Cover crops – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

A farmer paddles to his fields on an artificial island among canals, part of an ancient Aztec system known as chinampas, in 2021. AP Photo/Marco Ugarte

February 26, 2024

What ancient farmers can really teach us about adapting to climate change – and how political power influences success or failure

Chelsea Fisher, University of South Carolina

Agricultural sustainability is as much about power and sovereignty as it is about soil, water and crops.

August 16, 2022

Drought: five ways to stop heavy rains washing away parched soil

Dan Evans, Cranfield University

Storms and flash floods often follow a heatwave.

Soybean plants on an Arkansas farm. Those at left show signs of damage from dicamba; others at right were planted later in the season. Washington Post via Getty Images

January 26, 2022

The herbicide dicamba was supposed to solve farmers’ weed problems – instead, it’s making farming harder for many of them

Bart Elmore, The Ohio State University

Farmers are stuck in a chemical war against weeds, which have developed resistance to many widely used herbicides. Seed companies’ answer – using more varied herbicides – is causing new problems.

Soybeans sprout on an Illinois farm through corn stubble left on an unplowed field from the previous season – an example of no-till farming. Paige Buck, USDA/Flickr

June 30, 2021

To make agriculture more climate-friendly, carbon farming needs clear rules

Laura van der Pol, Colorado State University; Dale Manning, Colorado State University; Francesca Cotrufo, Colorado State University, and Megan Machmuller, Colorado State University

Policymakers want to pay farmers for storing carbon in soil, but there are no uniform rules yet for measuring, reporting or verifying the results. Four scholars offer some ground rules.

Planting cover crops, like this red clover in Sussex County, Delaware, can help return carbon to farm fields. Michele Dorsey Walfred/Flickr

February 6, 2020

Soil carbon is a valuable resource, but all soil carbon is not created equal

Jocelyn Lavallee, Colorado State University and Francesca Cotrufo, Colorado State University

Storing more carbon in soil helps slow climate change and makes croplands more productive. But there are two kinds of soil carbon that are both important, but function very differently.

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