Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation

2025 Cal Chapter of the American Society of Agronomy's Plant and Soil Conference - February 6th and 7th!

February 3, 2025

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

February 3, 2025 The California Chapter of the American Society of Agronomy is holding its 2025 Annual Conference on Thursday, February 6th and Friday, February 7th at the Wyndham Hotel 9000 W Airport Dr, Visalia, CA.

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Timeline of California Tillage Management

February 1, 2025

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

February 1, 2025 A detailed timeline of advances in tillage management in California has been prepared by a large group of CASI partners for possible publication in an upcoming article about the history of conservation agriculture in the state.

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Cary Crum of Agritechnovation talks about expanded adoption of cover crops in the San Joaquin Valley, January 23, 2025

January 29, 2025

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

January 23, 2025 Cary Crum, longstanding CASI Workgroup member and consulting agronomist with Agritechnovation, out of Clovis, CA, recently spoke about his observations on increases in cover crop seed sales and acreage in the San Joaquin Valley. The recording is available below.

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Strip-tillage article by Fresno State group published in Agronomy - January 8, 2025

January 8, 2025

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

January 8, 2025 A group of four authors, Robert Willmott, Jennifer Valdez-Herrera, Jeff Mitchell, and Anil Shrestha, have published the article, Potential of Cover Crop Use and Termination with a Roller-Crimper in a Strip-Till Silage Maize (Zea mays L.

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Mitchell interviewed on Tom Willey's "Down on the farm" KFCF 88.1 FM radio program

July 5, 2024

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

July 5, 2024 CASI's Jeff Mitchell was a "three-peater" July 5th on Tom Willey's "Down on the farm" radio program on KFCF's 88.1 FM station on July 5, 2024.

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CASI's Mitchell on MyAgLife podcast, June 28, 2024

July 1, 2024

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

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...

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Screenshot 2024-06-07 090600 Cal Ag Screenshot Cal Ag

CASI’s Mitchell announces long-term NRI Project publication in Cal Ag on Don York’s KMJ580 AM morning “Ag Report” radio program, May 23, June 4, and June 6, 2024

June 7, 2024

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

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...

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20-year summary of soil health research in Five Points, CA published in California Agriculture!

May 17, 2024

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

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.

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Screenshot 2024-05-17 074737 Fresno State

Fresno State MS student shares his research work on strip-tillage!

May 17, 2024

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

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.

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CASI hosts the Soil Health Institute's US Regenerative Ag Cotton Program leaders - April 11 and 12, 2024

April 14, 2024

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

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.

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Diversified Hanford, CA farmer, Eddie Sajian is featured in upcoming documentary video on innovative reduced disturbance production

Documentary video on no-tillage in California being prepared

July 1, 2023

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

Documentary video on no-tillage in California being prepared July 1, 2023 A video documentary featuring five of the CA and AZ farmers who have been part of the USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant project, "No-till network for California," is in the final stages of production and will be released...

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Slide of soil health test kit materials given to network farmer participants CIG NRCS State No-till 2022

Soil health monitoring conducted at SJV reduced disturbance and cover cropped fields!

July 1, 2023

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

Soil health monitoring conducted at SJV reduced disturbance and cover cropped fields! As part of the USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant, Creating a no-till network in California, extensive baseline soil sampling has now been done at several San Joaquin Valley farms that are employing the soil h...

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Strip-till cover crop tomato crop trialed in Huron, CA, February 2, 2022

June 30, 2023

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

Strip-till cover crop tomato crop trialed in Huron, CA, February 2, 2022 A unique - dare we say - "never before attempted in the region," effort to precede strip-tilled tomatoes with a mowed vigorous winter cover crop was conducted in one of the fieldsofWoolf Enterprises, a major tomato and other ro...

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CASI's Mitchell visits Yuma, AZ no-tiller, Dr. Henri Carter MD, June 17, 2023!

June 22, 2023

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

June 17, 2023 CASI's Mitchell visits Low Desert no-tiller, Dr. Henri Carter MD, June 17, 2023! Jeff Mitchell paid a very early morning visit in Yuma, AZ to the farm of retired surgeon and now no-till farmer, Dr.

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GOOGLE Food Lab tours Pinnacle Organically Grown Produce with Phil and Katherine Foster in Hollister, CA!

April 29, 2023

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

April 25, 2023 Phil and Katherine Foster host GOOGLE Food Lab for tour of Pinnacle Organically Grown Produce! About 53 folks who were part of the GOOGLE Food Lab out of Mountain View, CA were treated to a half-day walking tour and lunch at the beautiful organic farm of Phil and Katherine just east o...

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Recent article about Tom Barcellos in Strip-till Farmer magazine, Winter 2023 edition.

Strip-till Operation Thrives in Face of Heavy Regulation and High Costs

February 28, 2023

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

February 28, 2023 Strip-till Operation Thrives in Face of Heavy Regulation and High Costs Tipton, CA dairyman and long-time CASI farmer member, Tom Barcellos, was featured in the Winter 2023 issue of Strip-till Farmer, a quarterly publication of the National No-till Farmer Association and Lessiter P...

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Tom Willey presents CIG Project's reduced disturbance organic vegetable production project in You Tube video

August 21, 2022

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

August 21, 2022 Madera, CA long-time organic farmer and key farmer member of California's CIG reduced disturbance organic vegetable project, provided a recorded copy of the presentation that he gave at the 2022 Annual Conference of the Soil and Water Conservation Society in Denver, CO on August 2nd.

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Air Injection August 10, 2022 Phil Foster's Hollister, CA

CIG's Willey and Foster conducting pressurized air injection study in peppers in Hollister, CA in 2022!

August 13, 2022

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

August 13, 2022 The national NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant Program CA organic reduced disturbance vegetable project has a new research component this year at the Hollister, CA farm of Phil Foster.

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Tom Willey receiving SWCS recognition in Denver CO 2022

CASI honored with SWCS 2022 Conservation Innovation Award - August 2, 2022

August 4, 2022

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

CASI honored with SWCS 2022 Conservation Innovation Award - August 2, 2022 August 4, 2022 California's Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (CASI) Center was recognized as the recipient of the 2022 Conservation Innovation Award by the Soil and Water Conservation Society at their Annual Confer...

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Storyteller Douglas Gayeton visits Park Farming and Fully Belly Farm, May 20, 2022

May 30, 2022

By Jeffrey P Mitchell

May 30, 2022 The Lexicon of Sustainability's Gayeton visits Park Farming and Fully Belly Farm Douglas Gayeyon, storyteller and creative force behind the Lexicon of Sustainability (https://www.thelexicon.

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View the CASI six-part documentary

The video above is the first episode of a six-part documentary series from Conservation Agriculture Cropping Systems Innovation (CASI). In the videos, farmers, UC researchers and industry leaders explain how no-till and minimum-till agriculture, and overhead precision irrigation, can lead to higher irrigation efficiency, increased profitability and greater resource conservation. Find links to all segments at the table of contents.

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