Conservation Clip List for Friday, August 20th, 2021
Conservation Clips is a weekly collection of articles distributed by NACD that provides our members and partners with the latest news in what’s driving conservation. These articles are not indicative of NACD policy and are the opinions of their authors, unless otherwise noted. If you have a relevant submission or need assistance with accessing articles, please contact the NACD Communications Team.
County partners set out to address this issue, and the Wasatch Conservation District became the lead agency for watershed improvement. In 2012, the district conducted a series of landowner meetings to help brainstorm ways to solve this problem.
Tim Palmer said that when they look at carbon credits, being a conservationist first is the key as the carbon market incentivizes further action – not the whole package. While carbon credits could explode in value moving forward, Palmer agreed that waiting for the market is the wrong choice.
“Rain on Main” is back in Carmel for the seventh year. The annual event is a creative and colorful way to raise awareness about water quality and conservation. We talk to Claire Lane, Urban Conservation for the Hamilton County Soil and Water Conservation District.
The Berks County Conservation District has named Dennis Bross of Shady Cove Farm as farmer of the year for a conservation project at his Bethel Township dairy farm.
The Lycoming County Conservation District celebrated its 65-year history of service to its taxpayers on July 20, 2021, according to a release by the office.
Awards recognized a wide range of career achievements including fostering farm management practices that prevent erosion and improve soil and water quality; advancing storm and wastewater management in communities and industry; and educating and inspiring youth through the annual statewide Envirothon competition.
The project was a partnership effort involving the Cherokee Nation, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission, the Muskogee County Conservation District and private landowners.
Successful regenerative ranchers are using these soil health principles within the context of introduced and native forage production in pasture and rangeland. In the Great Plains, as well as around the world, ranchers are seeing the benefits of using these principles to guide their grazing practices. As their soils regenerate, they are seeing improvements in their soil carbon, water intake and storage, forage and livestock production, and profits.
According to a recent survey commissioned by the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, the state’s farmers set a record this year by planting an estimated 1.5 million acres of cover crops, also known as overwinter living covers.
With climate change and long-term drought continuing to take a toll on the Colorado River, the federal government on Monday for the first time declared a water shortage at Lake Mead, one of the river’s main reservoirs.
If you’re not acquainted with cover crops, here’s the rundown: These hardworking plants can add organic matter and aerate the soil, protect it from compaction caused by rain, suppress weeds and reduce erosion.
“We found that in more diverse systems, corn and wheat yields can be up to 10 percent higher,” says Emily Burchfield, assistant professor in Emory University’s Department of Environmental Sciences and co-author of the study. “And if you combine high diversity of landcover with more complex landscape configurations, corn and wheat yields increase by more than 20 percent.”
(Subscriber Only) President Biden has chosen Charles “Chuck” Sams III, a former longtime administrator of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, to lead the National Park Service.
Maintaining an actively growing root system in the soil year-round improves soil quality, while the growing cover crop keeps weeds down and can fix or recycle nitrogen for next year’s crop.
Part of the solution is sharing information and resources. This can help give our forests the best possible care and to ensure they’re around for generations to come. Daniels thinks we could not only sustain but improve the potential of our forests.
Bees are critical in food cultivation but in recent decades the number of bee colonies has sharply declined and is a significant threat to the world’s food supply. Scientists in Arkansas are doing research that could lead to ways to protect the world’s bee populations.
“Talking about soil health is a different conversation than growers are used to having with retailers. In the past it’s been about yield, agronomics and economics. But with soil health, it’s a conversation about investing in a concept and acknowledging there are difficulties in measuring its success,” she says.
Soil health begins with understanding the soil biota, according to Janice Thies, associate professor of soil biology at Cornell University. She presented about the importance of critters that live in soil at the recent Empire Farm Days.
U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack talked about drought conditions in Minnesota. He says in his estimation conditions are trending in the wrong direction quickly.
(Subscriber Only) The challenge of expanding and refining the use of artificial intelligence to resolve challenges in agriculture is drawing increased state and federal funding to researchers in the San Joaquin Valley.
(Opinion) Decades of eco-terrorism have effectively shut down our national forests from responsible management. The result? Now there are six billion standing dead trees in the West that create a tinder box waiting to ignite one devastating forest fire after another.
With precision ag technology and software available within the industry today, conducting on-farm studies has provided an opportunity for farmers to proactively address production questions.
Aspiring to reach today’s sustainability goals, modern farmers wear many hats, from scientist to engineer and from data analyst to business strategist.
The talk of rewarding and incentivizing soil health and regenerative agriculture practices continues to float around USDA headquarters and the halls of Congress. The last thing you want to do is get caught flat-footed by not having your information turned in to USDA.
More than 600,000 miles of fences crisscross the American West, blocking animal migration. Outside Yellowstone this summer, volunteers dismantled a few.
More than 600,000 miles of fences crisscross the American West, blocking animal migration. Outside Yellowstone this summer, volunteers dismantled a few.
Half of the farmers in the biggest corn, soybean and wheat states employ precision agriculture in their operations — from GPS guidance of tractors and combines to deploying drones to scout fields or monitor livestock — twice the national average, said a USDA report on computer usage on Wednesday.
BEE-STEWARD is a decision-support tool which provides a computer simulation of bumblebee colony survival in a given landscape. The tool lets researchers, farmers, policymakers, and other interested parties test different land management techniques to find out which ones and where could be most beneficial for bees.
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