- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Improved soil promises to help farmers use less water and reduce carbon in the atmosphere, reported Ezra David Romero on Valley Edition, a one-hour weekly program that airs on KVPR-FM.
The five-minute story, which begins at the 30:30 mark, focuses on CDFA's new Healthy Soils Initiative. The program is expected to allocate $7.5 million for farmer incentives to use practices that will improve soil health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These are practices that are already in place on some innovative valley farmers, including two that are active...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
In California, 40 percent of agriculture is still irrigated by pouring water onto farmland, a much less efficient practice that drip and overhead irrigation. But those numbers are changing, reported Matt Weiser on Water Deeply.
Weiser interviewed UC Cooperative Extension cropping systems specialist Jeff Mitchell about the water-saving potential of using overhead irrigation, a system that is popular in other parts of the nation and world, but only used on 2 percent of California farmland. Mitchell was the primary author of a research article in the...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Despite the many benefits of no-till agriculture - including water conservation, improved soil health and reduced dust - the concept is still a "hard sell" in California, reported Ken James in Comstock's Magazine.
The article featured a number of California farmers who sang the praises of the no-till farming method.
- "We definitely save money through higher production, less water usage and lowered equipment and fuel costs," said Modesto farmer Jesse Sanchez
- "We started in 1985 using the no-till method, and since then we've doubled our yield potential," said Fritz Durst, a Yolo County farmer
- "I...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Jesse Sanchez, a farm manager for Sano Farms near Firebaugh and Mendota, was honored by the White House as a "Champion of Change" last month for his commitment to building healthy soils, reported Megan Ginise in the Fresno Bee.
Sanchez is an active member of the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center (CASI), a diverse group of UC researchers, farmers, and representatives of public agencies, private industry and environmental groups that work together to develop knowledge and exchange...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Interest in new irrigation technology is getting a boost from the ongoing California drought, reported Kate Campbell in AgAlert.
Allan Fulton, UC Cooperative Extension advisor for Glenn, Shasta and Tehama counties, said technology is improving the ability to organize crop data and get it to farm managers on the fly.
"With the right system," Fulton said, "farmers can get almost to-the-minute information on every aspect of their crop."
As new, integrated database systems are being created, new data-gathering equipment also is advancing for field use to further aid on-farm decisions, the article said. For example, the...
