By Georgine Yorgey Dryland crops are a common sight east of the Cascades, and cover a LOT of acreage in the Pacific Northwest – more than 5.8 million acres according to recent statistics. Over the last three years, a group of us at the WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources (CSANR) have had […]
By: Brooke Saari “No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow” Proverb from Guinea Winter is in its final stages and spring is knocking on our door. As a Florida native living in Washington, I for one am ready for some sunshine, flowers and warmth! While I dream of that glorious spring, […]
By Liz Allen Back in March of 2016, a group of agriculture sector stakeholders– including researchers, policy makers and producers– met in Tri-Cities, Washington, for the Agriculture in a Changing Climate Workshop. The three-day workshop was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northwest Climate Hub and National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Facilitators from […]
By Georgine Yorgey Biosolids? Yes, that means sewage sludge. Well, sort of. But before you say YUCK and click off the page, let’s start with what they really are: biosolids are the materials produced from digestion of sewage at city wastewater treatment plants. They are rich in plant nutrients such as organic carbon, nitrogen, and […]
By: Sonia A. Hall We have just wrapped up 2015, a year where we discussed agriculture’s contributions to a changing climate, and what the sector suggests for solving the problem. We’ve had lots of discussion about drought, dust bowls, water shortage, heat stress, changes in the growing season, and other signs of what’s to come. […]
Reprinted from: REACCH After years of watching canola grow with novel scanner equipment, Isaac Madsen shares the important relationships between canola roots and fertilizer in a short video. To learn more, watch the video on the REACCH Research Seminar Series in Climate Change and Agriculture youtube channel or below. This research is a great way to […]
Reprinted from: REACCH After years of field tests, in dry years and good years, Lauren Port shares her findings on stripper headers and benefits to soil moisture content. She claims that the work at the Ralston Project, near Lind and Ritzville, Washington, is “pushing no-till to its limits” by growing tall cereal crops. To learn […]
By David Schmidt Reprinted from: Animal Ag It is good to be part of a team. Crystal Powers, University of Nebraska Agricultural Engineer and AACC project coordinator will be helping with blog posts this year (as will be others on the team). She is starting with the first in a series of thoughts on SOILS! […]
By Chad Kruger Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability A new paper published in Environmental Science & Technology (DeLucia et al., 2014) suggests that scientists have drastically underestimated the earth’s theoretical potential to produce biomass – by as much as 2 orders of magnitude! That’s going to take a minute to wrap my mind […]
By Chad Kruger Source: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability In August I published a post describing one mechanism by which increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) can lead to direct financial benefit on irrigated farms. In that particular example, the agronomic value of the carbon could be more than 10X greater than the potential value of […]