- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Blogger Nathanael Johnson, who writes 'Thought for food' on the Grist website, recently contemplated the impacts of reduced soil tillage on the use of chemical herbicides and crops genetically engineered to tolerate herbicide applications.
He noted that the practice of tillage in farming does not mimic nature.
"Nature only rarely turns the land upside down — only during disasters," Johnson wrote. "This ecosystem (soil) responds to being turned upside-down the same way a rainforest would: It falls apart."
However, the author wondered whether the development of herbicide-tolerant crops has led farmers to adopt conservation...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Cooperative Extension specialist Jeff Mitchell's daily drive to work down Elkhorn Avenue inspired him to write an op-ed about what the roadway represents to San Joaquin Valley agriculture. The story was published Saturday in the Fresno Bee.
Elkhorn Avenue represents the very best of our Valley and it provides a lot that we might all be proud of," Mitchell wrote.
He comments on the color of soils along the route, ranging from light sandy soils derived from the Sierra Nevada to the dark, finely textured clay that formed as alluvial fans from the Coast Range. Along the 30-mile...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A desire to reduce fuel and water use is leading some farmers in the Central Valley to operate in new, more sustainable ways, reported Alice Daniel on KQED's The California Report this morning.
For the five-minute story, Daniel interviewed Jeff Mitchell, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, and Dino Giacomazzi, a Hanford dairy farmer. These new farming systems, they said, aren't straight forward and require a steep learning curve.
Sometimes they find themselves wondering, "What is happening out here?" Mitchell says. "And all your built-up experience base...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
When delving into conservation agriculture production, it's important to learn the entire system, advises Dino Giacomazzi, a Hanford dairy operator who uses the process to produce corn silage for his cows. Giacomazzi was quoted in a Hanford Sentinel story that focused on research results released in the latest issue of California Agriculture journal. The research concluded that the system works effectively in a cotton and tomato rotation.
In the Sentinel story, Giacomazzi urged local growers interested...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
University of California advisors and specialists, farmers, scientists and agriculture professionals gathered Friday in Clovis to launch a new organization that could potentially save farmers time and money, and reduce their impact on the environment, wrote Robert Rodriguez in the Fresno Bee.
The event marked the establishment of the Conservation Agriculture Systems Institute, which will support research and education efforts to encourage farmers' implementation of conservation agriculture practices.
The Fresno Bee story appeared at the top of the paper's Saturday business page under the...