Commodities

Guide to Honey Bee Queen Banking

A healthy and productive queen is an essential part of a successful colony. Access to and replacement of queens has become a key part of beekeepers' economics and management decisions, and this guide addresses the handling and storage of valuable, highly perishable honey queen bees. Listen to the podcast episode "The Holy Grail: Banking Queens […]

Range Riding Producer Toolkit

Range riding is a flexible, time-tested way to protect livestock in the West. Its main goal is to monitor livestock and predator activity so you can act quickly to prevent trouble before it starts. Since every ranch and landscape is different, range riding can be customized to fit your specific needs. This toolkit uses the […]

Can Less Fertilizer Create Higher Sugar Yields? Testing a Win-Win Hypothesis

For a sugarbeet grower, when someone tells you that you can reduce your nitrogen fertilizer inputs and costs by 20 percent and increase your crop quality and sugar yield, there’s only one logical response. Prove it. That’s just what the Western Sugar Cooperative set out to do with a Western SARE Professional + Producer grant […]

Reducing Predation in Multi-Species Grazing

New Mexico rancher Sydney Franz tested two approaches to kidding goats for economics and safety and found a clear winner. Sydney Franz moved her goat ranch, K&C Boer Goats, from central Texas to Mora County, N.M. to partner with Turner Ranches. Their dream was to establish multi-species grazing for land restoration and improved profitability. “In […]

Range Riders

Most Western SARE research projects use science to develop new knowledge, insights or practices to help farmers and ranchers in their quest to be more successful and sustainable. Some, though, rediscover and refine old knowledge – like the effectiveness of range riding to protect livestock from predators like wolves, mountain lions and bears. “It’s fascinating […]

Sustainable Agriculture Action Plans Funded

Western SARE funded two Sustainable Agriculture Action Plan (SAAP) grants for a total of $50,000. The funding is intended for projects leading a consultative process and creating a Sustainable Agriculture Action Plan that documents the research, regulatory, infrastructure, and educational needs and priorities required to increase sustainable agriculture practices in a specific industry/commodity or geographical […]

Virtual Fence User Guide

The virtual fence webpage on Rangelands Gateway allows potential users to access resources, tools, workshop materials, webinar information, and multimedia resources. Virtual fencing (VF) has the potential to change grazing systems by allowing unprecedented impact over livestock distribution. The systems use invisible barriers, established by GPS coordinates, to influence livestock movement with a combination of […]

Light it Up! Using UV Light to Kill Powdery Mildew in Grapes

Instead of relying solely on fungicides to control powdery mildew on winegrapes, growers may one day – and one day reasonably soon – have an effective non-chemical option: light. Specifically, light in the form of spore-killing ultraviolet UV-C radiation, delivered directly to the plant by a self-driving tractor moving through vineyard rows autonomously at night. […]

Measuring Biochar’s Benefits for Healthy Orchard Soils

As the California agricultural community seeks new tools and practices critical for adapting to a changing climate, the American Farmland Trust partnered with a Madera County almond grower, conservation districts, and the University of California at Merced to conduct a field demonstration project and experiment on the application of biochar and its effects on soil […]

Breaking the Barriers to IPM Adoption in Wenatchee Pears

For all the promise, potential and profound benefits integrated pest management can bring, there’s also this harsh reality: IPM only works if people practice it. In some pear-growing regions in the Pacific Northwest, IPM is a widely accepted, effective and economical way to manage pear psylla and codling moth, the crop’s key insect pests. But […]

A New Tool for Managing Invasive Grasses in Montana

Invasive annual grasses, such as cheatgrass and ventenata, are reducing the abundance of native grasses that livestock producers depend on in the semi-arid rangelands of southwestern Montana.  At the current low-to-moderate levels of invasion, it’s crucial to begin targeted management before invasive populations become too advanced. To guide efforts to slow or halt annual grass […]

Impacts of Compost Application on the Drought Resiliency of Rangeland

Severe droughts, expected to increase due to climate change, pose threats to California’s rangelands. Ranchers and rangeland managers are facing decreased livestock forage production, reduced biodiversity, and soil degradation. A previously funded Western SARE project (grant number OW19-349) found that compost amendments provide benefits to soils and forage productivity, including greater resilience to drought. However, […]

Propagating Tea Plants for the West

Tea is one of the most popular drinks in the world, second only to water in consumption. In America, you can find it in more than 80 percent of households. Finding it growing in U.S. soil is another story. Tea is produced on less than 100 acres in America, mostly in Hawaii and the South. […]

Hawaii Research Examines Ecological Pest Management and Values-Driven Farming

Agricultural researchers often measure success in terms of higher yields or higher profits, but a new project in Hawaii is looking at a third dimension of success: Growers’ personal values. “A lot of farmers make the transition to organic partially for commercial reasons, but it’s also a values-driven decision,” said Ben Wiseman, a third-year PhD […]

Studying the Ecology of Fear to Protect Chile in Colorado

Tiny aphids are causing outsized losses for chile pepper growers in Colorado, even though the insects don’t feed on that particular crop and don’t linger in it. Instead, aphids move through chile fields, especially after nearby alfalfa fields are cut. That wasn’t a problem until 2019 when alfalfa mosaic virus appeared in southern Colorado. Aphids […]

Targeted Grazing

Wildfires throughout the West are growing more severe. Fire season starts earlier, lasts longer and claims more lives and property along the way. Grazing is one of the most effective, cost-efficient tools available to lessen fire spread and severity. And now, thanks to a recent Western SARE-supported project, grazing has become even more useful to […]

Boosting Beneficial Insects in Oregon’s Cherry Orchards

Eighty percent of Oregon’s cherries are produced in the Mid-Columbia Basin. Typically, when new orchards are planted, farmers leave the ground under the trees bare or plant grass. Farmers also regularly apply chemicals to control insect pests such as spotted wing drosophila, thrips, and leafhoppers, among others. However, planting mixed cover crops that include flowering […]

Can Introducing Mason Bees Boost Berry Pollination?

When it comes to berry pollination throughout the West, honeybees are the biggest show in town. That can be a problem for pollination diversity and for farmers because honeybees aren’t always the best option for some crops. “That’s especially true with blueberries,” said Miranda Jones, a graduate student in biology at Utah State University. “Blueberries […]

The Terroir of Bison

Is Grass-Fed Bison Better for your Health? Not all bison burgers are created equal. As with other livestock, it stands to reason that how and where bison are raised would impact the meat’s nutritional profile. But there isn’t much science on how different forages and finishing strategies effect bison quality. Until now.         Nutrition science […]

From Vertical Farms to Outer Space

Research projects can at times lead to unanticipated results. While working to identify an alternative and sustainable source of carbon dioxide (CO2) generation for enriching plant chambers within the growing vertical farming industry as a graduate student at the University of Arizona, Justin Chung discovered the potential benefits for sustaining astronauts in long duration missions. […]