Sustainable Practices and Technology

The Biologically Intensive Agriculture and Organic Farming (BIOAg) Program is an integral part of CSANR’s mission to promote innovative and applicable research into sustainable agriculture.

What is the first thing you think when you hear “Black Gold”? Is it the theme song for the Beverly Hillbillies? A baritone “Texas Tea”? Well, some people think “BIOCHAR!”

“Follow the money” is a reliable tactic for figuring out people’s actions. Money is scarce, people want it, and do stuff with it. For plants, what works is “follow the nitrogen.” Nitrogen is scarce, plants and other organisms need it…

I’m a fan of action movies, where a Middle Eastern bazaar is a popular place for high-speed chases. Even without the careening bullets and motorcycles, there are hints of danger and mystery amidst the clamor and unknown languages filling the air. You barter over the selling price of exotic objects that cannot be found anywhere else.

Climate change is expected to alter both the availability and demand for water. In the western United States, roughly 80% of surface water is allocated to agricultural uses, and the pressure to find more efficient ways to manage water is on, especially in drought years. Eastern Washington is no exception…

What do weeds and gamblers in Las Vegas have in common? They both manage the risk of unpredictable outcomes through a strategy called bet-hedging. Could farmers use this same strategy by planting cover crop mixtures?…

In this era with record-setting temperatures multiple years in a row, scientists are looking for methods to sequester carbon to slow the process of climate change. Agriculture plays a key role…

I once grew buckwheat in town between our sidewalk and the street. It got a lot of looks from passersby and one lady even knocked on my door to ask about it. I planted it with the naïve hope that…

I previously covered reasons why the results of many biodiversity studies do not apply to agriculture. Here, I want to emphasize a related issue: how ecological biodiversity research has distracted us from figuring out the actual causes of benefits in crop mixtures.

Crop rotation is a time-proven practice. Compared to monocropping—the continuous production of the same crop year after year—growing two, three, or even more crops can help with pest management. Research has also found that…