- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
Alan Sano and Jesse Sanchez of Sano Farms in Firebaugh, CA graciously hosted Brazilian conservation agriculture researcher from Sao Paolo state, Roberto Botelho at their farm on February 23rd. Botelho is visiting the San Joaquin Valley with CASI's Mitchell, who has taken him around to a number of farms where he's been able to meet local pioneers of improved performance production systems. Sanchez took Botelho out to several of Sano Farms' cover crop fields and dug up soil to show how things have changed since cover cropping and minimum tillage were begun over ten years ago. Not only have there been remarkable changes in soil tilth, but Sanchez and Sano are also now able to reduce fertilizer and water use at their farm after so many years of consistent cover crop and reduced disturbance approaches.
- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
Three distinguished guests visited the long-standing CASI NRI Project in Five Points on February 22 and saw first-hand how the no-till and cover cropped soils have dramatically changed since the study was started in 1999. Dr. Angus Wright, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Studies at California State University, Sacramento, Tom Willey, retired organic farmer at T & D Willey Farms in Madera, CA, and Roberto Botelho, conservation agriculture researcher in Sao Paolo state in Brazil, met with CASI's Jeff Mitchell at the site on a splendidly sunny day in the San Joaquin Valley. The visitors examined the cover crop mixtures that have been growing during the winter and also dug shovels-full of soil to examine how it has visibly changed under the long-term no-till and cover crop management that has been implemented at the site. Dr. Wright is a noted researcher and author several books on agriculture including Nature's Matrix and the Death of Ramon Gonzales: The Modern Agricultural Dilemma. He gave a guest lecture in Mitchell's PLS111 Agronomy course last fall in Davis and also a seminar the night before at Fresno City College to a large crowd. We were honored to have these wonderful guests visit our NRI Project site in Five Points.
- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
We had a good year at the World Ag Expo last week in Tulare.
Special thanks go out to all the folks including Brook Gale, Brenna Aegerter, Jessica Chiartas, Roberto Botelho, Monte Bottens, Ladi Asgill, Matt Rossow, Jesse Sanchez, Scott Park, Michael Janes, Jeannette Warnert, Rick Cesena, who stopped by and who gave good service to our display site.
A video of some of this year's activities can be seen at https://youtu.be/SpiCpIjpRp0
All the best.
- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
Mike McRee has been extremely willing to share his experiences with others and has graciously hosted numerous public field days at his dairy farm over the years.
Additional information about McRee may be found at the CASI Workgroup website at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ct/?story=90&showall=yes
- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
The following link is for a video of a televideo conference session that took place on November 14, 2017 between Dr. Dwayne Beck, Director of the Dakota Lakes Research Farm of South Dakota State University, and the PLS111 agronomy students at the University of California, Davis.
https://videocenter.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/videos/video/372/
In the roughly one-hour-and-twenty-minute video, Dr. Beck describes some of the thinking and innovation that led to many of the transformational changes in agricultural production systems that have taken place in his region over the past thirty of so years. He also shares with the students aspects of his own thinking related to how we are all going to need to be very proactive with our own efforts to develop improved performance production systems and he encourages us to look at things from a truly long-term perspective.
This video captures many of the critically-important insights and ways of looking at production systems that Dr. Beck is so well known for and the PLS111 class was most grateful to him for his thinking.
