A new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that feeding grazing beef cattle a seaweed supplement in pellet form reduced their methane emissions by almost 40%. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was the first in the world to test the effect of seaweed on grazing […]

Scientists at the University of Kansas performed a literature review analyzing 302 trials on the performance of microbial inoculants. The results, published online in New Phytologist, show that only one in nine commercial mycorrhizal inoculant product trials demonstrated both beneficial crop growth and sufficient arbuscular mycorrhizal hyphal colonization. Researchers concluded that, frequently, improved crop growth […]

A feature in Tri-State Neighbor explains how a combination of targeted grazing and prescribed burns is helping landowners combat invasive tree species causing grassland loss in the Great Plains. The Great Plains Grasslands Extension Partnership reports that the spread of invasive trees like Eastern Red Cedar caused the loss of 17 million acres of grasslands […]

A study published in Agronomy for Sustainable Development by the University of Bonn in Germany showed that crop plants adapt genetically over time to organic farming. A 23-year study of neighboring fields of conventional and organic barley, replanted each year in their respective fields, revealed that the organic barley was enriched with specific genetic material […]