The Lunatic Farmer

JULY 7, 2021

From a distance, the field looked like it had been plowed. Obviously the disturbance, and then those deep tap rooted weeds, awakened the latent seed bank of timothy (some seeds no doubt had lain dormant for decades) and the conditions were perfect for that wonderful grass to express itself. The following year it was solid weeds.

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Plowing Pruning Logistics Manure 52

Cropaia

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

Traditional plowing or tilling can disrupt the soil structure, making it more susceptible to erosion. The presence of crop residues provides a protective environment for weed seeds, allowing them to persist on the field’s surface. Over time, they improve soil structure, reduce erosion, and increase soil moisture retention.

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Soil Compaction Crop Rotation Farming Farming 52

Civil Eats

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Farmers would often plow the cover under early in the spring before it could provide optimal soil health benefits, and USDA restrictions didn’t allow much flexibility. He also signed up to raise cover crops for seed production, which qualified him for the alternative crop portion of the initiative.

Crop 140

Crop Farming Farming Acre 140

Farmbrite

JUNE 1, 2023

These days, farming is a lot more than just plowing the field and planting seeds. Operating loans are used for operating expenses such as labor costs, seed, fertilizer and other supplies needed for crop production. They can also be used for livestock purchases such as cows or pigs.

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Farming Farming Farmland Finance 52

Agritecture Blog

MAY 19, 2023

Seeds can be sown in the broken-down residue of the previous crop, allowing soil microbes to naturally break down roots and feed the new plants without being minced up by the plow, while weeds are suppressed by the existing ground cover.

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Farming Farming Livestock Crop 52

ATTRA

APRIL 9, 2024

The garden wants to go to sleep, and I tuck it in with a blanket of cover crops… my favorite seed mix of vetch, rye, and clover. As my tomato plants were more than ready to be set out, I had to get the cover cut, chopped, and plowed into the soil in preparation for transplanting.

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Crop Plowing Rural Development Mechanics 52

Agritecture Blog

MARCH 23, 2023

These pens are seeded with leafy greens that provide food and a hospitable environment for the development of the snails. Setting up the farm was a challenge for Mattia - the physical labor was exhausting, and additionally, Mattia was not familiar with plowing, crop production, or other farm procedures. It is located on 1.2

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Farming Farming Food Production 52

Hartwood Farm

FEBRUARY 14, 2022

A lot of that application is submitting records and forms and attestations and showing how you can trace products from seeds to end sales. Years of cover cropping and chisel plowing have eliminated compaction and it even grew healthy beans and potatoes during the 21.5” of rain in six weeks we saw last summer!

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Crop Rotation Crop Farming Farming 52

The Counter

APRIL 27, 2022

Their dad and grandpa spent their lives getting rid of all the weeds and they wanted [the land] to be black and plowed because that’s the way successful farming looks and feels,” Cobb said. Landowners Cobb leased from were similarly averse to mixing things up. Some of the challenges can be impossible to plan for.

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Farming Farming Farmland Acre 52

Food Environment and Reporting Network

JUNE 1, 2023

Welcome got her start building a movement of young farmers before becoming enraptured by seaweed, “beings that haven’t been corralled, that haven’t been weeded or bred or contained or plowed up,” she said. Welcome is excited about seaweed’s potential.

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Science Harvest Harvester Harvesting 52

CalCAN

APRIL 6, 2023

From losing seed crops as wildfires rage for weeks, to losing entire crops as a result of erratic freezes, to losing farms as drought dries up available water, farmers’ risks are rising. CalCAN is a member of NSAC and played a part in developing the original version of the Agriculture Resilience Act.

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Agriculture Agriculture Greenhouse Food 52

Food Environment and Reporting Network

JULY 13, 2023

Farmland itself was also once a major source of atmospheric carbon dioxide as farmers cleared carbon-rich forests and plowed up prairie soils, releasing carbon from trees and the ground. Both warm the atmosphere far more, per molecule, than carbon dioxide. Now, climate-smart agriculture aims to recapture some of that carbon. “A

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Agriculture Agriculture Greenhouse Manure 82

Agritecture Blog

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

Despite being "perfectly good to eat," up to 40 percent of Melvin's 36 hectares of cauliflower gets plowed back into the ground each year, according to the Nova Scotia farmer's estimates. "We The seed of a solution A new funding stream for growers is required, Melvin says, to get leftover produce into the food bank system.

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Plowing Food Harvest Harvester 52

Food Environment and Reporting Network

DECEMBER 7, 2022

And they raise the risk of additional acres being plowed up to compensate for the lower yields. Researchers, using satellite data, found that cash crop yields in the corn belt dropped significantly—on average 5.5 percent for corn and 3.5 percent for soybeans—on fields that were cover-cropped, compared to fields that were not.

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Agriculture Agriculture Cash Crop Crop 52

Civil Eats

JUNE 4, 2024

Traveling through Appalachia, Tessa Desmond and her team kept hearing the seed stories. He had overheard Desmond discussing seeds with his neighbor. People have hung on to seeds even when they aren’t actively planting and tending them,” says Desmond. We’ve included audio samples of oral histories from the project.

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Food Seeding Farming Farming 111

Food Environment and Reporting Network

MARCH 1, 2025

Diesel-powered tractors replaced horse-powered plows, and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers replaced their manure. Department of Agriculture programs encouraged their adoption with financial assistance that enabled big purchases like tractors as well as smaller annual purchases of newly improved hybrid corn seeds.

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Food Crop Processing Tractor 59

Food Environment and Reporting Network

DECEMBER 12, 2022

Related Stories Feed the people Christian Letourneau , February 10, 2021 Eater What seed-saving can tell us about the end of the world Kea Krause , November 16, 2022 Orion A collective future for American agriculture? Please consider making a donation to support our work.

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Food Greenhouse Cattle Production 52