Benefits of Cover Crops Extend to Dry Areas
A new study shows that cover crops can improve most ecosystem services in water-limited environments without negative effects on food crop yields.
A new study shows that cover crops can improve most ecosystem services in water-limited environments without negative effects on food crop yields.
New study reviews pesticide impacts on soil, finds harm to soil invertebrates in 71% of cases. Herbicides and fungicides are especially detrimental to earthworms, nematodes and springtails.
Dr. Johnson has been doing breakthrough work in regards to the efficacy of biologically diverse, fungal-dominated compost for carbon sequestration and improved soil health and crop yields. The composting system he devised with his wife Hui-Chun Su is called the Johnson-Su Bioreactor.
Similar to the human gut, soil contains a living community of microbes. The health of both environments is interdependent and rests on the diversity of the microbial community.
Maximizing biodiversity is the second soil health principle. An often cited study, published in 2019 and led by the University of British Columbia, highlights the importance of Indigenous land management in achieving this goal.
Diversification has benefits for agricultural production and ecosystem services both above and below ground, but diversification of soil organisms is seldom recognized.
A conversation with rangeland ecologist Richard Teague, PhD, analyzing the role that adaptive multi-paddock cattle grazing plays in sequestering carbon.
At Rogers Memorial Farm, NE, the benefits of long-term no-till practices are manifold. No-till plots have been shown to build soil structure, usually have the highest yields and are the most profitable.
Integrating cover crops, such as legumes and grasses, into existing cropping systems can increase the biological health of soils on hot and dry semiarid lands.
By The Regenerative Agriculture Initiative team at Center for Business and the Environment: Regenerative agriculture is a holistic system of practices and principles that seek to improve, not degrade natural resources…