Entries by Cathy Svejkovsky

Grazing Effects Flowcharts: A Tool for Understanding Potential Consequences of Grazing Management

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Grazing management, whether appropriately or inappropriately applied, has numerous effects on plants, soils, animals, water availability, and the economics of a grazing operation. Some of these effects we can see fairly easily. But many of the effects we don’t ever see because they’re happening where we’re not usually looking – right underneath our feet in the soil.
Justin Morris, NCAT Regenerative Grazing Specialist

Native and Naturalized Plants of South Texas for Urban Food Forests

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I’m a Californian born and raised, so writing a blog about native and naturalized South Texas plants is one thing I never thought I’d do. But this spring I got the opportunity to go to Texas for an entire month, to work on an urban agroforestry project, and during that time I fell in love with its amazing native and naturalized plants.

Katherine Favor, NCAT Sustainable Agriculture Specialist

Soil Health Academy: More than Just a Soil Health Workshop

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By Luz Ballesteros Gonzalez, NCAT Agriculture Specialist The National Center for Appropriate Technology’s (NCAT) Soil for Water program and  Understanding Ag provided scholarships enabling seven beginning small-acreage livestock producers from four different states to attend the Soil Health Academy workshop in Uniontown, Alabama, May 17-19, 2022. Scholarships covered workshop costs, which included meals, on-site travel […]

Advanced Grazing Webinar, Session 3 – Animals

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Do you like to eat fresh food? Do you like variety in your diet? Most of us would probably answer ‘yes’ to both questions. Not surprisingly, livestock crave the same things we do. If that desire is not met, then we get less than optimal livestock performance. This can create health problems for the animals, increase costs, and reduce profitability. So how can we constantly provide fresh food for livestock and a diet that is diverse?
Justin Morris and Lee Rinehart

NCAT Releases Updated Tipsheets on Soil Solarization and Biosolarization

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Are you struggling with weeds or pests? Solarization and biosolarization might be the solution you’re looking for. The National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) has updated its Soil Solarization and Biosolarization tipsheet, along with its Spanish counterpart, to help farmers understand and use this technique that uses the sun’s energy to kill weeds. Solarization relies […]

Urban Agroforestry: Bringing the Jungle Back to the Concrete Jungle

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Cities are notorious for being devoid of flora and fauna. They don’t call it the concrete jungle for nothing! But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this blog, we’re going to talk about how we can bring a little bit of jungle back to the concrete jungle with something called urban agroforestry.
Katherine Favor

Advanced Grazing Webinar, Session 2 – Plants

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Is it possible for weeds to provide equal or better nutrition than alfalfa? The second session of the National Center for Appropriate Technology’s (NCAT) four-part webinar series, Advanced Grazing for Regenerating Soils and Enhancing Animal Nutrition, addresses these questions by focusing on the plant side of the grazing equation. 
Justin Morris and Lee Rinehart

New Resources to Demystify Regenerative Grazing and Soil Health

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The terms regenerative grazing and soil health have started to seem almost ubiquitous in the world of agriculture. This is heartening for me as a soil specialist with NCAT, where I consider it part of my job to help producers understand and take care of their soils, as it is key to their long-term success as farmers and ranchers.
Nina Prater

Insect Netting for Spray-Free Insect Control on Small Farms

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As I walked through the high tunnels in mid-July 2020, a frustration set in that it may not be possible to grow greenhouse cucumbers without spraying them. In my previous role as Farm Director at Hip Peas Farm, a peri-urban microfarm in Hooksett, New Hampshire, we had a demand for greenhouse cucumbers. These pests presented a huge problem for us, as we were attempting to be a completely spray-free operation.

Dan Birnstihl, NCAT Sustainable Agriculture Specialist

Farmers and Ranchers Are Neither the Cause Nor the Solution to Climate Disruption

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The anxiety and stress farmers and ranchers face because of the consequence of climate disruption are real, but neither the causes nor significant solutions rest with farmers and ranchers. According to a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the level of net greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in 2019 was estimated to be 59 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent. A gigaton is a billion metric tons. That is a lot of extra climate-disrupting gases being released into the atmosphere of our planet every year. Unfortunately, those emissions levels are growing.

Jeff Schahczenski, NCAT Agricultural and Natural Resource Economist