Posts Tagged: cover crops
Fresno State MS student shares his research work on strip-tillage!
Robert Willmott not only recently wrapped up his MS thesis research at Fresno State, but he also works full-time as the Farm Manager for his college's student ag farm, is married, and has two small children as well! A full plate, to say the least. In addition to all this, he recently told his story at Fresno State in a 3-minute video that is now posted at You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo6xZh5sGdA
Working in the Department of Plant Science in the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology under his award-winning and Fellow in the American Society of Agronomy major professor, Anil Shrestha, Robert presented his thesis work in an exit seminar on May 14th on campus ahead of being awarded this MS and graduating later this month. His work consisted of a multiple-year study to evaluate the potential of using a roller crimper and strip-tillage for producing silage corn under center pivot irrigation, a new systems approach for San Joaquin Valley dairies that rely on winter and corn silage for animal feed materials. The several years of the study saw quite good success in terminating a variety of winter cover crop mixes using the roller crimper, strong weed suppression during the early corn season, and corn yields comparable to industry standards and the conventional control system that was part of the evaluation.
The work is now being prepared for submission to a scientific journal later this summer. A three-minute You Tube video summarizing Robert's work may be viewed at the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo6xZh5sGdA
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CASI hosts the Soil Health Institute's US Regenerative Ag Cotton Program leaders - April 11 and 12, 2024
April 12, 2024
The UC ANR CASI Center hosted five members of the Soil Health Institute's US Regenerative Ag Cotton Program in the San Joaquin Valley on April 11th and 12th, 2024. The Soil Health Institute (SHI) is a non-profit organization based in Morrisville, NC that conducts research and extension education related to soil health management. Five SHI members, Diana Bagnall, David Lamm, Jessica Kelton, Emily Ball, and Nate Looker, took part in the two-day tour of six San Joaquin Valley farms and the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations. San Joaquin Valley farmers who hosted the SHI members included Mark Borba of Borba Farms in Riverdale, CA, Mark McKean of McKean Farms also in Riverdale, Tony Azevedo of Stone Land Company in Stratford, CA, Cannon Michael and Derek Azevedo of Bowles Farming in Los Banos, Gary and Mari Martin of Pikalok Farms in Mendota, and Gary Smith of Ingleby Farms in Burrel. Roger Isom, President of the CCGGA in Fresno, also hosted the SHI guests.
SHI requested help from CASI with the cotton tour and discussions that took place as an effort to expand their national Regenerative Ag Cotton Program to California in 2024. The tour provided excellent opportunities for SHI to learn about California cotton and to make connections with leading cotton farmers in the San Joaquin Valley who may become part of the baseline soil sampling project that SHI is looking to conduct with cotton producers this year.
In addition to the farmers who generously hosted the SHI guests, several other local California folks including Cary Crum, Kimber Moreland, Rob Roy, Jacob Wright, and Olivia Peters helped CASI's Jeff Mitchell in sharing information about California cotton systems.
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Cover Crops in Rice - Field Demonstration Day
UC Cooperative Extension will host a Healthy Soils Program field demonstration day on...
2024 Rice Cover Crop Field Day Agenda FINAL
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2023 Delta Rice Recap
Rice production in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region has been steadily increasing in recent...
Fire and Dried Cover Crops
Vineyards and orchards have long used winter cover crops to help reduce erosion, improve soil structure and prevent nutrient leaching. Growers are being encouraged to increase their use of cover crops to help capture atmospheric carbon dioxide and fix it as soil organic matter, thus helping mitigate climate change.
However the dry residues resulting from abundant cover crop growth can also serve as a highly flammable fuel if fire occurs at the vineyard or orchard. The risk of fire occurring in any given year is likely small, but many coastal areas of California are rated as having a very high or high fire hazard (see the Fire Hazard Severity Zones Maps).
The picture below offers a clear visual example of just how flammable these dry plant residues can be. This is from an experiment by Livestock and Range Advisor Matthew Shapero and colleagues of how different grazing levels affect fuel quantities and therefore fire behavior. The plots with low fuel levels burn at lower fire temperatures and with lower flame lengths while the higher fuel levels result in much more intense fire behavior.
The California vineyard pictured below in July 2022 is an example of how the management decisions with cover crop residues can result in a very elevated fire risk. This cover crop of oats has full surface coverage and the abundant residues have mostly been left standing. The vines themselves and especially the drip irrigation lines are at very high risk of burning if fire was to ever occur under these conditions. The lack of bare ground under the vine rows will also allow fire to move across the rows and potentially impact the entire vineyard from a single ignition point.
The picture below is from an area in Chile which suffered extensive forest fires in early 2023. In this region, vineyards which had large amounts of dried cover crop residues suffered far more damage than vineyards without such residues. The vineyard on the left had a large amount of dried residues from a lupine cover crop and as a consequence burned very intensely, while the vineyard on the right had very little dried residues and had virtually no direct fire damage to the vines.
Another example from the same region is the effect that the burning of adjacent trees had on a vineyard with little dried residues. In the picture below tall burned pine trees were directly behind the photographer (you can see the shadows of the trunks) but only the near edge of the vineyard was damaged by radiant heat from the burning trees. Undoubtedly many burning embers landed within the vineyard as the trees burned, but the lack of dried residues resulted in no fires within the vineyard.
The take home message from this short article is that dried cover crop residues are highly flammable! With the abundant rainfall in California this past winter we are seeing heavy growth in cover crops this spring which will lead to heavy levels of dried residues this summer. For vineyards and orchards in higher fire risk areas these residues should be managed to help minimize the risk of catastrophic damage if a fire was to occur there.
With all this rain, the trees and the cover crops are thriving, but with an annual cover crop that dries out when the soil moisture dries up, it could be a fire hazard. It should be mowed prior to fire season.
Thanks, Mark Battany, for the reminder - https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=56817
citrus cover crop