By Kristin Trippe, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Forage Seed and Cereal Research Unit Farmers across the globe are grappling with the challenges of a changing climate. In the Pacific Northwest, loss of snow pack has diminished the availability of water resources, causing increased drought stress. Our program is focused on biochar, a rather non-descript product […]
By Georgine Yorgey and Karen Hills, WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture & Natural Resources Across the dryland areas of the inland Pacific Northwest, soil erosion and the use of near monocultures of wheat have long been serious sustainability challenges, ones that we have been working on for decades, including over the last seven years through regional […]
by Doug Finkelnburg In November I participated in a truly innovative summit titled, “Safeguarding Idaho’s Economy in a Changing Climate – Our Water, Our Land, Our Health, Our Future” which brought together a diverse coalition of public and private stakeholders to discuss economic resiliency challenged by our changing climate. This first-of-its kind, for Idaho, summit […]
By Karen Hill The production of crop residue varies dramatically across the Inland Pacific Northwest, with estimated residue production for winter wheat ranging from roughly 0.9 ton/acre in the drier grain-fallow cropping system (Figure 1) to 8.5 ton/acre in the wetter annual crop system, which has enough precipitation to support cropping every year. Crop residues […]
By: Sonia A. Hall Extension has traditionally involved getting results from researchers to decision-makers in agriculture. Partly because I work on climate change and agriculture, and partly because of the approach my team and the researchers we work with take, extension is, for us, a two-way street. In this article I want to highlight the “other” […]
By Amy Pendegraft Articles contained within this post: The Where and When of Earthworms in Wheat Chelsea Walsh studied the current species, distributions, life-cycles and effects of earthworms in the dryland wheat producing region in the inland Northwest, and how their behavior may change under projected changes in temperature and precipitation. Since earthworm activity is […]
By Amy Pendegraft Articles contained within this post: Water Issues: Sediment and Organic Carbon Transport Curious about the effects of climate change on water and erosion in the Pacific Northwest? Ryan Boylan works on monitoring organic carbon fluxes due to run-off and erosion, and analyzing how it is affected by tillage practices in the dryland […]
By Amy Pendegraft Articles contained within this post: Rotational nitrogen-use efficiency evaluations Improving nitrogen use efficiency is an important strategy in increasing agricultural sustainability, but efficiency rates can be very difficult to measure. Dr. Tai McClellan Maaz presents the results of a multi-year study on the residual effects of nitrogen fertilizer in seasons following application. […]
By Georgine Yorgey As a number of large climate-and-agriculture projects at our Pacific Northwest universities have come to an end over the last year, we felt it was time to step back and take stock. Our projects have included dryland wheat farming, anaerobic digestion systems for dairies, and improving understanding of the interactions among carbon, […]
By Laurie Houston Since 1960, the U.S. Forest Service has managed national forests for multiple uses including timber production, water supply, recreation, and fish and wildlife. Added now to that portfolio of management objectives is carbon storage to help mitigate climate change. However managing for multiple uses is extremely complex, because management that favors one […]
