Tag: cover crops
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How one Wisconsin farm pursues land and water conservation
Do you know the purpose, cause, or belief that drives you? Author Simon Sinek calls this “finding your why.” On my family’s dairy farm in Door County, Wisconsin, our why is, “To learn and adapt so that all may have a quality life.” Every day, we face new challenges on Brey Cycle Farm. Although it…
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Building Roots for a More Water Secure California
Photo: NRCS Scientists Holding Up Two Soil Samples. US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service The recently released National Climate Assessment discussed the impacts of climate change on our nation’s water supply and agricultural productivity. The levels of uncertainty regarding the future of our water supply are troubling. Changes in precipitation patterns will intensify…
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Cover Crops Look to be Changing Runoff Dynamics in Kansas
This spring and summer have been exciting months at the Kansas Agricultural Watershed (KAW) Field Research Facility. Nathan Nelson, Professor of Soil Fertility and Nutrient Management at Kansas State University, and his team have been busy measuring runoff and water quality to determine how different agricultural conditions impact phosphorus (P) loss. In Kansas, fall broadcast…
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Attack of the Killer Algae
Photo: Algal bloom on Lake Erie A roving pack of journalists shake off the rain in a squat, one-story federal building in Oak Harbor, Ohio. Hosting us journalists is a troop from the US Department of Agriculture. Beyond working with farmers, most are farmers themselves. But unlike many of their agricultural colleagues, these men embrace…
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Water quality deal lacks allure in swath of Iowa
Photo: Jack Boyer of Reinbeck refills his air seeder Nov. 10 before spreading for cover crops on his farm in Grundy and Tama counties, where he has been growing cover crops for seven years. A retiree of John Deere, he researched and experimented with different crops on his own land and found that cover crops…
