CASI's Mitchell on MyAgLife podcast June 28, 2024

 July 1, 2024

Jeff Mitchell, CASI member and Professor and Cropping Systems Cooperative Extension Specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis, appeared in a 39-minute podcast with host Taylor Chalstrom on June 28, 2024 to talk about conservation agriculture in general and the recently-published article in California Agriculture on the 20-year study  in Five Points, CA.  The podcast is available at

https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/JuQ7qakGSKb

You may need the podcast platform, Spotify, to listen to it. 

In an effort to extend information on CASI's twenty-year conservation agriculture study that has been conducted at the University field station in Five Points, CA and that has been recently published in the journal, California Agriculture, Jeff Mitchell provided three radio interviews on the morning Ag Report that Don York produces for KMJ580 AM each morning out of Fresno.  The segments aired on May 23rd and on June 4^th and 6th, 2024 and are available below.  Mitchell shared findings of the long-term “NRI Project” that since 1998 has examined four production systems – standard tillage without cover crop, standard tillage with cover crop, no-till without cover crop, and no-till with cover crop. 

The NRI Project started as an effort to determine the potential of reduced disturbance tillage in terms of generating or producing less dust and in the early 2000s found that dust can be significantly reduced by as much as 80% with a variety of reduced tillage practices relative to standard tillage techniques that have been widely used in annual crop fields throughout the San Joaquin Valley since the early 1930s.   The recent findings from the unique long-term study have shown that several soil health indicators including aggregation, water infiltration, biodiversity, and surface carbon were improved through the long-term use of cover crops with reduced disturbance tillage. 

In the interviews, Mitchell points out that the systems that were evaluated and developed in the NRI Project were not at all easy to implement and required considerable trial-and-error effort to achieve.  Yields, for instance, of cotton in the early years under the high residue, no-till cover crop system lagged behind the standard tillage, however once effective planting techniques were learned to establish the cotton crop. There were no yield differences between the two tillage systems for the next several years. 

The results of this study that included 18 coauthors can be seen at  https://doi.org/10.3733/001c.94714

May 17, 2024

Findings from twenty years of soil health research in Five Points, CA have been published in the University of California's California Agriculture peer-reviewed journal's May 1, 2024 issue.  https://doi.org/10.3733/001c.94714. 

This work has been a large collaborative effort involving twenty-one UC and non-UC coauthors.  It began in 1998 initially as an effort to evaluate the potential of reduced disturbance tillage systems to reduce dust emissions from annual cropping systems that are common in California's San Joaquin Valley.  It long-term nature however, allowed it to become a unique site for also monitoring changes in soil properties and function under four experimental systems:  conventional tillage with no cover crop, conventional tillage with cover crop, no-till with no cover crop, and no-till with cover crop.  Crops rotated between tomato and cotton initially, but later during the study, the rotation was diversified to include melons, sorghum, and garbanzo beans.  

The work involved the Soil Health Institute's Shannon Cappellazzi, who sampled at the site in 2019.  That sampling event led to the site becoming part of a multiple-publication series of articles that reported on soil health impacts in 124 long-term study sites across North America.  

https://soilhealthinstitute.org/news-events/a-minimum-suite-of-soil-health-indicators-for-north-american-agriculture/ 

Top 15 No-till and Conservation Agriculture Research Articles Selected by Panel at National No-till Farmer Association!

January 9, 2022

During the past couple of months, Randall Reeder, retired Extension Agricultural Engineer with the Ohio State University, (and legendary professional speaker who “brings to life the warmth and humor of Will Rogers as he speaks to business and agriculture audiences, and a variety of other groups”), who is also a recognized No-till Research and Education Innovator by the National No-till Farmer Association, and Don Reicosky, retired USDA ARS soil scientist from Morris, MN, who many of you in CA already know from our having hosted him here on at least a couple of occasions in the past (Don is also a past No-till Research and Education Innovator recognized by NNTFA),  worked on a survey and compilation of the top 15 research articles of all time in no-till and in conservation agriculture.  A committee was created and voting took place to come up with the final lists of works that were announced at the annual meeting of NNTFA last week in Louisville, KY.  Both Randall and Don are pretty amazing folks in terms of their decades-long dedicated service to the fields of no-till and conservation agriculture.  I think the idea for the lists came from the organizers of the NNTFA and they then asked Randall and Don to coordinate things.

The lists are attached.  Perhaps you'll recognize some of the titles as they are pretty well-known and highly respected items.

All the best,

Jeff