On October 1st, Brad Carlson begins his 30th year working for the University of Minnesota Extension. The Extension Educator, who works statewide from the Mankato Regional Office, focuses on water quality issues related to agriculture, and more specifically, nitrates.
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Farmers and ranchers are increasingly interested in conservation practices to strengthen soil health and improve water quality for present and future generations. Conservation practices can also help farmers improve their profitability in the face of increasinglyRead More…
With all the buzz about soil health, regenerative ag, and climate-smart, farmers want to know how practices such as cover crops and no-till pencil out. While data on the financial impacts of conservation practices are stillRead More…
Some of us measure a career in terms of years. Ron Graber, extension watershed specialist for Kansas State University, uses a whole different yardstick.
“When we start a career, we hope to make a difference,” said Graber. For him, that success is measured in innovative partnerships, successful management strategies, and improved water quality.
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Conservation professionals and farm business management educators are among farmers’ key partners in ensuring their operations are sustainable and profitable. While each brings different expertise to their collaborations with farmers, one thing they have in commonRead More…
A team of Extension personnel across the Midwest, in partnership with the USDA Midwest Climate Hub, aims to increase the adoption of regionally scalable climate-smart agriculture. The project, originally titled “Accelerating the transition to climate-smart strategiesRead More…
Climate Smart Agriculture has been a buzzword over the past year, with the connotation that farms can play a large role in sequestering greenhouses gasses. In order to do so, carbon in the upper layers of soil has to be increased, methane from ruminants must be lessened or harnessed to be converted to energy, and renewable energy resources have to be incorporated into farm management considerations. In Indiana, many resources have been dedicated to progressing in this arena. We just used a variety of other terms in the process.
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Story by Greg Klinger, University of Minnesota Extension In March of 2019, at the tail end of a long, hard winter in Rochester, Minnesota, I went for a walk along our local flood control reservoir. TheRead More…
Nutrient reduction from agricultural sources through beneficial management practices, or BMPs, are a tenet of conservation and watershed management work. And while research questions remain, many agricultural BMPs are known to reduce nutrient runoff and keepRead More…