion. Nevertheless,…