News

Reducing Weeds by 80% Using Solarization

La Buena Tierra farmer Maria de los Angeles Carrillo (Angeles) is delighted that her interest in researching a non-chemical pest management practice has reduced her weeds by 80%. Coquillo (nutgrass) was the exception and even that stubborn grass has been reduced greatly and grows weaker roots. Lab tests also demonstrated reduced Verticillium wilt in the […]

The Quest: Create Low-Emission Cattle

As cows digest grasses and other cellulose-rich plants, microbes in their large first stomach – the rumen –break down the feed, releasing the potent greenhouse gas methane as a natural fermentation byproduct. Research is ongoing into seaweed and other additives to traditional forages to reduce methane production, creating low-emission feeds. But what if you created […]

Farmers Test Benefits of Using Hemp Stalks to Produce Mushrooms

When optimists are buried in proverbial lemons, they make lemonade. When the women who own Intentional Growth Farm in Utah had too many hemp stalks, they produced exceptionally large, tasty mushrooms. “We used the hemp stalks as the nutrient source for our oyster mushrooms, and customers said they were the best mushrooms they ever tasted,” […]

Playing Pest Friends

At their annual meeting this summer, Western SARE state coordinators came together and played an educational board game about managing pests. Their experience was similar to other groups who indicate that they learn more by doing than listening. Jason Thomas and Grant Loomis, extension educators at the University of Idaho, received a Western SARE grant […]

Farmers Test Whether Cardboard Can Keep Bindweed at Bay

Bindweed can be the bane of farmers’ existence. The climbing vine spreads easily by seed and rigorous root system, choking off crops and other plants along the way. “Even when we till in the spring, we spend a huge amount of time hand weeding throughout the season to manage bindweed,” explained Jonah Sloven, who grows […]

Reasons to Like Wine

Reasons to like wine Number 462: It can be good for New Mexico’s native bees and other pollinators. Even though grapevines are largely self pollinating and don’t need insects like bees or butterflies to produce fruit, vineyards themselves can provide habitat for native pollinators and other insect species, benefiting both the grower and the environment. […]

Cheatgrass-Eating Sheep

Wildfires in the West are inevitable and part of a natural, necessary ecological cycle, but invasive grasses like cheatgrass can make fires burn hotter, spread farther and cause more destruction. So, across the West, researchers, range managers, cattle ranchers and others are looking for ways to economically control cheatgrass and other invasive grasses on millions […]