By Doug Finkelnburg, Area Extension Educator – Dryland Cropping Systems, University of Idaho Extension Efforts are underway at the federal level to combat climate change on the agriculture front. USDA has just finished a “listening period” to help develop and refine actions they may implement to accomplish this. Just what those actions may be and what […]
By Embrey Bronstad This is part of a series highlighting work by Washington State University (WSU) researchers through the Waste to Fuels Technology Partnership between the Department of Ecology and WSU during the 2017-2019 biennium. This partnership advances targeted applied research and extension on emerging technologies for managing residual organic matter. Biochar has the potential […]
By Karen Hills This is part of a series highlighting work by Washington State University (WSU) researchers through the Waste to Fuels Technology Partnership between the Department of Ecology and WSU during the 2017-2019 biennium. This partnership advances targeted applied research and extension on emerging technologies for managing residual organic matter. Composting rather than landfilling organic waste, […]
By Karen Hills This is part of a series highlighting work by Washington State University (WSU) researchers through the Waste to Fuels Technology Partnership between the Department of Ecology and WSU during the 2017-2019 biennium. Biochar is produced by pyrolysis of woody (technically, lignocellulosic) materials. By controlling the conditions under which it is produced, researchers […]
By Karen Hills This is part of a series highlighting work by Washington State University (WSU) researchers through the Waste to Fuels Technology Partnership between the Department of Ecology and WSU during the 2017-2019 biennium. In a recent study, Jim Amonette at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Washington State University Center for Sustaining Agriculture […]
By Georgine Yorgey When you work at a land grant university, people sometimes reach out to you with questions. I love this aspect of my job, as it often gives me a chance to bridge the divide between research and the real world. In 2019, one of the questions I got most often was “How […]
By Athena Loos, Field Representative, McCain Foods During the 3.5 years that I have worked with growers in my role as a Field Representative with McCain Foods, I have met numerous growers who are playing an active role in exploring the biological component of soil health. (Growers generally have a good understanding of the chemical […]
By Karen Hills A frequently used—at least, by soil scientists—definition for soil health is “the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living system […] to sustain biological productivity, maintain the quality of air and water environments, and promote plant, animal, and human health” (Doran et al. 1996). Many different indicators—chemical, physical, and […]
By Chris Schnepf Ten years ago, when I visited with forest owners about climate change, there was a fair amount discussion about what was happening or not, and all the politics surrounding it. But one of the topics landowners were intrigued about—regardless of the extent to which they believed climate was changing—was carbon markets. Forest […]
By Sonia A. Hall A number of recent AgClimate.net articles focused on soil health (see for example this article on a soil health NRCS resource and one on decomposition of wheat residues research). These articles commented on why soil health is important from a climate change perspective: more carbon-rich organic matter in the soil contributes to […]