Entries by Cathy Svejkovsky

The Causes of Soil Compaction on Grazing Lands

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By Justin Morris In an earlier blog, we discussed what compaction is and how it negatively affects plants, soils, livestock, and even economics. But how is that compaction formed in the first place and what can be done to prevent it? Fortunately, knowing how compaction forms and how extensive it is, are the keys to […]

Exploring Soil Organic Matter

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By Nina Prater, NCAT Sustainable Agriculture Specialist Most people in the world of agriculture have heard of soil humus and have a general idea of what it is – a somewhat recalcitrant portion of organic matter that gives soil that nice dark color. But it turns out that the picture is much more complex than […]

NCAT Soil for Water Mississippi: Learning Together 

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By Luz Ballesteros Gonzalez and Felicia Bell, NCAT Agriculture Specialists When you have common goals, things align much easier and faster. This is what has been happening in Mississippi through the MS Holistic Management International (HMI) Regenerative Agriculture Mentor Program (RAMP) organized by Felicia Bell, NCAT Agriculture Specialist. The MS HMI RAMP Cohort has been […]

All Chopped Up with Somewhere to Grow

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By Justin Duncan, NCAT Sustainable Agriculture Specialist Recently we held a goat production class out in Luling, Texas, at the marvelous S3 Legacy Ranch. One question that came up was about feeding them. Goats are browsers—they’ll eat grass and weeds like cattle and sheep if they have to, but their preference is to eat brush. […]

How Does Soil Compaction Impact Grazing Lands?

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By Justin Morris Has your pasture been plagued by poor plant growth? Do your plants begin to go dormant as soon as the rain or irrigation stops or when it gets hot? Does water pond on the surface of your pasture either during or right after a rain or irrigation event? Or does water run […]

Montana Partnership Reduces Food Waste and Supports Sustainable Gardening and Food Production Through Biochar

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By Emilie Ritter If you live in Missoula, Montana, you’ve probably seen the blue e-bikes transporting food scraps around town. The nonprofit Soil Cycle began when Missoula resident and backyard gardener, Caitlyn Lewis, saw a nexus between reducing organic waste to divert valuable materials from landfills and improving her neighborhood gardens’ growing potential by making […]

Retaining Soil Moisture at Lighthouse Herb’n Farm

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By Luz Ballesteros Gonzalez, NCAT Agriculture Specialist When will it rain again? How much will it rain? These questions are becoming more common—while such uncertainty has always existed, it’s now more prevalent. In the wake of unpredictable weather, the opportunity to work synergistically with soil and plants has opened up again. Farmers all over the […]

How to Start Community Agroforestry Projects: Advice from 11 Forest Gardens

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By Katherine Favor For the past two years, I have had the privilege of documenting the stories of urban agroforestry projects around the country, thanks to generous funding from the National Agroforestry Center and the U.S. Botanic Garden. Agroforestry is the intentional integration of trees into cropping and/or livestock systems, inspired by Indigenous wisdom, and […]

Small is Beautiful: The Wonderful World of Invertebrates

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By Nina Prater, NCAT Agriculture Specialist When I teach about the soil food web, I tend to paint with broad brushstrokes. This is probably because I only learned about the soil food web in terms of the big groups: bacteria, fungi, micro- and macroinvertebrates, vertebrates, and the plants that supply energy to the whole system. […]

Battlefield Lavender Farm: Solar Powered Processing

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By Chris Lent, NCAT Agriculture Specialist The concept of agrisolar—the use of land for solar electric and agricultural production—is becoming a popular idea. It captivates the imagination to think of the many ways we can use a limited land base to produce crops and livestock while also producing clean power on that same land. But […]