Here’s an interactive tool on the Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) website. Use the tool to explore the on-farm benefits of using cover crops, crop rotation, manure amendments, composting and more on the complex web of life below the surface of the soil.
How to use cover crops in lean economic times
Stephanie McLain, Indiana state soil health specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service writes about how to turn cover crops into an asset.
Yes! magazine covers what communities are doing to reconnect to soil.
Ranchers in California and North Dakota are growing healthy food while sequestering carbon. Through composting, a man in North Carolina is showing his community how to build food security and resilience. In the South, the soil is helping us remember historical injustices.
Researchers uncover just how damaging fires and logging are to forest soil
Forest soils recover from disturbances slowly over many years—up to 80 years following a wildfire and as many as 30 years after logging, much longer than previously thought.
Walter Siegmund [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Researchers from Oregon State University and the U.S. Geological Survey determined red alder, through its symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, taps nutrients that are locked in bedrock, such as calcium and phosphorus. This process accelerates rock dissolution, releasing more mineral nutrients that allow plants and trees to grow.