By: Sonia A. Hall

Got milk? Dairies are in the milk business, but must also manage manure produced along the way, and the potentially useful nutrients it holds. Photo: NRCS in Oregon under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Managing manure is a big part of what goes on at the “back end” of a dairy. Doing it well is important to avoid impacts on surrounding neighbors due to odors, impacts on air and water quality, or the release of unnecessary amounts of greenhouse gases such as methane or nitrous oxides (which, by the way, are respectively 28 and 265 times more powerful as global warming “blankets” than carbon dioxide). There are multiple technologies being developed, tested, and used to improve manure management in dairies. These include anaerobic digestion, which produces bioenergy and helps reduce odors (we provided an overview about a year ago in this article). Nutrient recovery technologies are another aspect being studied. These are an array of different technologies that allow us to collect the potentially useful nitrogen and phosphorus found in manure, so it can be used productively rather than contributing to climate change or other issues. Continue reading →

By: John Stevenson

Reprinted From: The Climate CIRCulator

Photo Credit: Oregon Department of Forestry, Some Rights Reserved.

YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN the charts from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. For the past seventy years, the observatory has been monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (CO2). Along with revealing how this important greenhouse gas has grown steadily year after year, the observatory’s month-by-month data has also tracked an interesting season-to-season variation: CO2 goes up in the fall and winter and down in the spring and summer. The reason is plants. Continue reading →

By Liz Allen

Panel discussion during the Agriculture in a Changing Climate workshop. Photo by Brooke Saari

These days I call the Northeast home, but my research is planted solidly in the Pacific Northwest. Trips west always involve a flurry of meetings with colleagues in Washington and Idaho and visits to my family in Oregon. My most recent visit began with lambing season at my brother’s farm in the Willamette Valley and wrapped up with three thought-provoking days at the Agriculture in a Changing Climate Workshop. This Workshop was a first-of-its-kind conference hosted by Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture & Natural Resources (CSANR), the USDA Northwest Climate Hub, and the Regional Approaches to Climate Change for Pacific Northwest Agriculture (REACCH) team. The central objectives of the workshop were to analyze knowledge gaps and explore opportunities for improving decision support tools. Continue reading →