- Author: Laura R. Crothers
Deanne Meyer, UC Cooperative Extension livestock waste management specialist, is this year's recipient of the Eric Bradford & Charlie Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award, given by the Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI) at UC Davis.
Meyer is being honored for her leadership in substantially improving the sustainability of California's dairy industry through her research and outreach.
The Bradford-Rominger award recognizes and honors individuals who exhibit the leadership, work ethic and integrity epitomized by the late Eric Bradford, a livestock geneticist who gave 50 years of service to UC Davis, and the late Charlie Rominger, a...
- Author: Aubrey White
The origins of interest in biochar, a charcoal-based soil amendment, are almost mythic in nature. In the Amazon Basin, a rainforest region with typically infertile soils, segments of soil have been discovered to be almost black in color and rich in nutrients. The soil’s color is derived from its high organic matter content, believed to originate from historical charcoal applications added to the soil some 2,500 years ago, either intentionally or as a waste product from cooking.
Recently, there has been a growing interest in whether the fertility of these “amazon dark earth soils” can be replicated in modern farming practices, and a new UC Davis database helps users and researchers better understand that...
- Author: Aubrey White
Approximately every ten years, the research team at the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility at UC Davis gets the chance to dig deep into their research material to help answer questions about the long-term sustainability of agricultural systems.
With a steel probe attached to the back of a tractor, the team digs three meters deep to take soil samples at 432 different points around the 72-acre field. The initiative takes the team nearly a month to complete, and the information in each soil core can answer major research questions...
- Author: Eve Hightower
The size, scope and intensity of research at Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility at UC Davis make the 300-acre experiment like no other in the world. The ranch’s unique focus on sustainability research is what draws producers, researchers and students to its annual Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Field Day.
Located just west of the main UC Davis campus, Russell Ranch is a testing ground for the long-term sustainability of various farming methods. Research at the ranch focuses on fundamental components of agricultural production – energy, water and land resources –...